Enhacements and additions to the whiteacorn website

• The right and left arrow keys can now be used to move forward and backward through the journal entries instead of clicking on the Next and Prev links.
• Photos within journal entries have been changed to operate like mini photo galleries. If you click on one of the photos a new window will open with that photo in it, there after you can move forward and backward through all the photos in that journal entry either by clicking the Next or Prev links or hitting the right or left arrow keys.
• Photos have been added to the journal entries covering the Dempster; April 14th thru 18th.

Last night was the first time since Vancouver that we had a night above freezing. This morning outside the water was still flowing and the ground was still muddy. As we would soon discover that also meant the road today would be very sloppy.

I got two lessons on the use of the CB radio today. The first lesson came during the morning drive. From last night camp the road wound its way through a series of river valleys and up over blind hills and around blind turns. I noticed that in this type of terrain the truckies talk to each other about where they were so that they didn't meet unexpectedly on a blind curve of hill. During one such meeting I heard one driver say about us he's got an antenna but must not have his radio turned on now of course I could not resist, so I replied yes he's has got it on which got a very curt .. well use it! That was my first lesson.

Not long after leaving camp this morning we called in at the Arctic Circle monument at Latitude 66°33' and Longitude W150°XX' this is the most westerly point we will visit on the trip as it is currently planned.

Coldfoot a small settlement at mile marker 175 is the only fuel stop between the start of the Dalton and Deadhorse so that was where we were heading as our first objective for the day, about 110 miles from last nights camp. On arrival we found the parking lot full of 18-wheelers and the restaurant full of drivers. There was a road advisory in effect suggesting that travelers should not proceed beyond Coldfoot. So I bought some coffee and we retired to the Tiger to catch up on processing and organizing all the photos we have taken, adding some photos to past journal entries, and making some enhancements to the website (see the yellow box).

About 16:30 we noticed some activity among the trucks so I asked a driver recently arrived from the north what conditions were like. In addition to some inconclusive description of conditions he asked, pointing at the Tiger got a CB in that thing --- well don't be afraid to use it! so that was my second lesson.

Given the activity and the obvious movement of trucks north we decided to be on our way. The remainder of the afternoon gave me ample opportunity to practice my CB skills with regular transmissions of camper north bound from XXXX where XXXX was whatever the most recent land mark happened to be or, in the absence of a land mark that I knew the name of, a mile post number. By now the road was even more sloppy and we travelled cautiously in and out of 4-wheel drive.

As we approached the last parking area before the climb to Atigun Pass we decided to stop for the night and leave our attempt on Atigun until tomorrow when we were confident weather conditions would be better. As it turned out this parking lot was only a few hundred feet from what the guide book described as the last spruce tree heading north , meaning of course that from this point north we were to be out of the tree line and there would be no more trees. But we discovered that:

• there were some more trees but not more spruce trees
• there were also two young spruce trees just a few feet north of the nominated last spruce. Admittedly they could not claim to be 273 years old.

On a more sobering note, and again as noted by the guide book, in 2004 someone deliberately killed the last spruce tree.