A remote road in the Andes has been home to some of the world’s most renowned guitar-makers for more than 200 years. But the tradition could be dwindling.B
Bracing against the cold air at an altitude of 2,650m, I made my way down a foggy, narrow mountain road in the heart of the Ecuadorian Andes. Its switchbacks were slick with moisture from the mist, vegetation slowly creeping up the cracks in the pavement. A large, looming silhouette emerged from the fog – a lone cow wandering along the road in search of better pasture.
Other than roaming livestock and the occasional local, there was almost no traffic. It was hard to believe I’d only just left Cuenca, one of Ecuador’s most vibrant cities, a mere 30km behind. Having rented a motorcycle, I wanted to explore the more far-off routes of the Andes heading east, where there are little tourist crowds – and plenty of local culture.
Soon, I found myself on the Via San Bartolome, a quiet, remote road with solitude and views unspoiled by human activity. With its villages few and far between, Via San Bartolome slowly unfurls across the eastern slopes of the Andes for 80km, merging with a network of other local roads leading down into the Amazon plains. Gone are Cuenca’s busy streets and trendy cafes, replaced by sparse, tiny indigenous settlements, animal pastures and a mountain landscape weighed down by heavy clouds and undisturbed silence.
Musical traditions
As I entered the San Bartolome parish, home to a little more than 4,000 inhabitants, I started noticing something odd on the sides of the road. Here and there, a small workshop appeared, bearing a sign of a guitar. Sometimes, it was someone’s house with a guitar frame hung outside; sometimes, a bigger workshop with instruments lined up on the porch or displayed on tables.
Just a few more miles up the road, a makeshift wooden sign declared this was the “Ruta de las Guitarras” – the Guitar Route.
For more than 200 years, the tradition of guitar-making has been strong in this region. Locals craft the instruments from the area’s cedar, spruce and cherry trees, as well as from more exotic materials like armadillo shells. Luthiers along the Guitar Road are known for crafting guitars so exquisite that their clients include musicians across South America, the Caribbean and North America.
Intrigued, I stopped by one of the guitar workshops: a typical tin-roofed Andean house with wooden walls, but with a guitar displayed above the entrance. It belonged to Jose Homero Uyaguari, one of San Bartolome’s most renowned guitar makers.
Parking my rental motorcycle on the side of the road, I tentatively asked if I could visit the workshop. While curious, I didn’t want to intrude: the Guitar Route is far from a touristy place.
But Uyaguari nodded and ushered me inside. “Come, come,” he said, opening the doors to the workshop. “Would you like to see the guitars?”
Inside, the walls were lined with finished guitars, charangos (small, five-stringed instruments loved by indigenous Andean musicians), ukuleles and cuatros (four-stringed guitars popular in Venezuela). The tables were covered in instruments in various states of finish, sawdust, and cow bone fragments and colourful ornaments used as adornments.
“Every guitar and charango are unique,” Uyaguari explained, holding up a small charango. “We use local cherry wood, walnut and cedar trees most of the time, but some of the guitars are made from imported pine. Most of our walnut comes from right here, from our neighbours, and sometimes, we get things like armadillo shells from the rainforest – it’s good for making smaller instruments, and people love the unusual finish.”
Generations of guitar makers
As he showed me around the workshop, Uyaguari told me he learned the art of guitar making from his father – who, in turn, learned from his. “As a child, I remember some of the guitar masters were 70, 80 years old, and they’d tell us they learned from their fathers, too. It’s a tradition passed down from father to son,” he said. Although there are some women guitar makers in San Bartolome, for the most part, it is the dominion of men.
“I began learning to make guitars when I was 13 years old. Now, it’s my trade, and I’m hoping to pass it down to my sons. Three of them already make guitars and work together with me,” Uyaguari said.
All of Uyaguari’s instruments are made by hand. First, the wood is sent to be sawed. Next, the luthier works with chisels, saws and sandpaper to craft the frame and the neck of the guitar, decorating the sound hole with tiny wood fragments coloured by hand. Some of the ornaments are made of bovine bones.
From sanding and prepping the wood to a complete finish, it takes Uyaguari about two weeks to make one guitar. His cheaper instruments cost around $70 to $200 (£50 to £150), whereas a more exquisite guitar made from expensive wood may cost $2,000 (£1,500) and upwards.
