Taylor Highway

Here you can see what remains of the old Fortymile Road­house. In 1959, the Fortymile Road­house served Alas­ka High­way trav­el­ers who were head­ing up the new Forty-mile and Eagle High­way, now the Tay­lor High­way, which was still under con­struc­tion with only about 20 miles of road fin­ished. The road­house offered cab­ins, meals, a gro­cery store and a garage with gas and oil. The road­house closed in 1985.

Tay­lor High­way (Hwy 5) is open sea­son­al­ly from April to mid-Octo­ber. Con­di­tions of the road can range any­where between good to poor and depend heav­i­ly on weath­er and main­te­nance. Keep in mind that there are very lim­it­ed ser­vices or facil­i­ties avail­able along the road past Eagle.

At Mile­post .7 of Tay­lor High­way you will notice dark gray sand dunes on either sides of the road. These were cre­at­ed over 10,000 years ago when strong winds car­ried loose sed­i­ments from the plains of the Tanana Riv­er and piled them against these low mountains.

You will notice evi­dence of fire dam­age from the Tay­lor Com­plex Fires, which burned 1.3 mil­lion acres. The fires closed the Tay­lor High­way for sev­er­al days in the sum­mer of 2004. Wild­fires are com­mon in Alas­ka from April or May through the sum­mer months, depend­ing on rain­fall. Light­ning is the most com­mon cause of wild­fire. The total num­ber of fires in 2004 was 707, which is not unusu­al­ly high for a very hot dry year. What is unusu­al is the…  ...more

At Mile­post 14 of Tay­lor High­way you will be able to enjoy a beau­ti­ful view of Mount Fairplay. 

At Mile­post 21 of Tay­lor High­way, you can stop and read about the life cycle of cari­bou and the fall and rise of the Fortymile herd. 

Watch for the Fortymile cari­bou herd in this area. Here you’ll find a pull­out with three infor­ma­tion pan­els about the Fortymile region, Mount Fair­play, the Tay­lor High­way, and the Fortymile cari­bou herd. The Fortymile area is home range to this cari­bou herd, once a mas­sive herd of 500,000 ani­mals, the herd declined to a low of 6,000 in the mid-1970s. A 4‑year recov­ery effort by the Alas­ka Depart­ment of Fish and Game using wolf control…  ...more

At Mile­post 34 of Tay­lor High­way you are able to com­pare the gen­tly round­ed ridges of the Yukon-Tanana Uplands, that were to nev­er cov­ered in ice, to the rugged, glaciat­ed Alas­ka Range in the distance. 

At Mile­post 43 of Tay­lor High­way, there is a nice pinic area over­look­ing the creek. 

At Mile­post 49, there is a camp­ground with plen­ty of park­ing spaces avail­ble for cars and RVs. From the scenic over­look on the upper­road you can spot trum­peter swans and moose in the small lake below. This riv­er access point is the south­ern­most access point on the 400-mile Fortymile Nation­al Wild and Scenic Riv­er System. 

Here’s a great place to overnight, or just take a rest. Head out to the over­look and watch for trum­peter swans and moose on the small lake.

From the West Fork Bridge you can do a 4 to 5 day 75-mile run to the Obrien Creek Bridge at mile 112.4, with only up to Class III rapids.

Here you’ll find a view­ing plat­form with excel­lent views of Mount Fair­play. Take the small root cov­ered trail that leads to anoth­er view­point. This is the entrance to Fortymile Min­ing Dis­trict. The sec­ond-old­est min­ing dis­trict in Alas­ka, it first pro­duced gold in 1886. Claims were filed in both Alas­ka and Cana­da because of bound­ary uncertainties.

Chick­en (pop. 21 in sum­mer, 6 in win­ter). This lit­tle gold min­ing town was estab­lished around 1898 and there has been min­ing in this area ever since. In 1902, this area was to be the sec­ond Alas­ka town to be incor­po­rat­ed. The res­i­dents decid­ed to call their home Ptarmi­gan, the only prob­lem was that no one could decide on the cor­rect spelling. They did­n’t want to be the butt of jokes, so the res­i­dents decid­ed to name the town Chick­en. From the…  ...more

Camp­ground, RV Park, and Cab­in Rentals. On-site restau­rant, gift store, his­toric gold dredge and muse­um, gold mine tours, recre­ation­al min­ing and gold panning.

This dredge is locat­ed at Chick­en Gold Camp and Out­post. The dredge mined on Pedro Creek just out­side of Fair­banks from 1938 until 1959 before it was moved to Chick­en Creek and oper­at­ed between 1959 and 1967. Mike Bus­by and Bernie Karl pur­chased the dredge and moved it and oth­er min­ing equip­ment down to Chick­en in 1998 as a tourist attrac­tion. It was put on the Nation­al Reg­is­ter of His­toric Places in 2006.

