Taylor Highway

Taylor Highway Review

The 160-mi Taylor Highway runs north from the Alaska Highway at Tetlin Junction, 12 mi east of Tok. It's a narrow rough-gravel road that winds along mountain ridges and through valleys of the Fortymile River. The road passes the tiny community of Chicken and ends in Eagle at the Yukon River. This is one of only three places in Alaska where the Yukon River can be reached by road. A cutoff just south of Eagle connects to the Canadian Top of the World Highway leading to Dawson City in the Yukon Territory, which is the route many Alaskans take to Dawson City—far more scenic, and shorter, than the alternative of taking the Alcan to Whitehorse and then turning north, but it's another of those places where it's good to check your insurance policy's attitude towards towing and windshield replacement. The highway is not plowed in winter, so it is snowed shut from fall to spring. Watch for road equipment. If you're roughing it, know that the Alaska Bureau of Land Management also maintains three first-come, first-served campsites (as all BLM campsites are) on the Taylor Highway between Tetlin Junction and Eagle at Miles 48.5, 82, and 160.