Such is the reputation of San Bartolome’s guitar makers that these instruments are being sought after by musicians in Europe, Colombia, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Uyaguari fondly remembers a rosewood and pine guitar he made for Enrique Bunbury, the lead singer of Spanish rock band Héroes del Silencio.
A fragile trade
Despite its past successes, after peaking around 2005-2010, the guitar-making trade in San Bartolome has been slowly dwindling. Due to an influx of imported guitars from China, locals are opting for cheaper instruments. Only 10 local families now make guitars full-time.
“Artisanal guitar making is now valued less and less. Younger people just want cheap guitars, and they ask us to make guitars for $15 or $20 (£10 or £15) – the price of the Chinese ones. We can’t compete with that, as this wouldn’t even cover the costs of the wood, let alone the labour,” said Uyaguari.
Just 10 years ago, he and his sons would make 30 or 40 guitars a month; they’d all quickly sell out, with no instruments left at the shop, he said. Now, they sell 10 to 15 guitars a month.
As a result, many guitar makers in San Bartolome have to supplement their income with farming, making furniture or moving to the cities in search of jobs.
“Some of the workshops have been closed down or abandoned. I don’t plan to stop, however – I’ll take my trade to my grave,” Uyaguari said.
But there’s a potential new revenue stream for artisans like him, too. “Right now, our guitars are mostly bought either by travellers or professional musicians who value what we do,” he said.
Thanking the luthier for his time, I jumped back on the bike and followed the Guitar Route eastward. Soon, the narrow mountain road dived down, turning and twisting in generous bends, sparse Andean grasses now replaced by the lush emerald green of the Amazon rainforest.
The temperature and humidity rose as the ribbon of road snaked down the slopes of the Andes, revealing the slow-moving waters of the Upano River and the endless green expanse below. Small farms and ramshackle houses gave way to fresh fruit stands and bare-bellied kids running around, the heavy clouds now broken apart by sunshine.
As the land changed, the cold Andean villages and the guitar makers of San Bartolome began to feel like a distant, dreamlike memory.
The Open Road is a celebration of the world’s most remarkable highways and byways, and a reminder that some of the greatest travel adventures happen via wheels.
Napoleon’s gravity-defying 325km road
The Route Napoleon gives visitors the chance to put themselves in the boots of the emperor, deep dive into Gallic culture and unlock the beauty of unspoiled natural landscapes.T
Things weren’t looking good for Napoleon Bonaparte in early 1815. The former emperor of France had been in exile on the small Mediterranean island of Elba for nearly a year, he was separated from his young family and his finances were dwindling. There were also rumours about his impending banishment to an even more remote island in the middle of the Atlantic.
Instead of waiting for fate, the Corsican took matters into his own hands: escaping by boat and travelling to France. He landed at Golfe-Juan on the Côte d’Azur on February 28 with 700 loyal men and started marching towards Paris over difficult terrain to avoid arrest. Despite being declared an enemy of the state and having a price on his head, he reached his destination in less than two and a half weeks. Not only that but by the time he got to the French capital, he had raised an army and retaken control of the country – against all odds.
This return is remembered as one of the greatest comebacks of all time and the path Bonaparte took through the Alpes to Grenoble – before continuing on to Paris – has also gained a certain notoriety. Known as the Route Napoleon, this 200-mile (325km) road attracts visitors from all over the world who come here to follow the emperor’s footsteps and retrace a journey that changed the course of European history forever.
A national treasure
“The Route Napoleon is a French national treasure,” explained Jérôme Viaud, the mayor of Grasse, a town best known for its perfume industry as well as being one of the main stop-offs on the Bonaparte’s journey. “It stretches from the Mediterranean Sea all the way up to the Alpes mountains, boasting an incredible diversity of landscapes, architecture, culture and history. There’s no better way to get a snapshot of our fascinating but complex country, and I invite visitors to come experience it for themselves.”