Café serv­ing home­made break­fasts, soups, sand­wich­es, and more

At Mile­post 67 Tay­lor High­way you will find the Chick­en Creek Bridge. This is the site of a dredge that was oper­at­ed by the Fair­banks Explo­ration Com­pa­ny from 1959 until 1965. In an aver­age run of the dredge, it was oper­at­ing 24 hours a day for 2 weeks. At it’s peak, one run would bring in $40,000 in gold. 

Camp­ground & RV Park with 30 elec­tric sites and 70 dry sites

At Mile­post 68 Tay­lor High­way you pull off and enjoy this easy, 1.5 mile hike to an over­look above the remains of Mos­qui­to Fork Dredge. This dredge was shut down in 1938 after oper­at­ing for less than 2 seasons. 

A short 1.5‑mile hike will lead you to an over­look above what remains of the Mos­qui­to Fork Dredge, which was used as part of the Lost Chick­en Hill Mine. This dredge was shut down in 1938 after oper­at­ing for only two seasons.

At Mile­post 69 you will arrive at the Lost Chick­en Hill Mine, which was estab­lished in 1895. It got its name because it held a pay streak that had been ​“lost” for many years. The area has min­ing his­to­ry that began before the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897 – 98. It is now pri­vate­ly owned and mined.

At Mile­post 75 Tay­lor High­way you can pull off and read the inter­pre­tive pan­els to learn more about the Fortymile gold rush. 

This area was once the site of the Lassen airstrip. In the 1930s and ​‘40s, air ser­vice flew sup­plies into the area. Before this, the only way to get fuel and oth­er sup­plies to the min­ing camps was by sled­ding them up-riv­er dur­ing the winter.

Here is the for­mer site of the Jack Wade Dredge. This was a pop­u­lar attrac­tion and pho­to sub­ject for high­way trav­el­ers for many years. The dredge was dis­man­tled and scraped by the BLM in 2007. BLM offi­cials said that the dete­ri­o­rat­ing con­di­tion of the old dredge was a safe­ty haz­ard. T

Whether you’re trav­el­ing the Tay­lor to the Top of the World High­way and Daw­son City, or into Alas­ka from Daw­son City, do take this diver­sion into the Yukon Riv­er vil­lage of Eagle.

Here, you are 64 miles south of the his­toric town of Eagle, and 14 miles west of Cana­da and Daw­son City. If it is a clear day you will be able to see Canada’s Ogilvie Moun­tains in the north­east. From here to Eagle the road becomes very nar­row and more dan­ger­ous for large trail­ers and over­sized vehicles. 

Here, Tay­lor High­way begins to descend into the val­ley of the Fortymile Riv­er. You will be able to see the intri­cate­ly fold­ed meta­mor­phic rocks exposed by the road cut. Keep an eye out for white mar­ble, quartzite, gneiss, and schist. 

You may not be able to see the geo­log­ic fault zone that cross­es the high­way at this point, but you will notice a change in the topog­ra­phy over the next few miles. North of this fault are many land­slides and very few cliffs.

Camp­ground with 18 camp­sites. With­in walk­ing dis­tance of vil­lage of Eagle.

Eagle (pop. 115). The town of Eagle has been incor­po­rat­ed since 1897 after the U.S. Army respond­ed to the need for law and order dur­ing the Klondike Gold Rush. The Army built Fort Egbert in 1899; it is now a Nation­al His­toric Land­mark. Explore this his­toric site on your own or take a walk­ing tour offered dai­ly by the Eagle His­tor­i­cal Society.

Exhibits in six restored his­toric build­ings dat­ing from the end of the 19^th cen­tu­ry: James Wick­er­sham’s first Cour­t­house, U.S. Cus­tom House, the Improved Order of Red Men Lodge and three Fort Egbert build­ings, all with peri­od fur­nish­ings. Dis­plays with pho­tographs on the Gold Rush town, mil­i­tary fort and com­mer­cial cen­ter with judi­cial, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, trans­porta­tion, con­struc­tion, agri­cul­ture, min­ing, pio­neer activ­i­ties and social…  ...more

This is BLM head­quar­ters for the Tay­lor High­way area.

The name isn’t com­plete­ly arbi­trary – For most of the ride you dri­ve along the peaks and crests of moun­tains and hills, leav­ing you a view of the val­leys below. Though only open in the sum­mer months, this 79 mile grav­el-road has some spec­tac­u­lar views of the Alas­ka Range, and can take you on your way to Daw­son City in the Yukon.

From the Mos­qui­to Fork Bridge you can do a 3 to 4 day, 50-mile run to Obrien Creek Bridge at mile 112.4 but high water is need­ed to get you down the Mos­qui­to Fork. This is also only a Class II to III sec­tion through the main min­ing dis­trict of Chick­en. You could con­tin­ue from either start past the Obrien Creek con­flu­ence and com­mit to going all the way down the Fortymile, through the Class IV Canyon Rapids to the Yukon and on down it to Eagle…  ...more