Viaud is also president of the A.N.E.R.N (Action Nationale des Elus pour la Route Napoleon), an association dedicated to linking the 42 villages, towns and cities crossed by this famous road. Among the list are several highlights such as Valluris, a seaside resort loved by jetsetters and artists such as Pablo Picasso; Cannes, the French Riviera town that hosts the famous international film festival; Castellane, the drop-off point for the Gorges du Verdon canyon; the commune of Sisteron, with its medieval jewel of a citadel; Gap, once voted the sportiest city in France; and Grenoble, the capital of the French Alpes.
We want to encourage visitors to go deeper into the French and European past by following this slower road
“The aim of the association is to link all these places through the mediums of history and storytelling,” Viaud said. “Rather than taking the motorway, we want to encourage visitors to go deeper into the French and European past by following this slower road and discovering these wonderful places. The best bit is you don’t have to follow it step-by-step; we suggest people to drop in and out as they desire – taking the opportunity to get lost in some of these wonderful surroundings.”
Far from waning, Viaud believes the appeal of the emperor is as strong as it ever was. In a recent survey carried out by his association, 74% of tourists they spoke to placed Bonaparte as the most important figure in French history.
“The image of the emperor is still very good in France today,” he added. “He remains a very popular character and inspires interest, as well as respect. When I speak to people, they are very much in awe of Napoleon, his personality, his power and what he represents in terms of order, which is something society is perhaps lacking today.”
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“For me, Napoleon is fascinating because he went against the grain and achieved things that others thought were impossible – like his comeback. His political influence is still felt all throughout the French system, whether it’s the decentralisation of power to the academic and merits systems. He even set the foundations for the modern Route Nationale highway network, which is still in place today – so it’s only fitting we should celebrate this road named after him.”
Global significance
Despite being a very controversial and problematic figure (by, for example, re-instating slavery and having misogynistic views), Bonaparte has had an enduring charisma that influenced the world. His journey back to power not only changed France but it also sent shock waves much further afield.
“Napoleon’s return had a global impact,” said Kate Astbury, a professor of French studies at the University of Warwick who has deeply investigated the effects of his rule on society and culture. “The war against him stretched all over becoming more than just a battle between Britain and France. Other European nations were brought in, and it also has a very direct effect on places like the Caribbean, which becomes a hotbed of action during this era.”
Bonaparte’s mind-bending comeback also stirred up questions of sovereignty – otherwise known as the authority to govern. Other European rulers were particularly worried when the people of France welcomed him home. He didn’t have royal blood nor any real legitimacy for his background in a time where monarchs were believed to get their power from God.
“In Britain, the caricaturists love his return, too, as he is making fool of the old monarchs,” Astbury explained. “Secretly, many people are delighted he is back breaking the boring old status quo. Then when he is finally defeated at Waterloo, a few months after his escape, crowds flocked to see exhibitions of his possessions and were fascinated by what he represented. He quickly becomes a bit of a cult figure.”
Natural Beauty
Today, the modern N85 road (the official name of the Route Napoleon) doesn’t quite follow the exact path Bonaparte took in 1815. Back when the emperor made his journey, there wasn’t a single tarmac route to follow, but rather a succession of tracks and pathways, as well as some cross-country excursions in some parts.
To get closer to what Bonaparte experienced himself, the best way is to set off by foot. There are quite literally thousands of pathways and hikes to follow that take walkers through quaint villages, ancient farmland, impressive geological formations and Unesco-protected natural parks and forests. The general climate is also very mild, which makes hiking very pleasant at most times of the year.
“The South-East of France is a wonderfully diverse and interesting part of the world to explore by foot,” explained Andrea Bacher, a mountain guide who specialises in the Verdon Gorges canyon and the region of Castellane. “I’ve been working here for more than 30 years, and I still discover something new each time I head out. The natural landscape is especially rich, and because a lot of this terrain is difficult to access, many things haven’t really changed in thousands of years.”
The Gorges du Verdon canyon is a particularly popular destination for hikers, climbers, water sports enthusiasts and nature lovers. It’s an awe-inspiring rift through a high plateau which slices down to a bright turquoise river, offering up a glimpse of how the region’s current geology came to be. It is also a haven for wildlife, boasting many endemic plant species and a wide range of wild animal species – many that are rare.
“A lot of visitors are very excited when they see the spectacular wildlife – especially the vultures,” explained Bacher. “These birds were reintroduced to the area back in the 1990s and their numbers have grown rapidly. It’s quite a sight when they soar overhead, their gigantic bodies cast quite a shadow, and because of their shape and plumage, people often mistake them for eagles – which we also have living in the region and are a star attraction.”
Eagles are also a link back to Bonaparte, as it was this bird that he chose to represent his empire, taking cues from the Romans. Golden standards (flag poles mounted by a statue) depicting the French Imperial Eagle were handed out to his regiments for battle. Sadly, the popularity of these animals and their habitat in the summer months is linked to conflict today. However, Bacher says that inconsiderate visitors are leading locals to reconsider mass tourism and find more sustainable approaches to business.
“Since the pandemic, we are experiencing problems during the peak of the season,” she said. “The number of visitors, especially French nationals, has greatly risen during the middle of summer, and the infrastructure here is struggling to cope. Large camping cars blocking up the narrow village roads are a real problem, as is illegal parking, camping and littering. We would recommend people to come out of season if they can – things are cheaper, less busy and altogether better for the ecosystem. Coming by public transport would also be good.”
A driver’s heaven
Motoring enthusiasts will nevertheless argue that driving remains the best way to experience the Route Napoleon, with the modern stretch of tarmac – rather than the road’s imperial history – being the major attraction.
“It truly has to be the greatest driving road in France,” explained Richard Pardon, a UK-based automotive photographer who specialises in high-performance vehicles. “From dramatic corners carved into the cliffside, to open sweeping sections that run through a forest, the Route Napoleon has it all. It’s a bucket list drive with 180-degree switchbacks, hairpins, tunnels, bridges and quaint villages ideal for a lunch stop, that offer views out onto deep gorges filled with gleaming water.”
It truly has to be the greatest driving road in France
Pardon first visited Route Napoleon in 2015 and was blown away by the gravity-defying road he discovered. He has since made frequent trips down to the South of France to capture dramatic driving pictures for magazines and luxury car manufacturers.
“I’ve shot here five times now, but it still never gets old,” he said. “The landscape changes from North to South, each vista as beautiful as the rest. Whereas most mountain passes are usually tight and technical, the Route Napoleon flows. It showcases the characteristics of a car, all whilst taking in the stunning scenic views. That’s not to say a local in a Fiat Panda won’t put your Lamborghini to shame around one of the narrow twisty sections.”
As a photographer, Pardon usually looks for scenic roads, bathed in good light and with good sightlines, that are quiet enough to work on safely. For him, the Route Napoleon has everything and can showcase a variation of landscape in a short distance, which helps convey the sense of journey through pictures. The good weather also makes it a year-round destination.
“There’s a particular stretch of road just off Route Napoleon that runs to a small ski resort, and in the summer months, it’s almost deserted with long sweeping switchbacks that rise up and over the mountain until you reach a forest. It’s ideal for car-to-car photography, so much so that the iconic Aston Martin DB5 versus Ferrari 355 James Bond car chase in GoldenEye was filmed here.”
Interestingly, James Bond’s creator Ian Fleming was fascinated by the French emperor and frequently referenced Bonaparte and his rival, British general Arthur Wellesley, in his work. Most Bond baddies in fact all suffer from a Napoleonic complex – otherwise known as a desire to rule the world.
Regardless of whether you consider the French ruler a hero or a villain, it’s easy to understand why retracing this stretch of road is incredibly revealing about Bonaparte and those who followed him. And whether you come down for the history, the culture, the nature or the tarmac: it’s all worth the visit. Just try not to get any ideas about global domination…
The Open Road is a celebration of the world’s most remarkable highways and byways, and a reminder that some of the greatest travel adventures happen via wheels.
Driving Canada’s toughest road
The Dempster Highway is one of Canada’s ultimate road trips – but anyone who drives it needs to be prepared for misadventure.O
Our tiny Cessna juddered above the tundra – a landscape of vivid green threaded with dark blue streaks of meltwater streams and blotched with myriad ice-melt lakes. In places, the land bubbled up in smooth green hillocks. “Pingos,” the pilot’s voice came through my headphones. “Permafrost hillocks,” he explained, seeing my raised eyebrows. A dark ribbon of road wound its way between these strange, rounded protrusions. A couple of days prior, I’d driven the Dempster Highway all the way to the Arctic Ocean and wanted to see it from above before making my long journey back to Dawson City, Yukon.
The Dempster is considered to be one of Canada’s toughest drives. “Highway” is a rather glamorous term for a lonely gravel road that branches off the Klondike Highway – which runs between Yukon’s capital, Whitehorse, and the Klondike Gold Rush settlement of Dawson City – cutting its way through 764km of dense spruce forest, tundra and snow-covered hills before arriving in Inuvik, the northernmost Arctic town in the Northwest Territories.
The Dempster Highway was conceived in the late 1950s to open up the MacKenzie Delta to oil and gas exploration and traced a decades-old dog sled patrol route. Now, a new stretch of highway connects to the Dempster, extending a further 147km beyond Inuvik, all the way to the tiny settlement of Tuktoyaktuk on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.
This long, lonely Dempster Highway is one of Canada’s ultimate road trips; an exhilarating four-wheeled adventure across a pristine northern landscape. It’s also a hard drive in a hard land (you get a certificate of completion from the Inuvik tourist office if you drive its entire length) as the road is unpaved, there’s no phone signal and there’s only one petrol station around halfway along. Anyone who drives it needs to be prepared for misadventure, as I found out myself.
Our little group – me, the pilot, a couple more sightseers – was returning to Inuvik after a day trip to Tuk (as locals call Tuktoyaktuk), run by Tundra North Tours. Until 2018, the Inuvialiut (Western Canadian Inuit) hamlet could only be accessed via bush plane, boat or ice road in winter, and Tuk’s inhabitants still live mostly off the land: fishing, hunting and trapping, storing caught game in the community freezer underground. Some, like local guide Eileen Jacobson, who welcomed us into her home to try on her fur parkas and to sample pipsi (dried Arctic char) – an Inuit staple – were both hopeful and apprehensive about the permanent impact the new road will have on their lives.
“Maybe it’ll bring more visitors,” she said. “And maybe the price of gas, of groceries, will go down.”
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But there were undercurrents of concern as well. Locals up here are all too aware of how other, more accessible Inuit and First Nations communities in Canada have been devastated by the twin scourges of drugs and alcohol. Also, while Canada’s Inuit receive government support for their traditional ways of life, age-old skills are nevertheless dying out, as dependence on modern technology replaces age-old navigation and hunting skills.
I was still pondering all this a couple of days later as I was leaving Inuvik and its igloo church, rows of pastel-coloured houses and Alestine’s, where I’d been going every day for bowls of reindeer chilli and fish tacos cooked inside an old school bus covered with sassy bumper stickers.
At first, things went well. I navigated the bumpy washboard section of the Dempster in my SUV, hemmed in by dwarf spruce forest, and made it to the banks of the mighty MacKenzie River in just more than two hours. The waiting car ferry promptly whisked me across, past the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Gwich’in settlement of Tsiigehtchi sitting across the tributary from the ferry landing.
A little while later, I was turned away from the Peel River ferry landing, south of the marginally larger Gwich’in settlement of Fort McPherson – the last town I’d see before Dawson City, some 580km south. I was told that the summer meltwater had raised the water levels in the river and this ferry could not dock. “When will service resume?” I asked. The man shrugged. “Maybe tomorrow, maybe not.”
Like the locals, I’d found myself at the mercy of nature’s caprices. Unlike the locals, however, it was not a matter of life or death for me. Imagine having a medical emergency in Fort McPherson during the freezing (November to December) or the thawing (March to April) of the two rivers, when ferries aren’t running but the ice road isn’t open either.
I spent the night at the Peel River Inn, the settlement’s only motel, returning to the car ferry landing the following day. By this point, I was racing against time. Having used up one of my two “just-in-case” reserve days, I had little room for error if I wanted to make my flight out of Whitehorse. This time, I was in luck. The summer meltwater had receded sufficiently for the car ferry to dock, and I gingerly drove my SUV onboard.
Dense evergreen forest hugged the road on both sides and gravel flew from beneath my wheels as I pressed on south. There was a meditative quality to the monotony of the landscape; within hours, I’d left the craggy hills, snow-flecked tundra and glacial rivers behind and the world outside my car had been reduced to a green blur of spruce.
“I should make my flight as long as I don’t break down again,” I thought to myself. But besides the hassle of having to rearrange my travel plans, there was a more compelling reason I didn’t want to be stranded in these parts. It was not hunger or thirst that worried me, and by now I was even relatively phlegmatic about potential grizzly bear encounters. But I was frightened of wildfires, which have become increasingly common in the Canadian Arctic in the summer, caused by lightning storms. Having had to drive through the smoke of a wildfire elsewhere in the Northwest Territories, I discovered that the smell of burning triggered visceral, primal fear.
Luckily, along the Dempster that day, the weather obliged and the forest around me remained reassuringly damp and fog shrouded. It began to rain. Relief gave way to anxiety as the spatter of raindrops on my windshield became a deluge. Before long, the car skidded sideways as gravel-and-dirt turned to mud, and I discovered that there’s little advantage to driving a 4X4 when you’re trying to keep the car straight and steady and away from the sloping sides of the road. To skid off the side would be a disaster.
So when the Eagle Plains motel – the halfway point along the Dempster – came into view, I was so relieved that I began to shake.
There’s no phone signal along the Dempster for the most part, and hardly anyone’s got a satellite phone
“It’s happened a couple of times,” the waitress at the motel’s restaurant confirmed, glancing around the largely empty dining room, when I recounted what happened to me. She was happy to shoot the breeze while I ordered from the menu of burgers and meatloaf. “The driver went too fast on mud and slid right off the side. It’s like driving on ice.” I nodded. “Couldn’t even call us,” she continued. “There’s no phone signal along the Dempster for the most part, and hardly anyone’s got a satellite phone. Had to catch a ride back here with the next car they saw and wait a couple of days here before their car could be hauled out of the ditch.”
I told her that the Dempster almost got me on the first day, when I originally drove up to Inuvik. After navigating some 360km – the first half of the drive – without incident, I was lulled into a false sense of security. “I wonder why my guidebook insisted on not one but two spare tyres,” I thought idly to myself. Before long, my car started beeping, snapping me out of my reverie. On the console, I could see the pressure in one of my back tyres dropping alarmingly. A puncture.
Flat tyres are less common than they used to be, back in the days when the Dempster was covered in tyre-shredding shale rather than more benign gravel, but it was a timely reminder that a mishap can still happen at any time. I had a jack and wrench and could change a tyre, in theory. But in the end, I managed to coast the last few kilometres into Eagle Plains on a near-flat, straight into the care of the resident mechanics, who patched my car up, enabling me to reach Inuvik the same day.
Now, on my way back to Dawson City, the last half of the drive back to the Klondike Highway was smoother sailing, with the forest opening up, the sun shining, the road arrow straight. But then, as a crowning touch, just as I passed the Dempster-Klondike junction, I got a strong whiff of petrol. I watched in disbelief as my fuel tank emptied within seconds, and the car came to a halt as the engine died – yet another reminder of the obstacles that the Dempster may throw at you.
There was no phone signal, and as I stood on the Klondike Highway some 40km east of Dawson City, my car abandoned, it was possible that potential rescuers would not drive by for hours. However, within minutes of my breaking down, a Good Samaritan picked me up. As he drove me to my guesthouse in Dawson City, I realised that this had been part of the Dempster’s charm all along: that whenever I’d come close to disaster, fortune smiled on me.
Perhaps Canada’s toughest road wasn’t so tough after all.
The Open Road is a celebration of the world’s most remarkable highways and byways, and a reminder that some of the greatest travel adventures happen via wheels.
The Hardknott Pass: Britain’s wildest road
Built by the Romans and considered one of Britain’s most “outrageous” roads, it’s filled with sharp hairpin turns and is the width of a bridleway.I
If I’d steered hard around the hairpin bend, I’d have driven straight into a frightening gradient of crumbling road, rearing up like a tidal wave in front of me. Rainwater poured down the middle of the rough carriageway like a mountain stream. I reached to change gear and realised I was already in first. Just then, a nonchalant sheep strolled out in front of me, causing me to slam on the brakes.
Hardknott Pass in England’s north-west Lake District is, technically, the most direct route from the central Lake District to West Cumbria, but it is so steep and difficult that outsiders are often warned to take hour-long detours to avoid braving its twisting, single-track slalom up a mountainside. It was described as one of Britain’s “most outrageous roads” by The Guardian, and locals are full of tales of cars suffering brake failures, drivers freezing with the challenge and of skids and misjudgements causing cars to plunge off the narrow carriageway.
This leaves some asking: should this extraordinary 13-mile stretch between the towns of Boot and Ambleside be closed to traffic – or celebrated as a national treasure?
Ambleside, hoping for a pretty potter through the England’s largest national park, the Unesco-inscribed Lake District. Instead, they run straight into the most challenging stretch of road available to British drivers; a sequence of steep switchbacks climbing a bleak mountainside.
Appropriately you’ll find this “most outrageous” of roads snaking around England’s highest peak (Scafell Pike) and deepest lake (Wastwater) in the mountainous wild west of the Lake District. Many consider Hardknott a hazard. “We put guests off from coming over Hardknott Pass,” said local holiday-home owner Greg Poole, matter-of-factly.
The Institute of Advanced Motorists‘ spokeswoman Heather Butcher said: “Depending on the rider or driver’s experience, it could be one to avoid. We don’t recommend putting yourself or others in danger… You can read reviews online from various sources confirming that it’s a challenging road, a thrill, etcetera, but we would advise all riders and drivers to approach roads like this with caution.” And Neil Graham, a communications officer for the Cumbria Police added, “People shouldn’t seek out the road to challenge themselves.”
And yet, to others, this daunting route is a landmark to be celebrated; a challenge to be attempted.
Owner of nearby Muncaster Castle, Peter Frost-Pennington, has driven Hardknott hundreds of times and calls it “one of the most exciting and incredible roads to drive, cycle or walk in the whole world. It should be on everyone’s bucket lists.” And while Poole may warn his holiday guests away, he chooses to take the route himself, saying, “I love the drive. It’s exciting, challenging, beautiful, sometimes scary but never boring – you won’t fall asleep at the wheel for sure.”
What is this notorious stretch actually like to drive? As Hardknott and its preamble, Wrynose Pass, climb from the gentle lakeside Greenburn Beck, signs warn drivers: “Narrow road. Severe bends”. But if you’ve come this far, there’s no alternative route or turning back. You’re about to face a sequence of ridiculous hairpins the width of a bridleway, a constantly disintegrating road surface and unguarded drops plummeting hundreds of feet down the mountainside towards rough moorland, rocks and scree.
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Hardknott’s hardest section, towards the top, lasts less than a couple of miles but rises 1,037ft. A few hairpins reach 25% gradient, and the final cliff is a breath-taking 33%. The “Unsuitable for caravans” sign is a humorous understatement.
These gradients are steeper than most alpine routes and exceed the famous extremes of the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Europe’s other grand cycling tours. The fitness of the few elite cyclists who manage to scale the pass is put into perspective by a 2019 Eurosport documentary called England’s Toughest Climb. An “average” cyclist was given a strict six-week expert training regime as preparation for tackling Hardknott. To the programme maker’s horror, he still failed to make it up the pass.
My first experience of the Hardknott Pass was as a passenger alongside a super-confident team from the Royal Air Force. We were heading for Scafell Pike as part of the Three Peaks Challenge, in which participants attempt to climb the highest peaks in England, Scotland and Wales in 24 hours. Like many unsuspecting tourists, we were shocked to discover the true nature of the road, and we hit the hairpins amid torrents of water in the dark early hours of a stormy morning. The driving officer struggled to cope and the engine screamed as the wheels repeatedly lost traction.
We made it up, amid a tsunami of special force swear words. The driver stayed in the car to recover while we scaled the peak. Afterwards, he took the longer route back.
My second visit was with an elderly businessman in his proud new Jaguar. I’d warned him about the descent but was overruled. Surely, he stated, his gleaming Jag could cope with a little Cumbrian slope.
Within seconds of cresting the brim of the pass, however, he was tackling a sort of road he had never seen before. His wide, softly sprung luxury saloon was completely inappropriate. Red-faced and gasping, he pulled onto a rocky verge to regain breath. We proceeded to the foot of the hill at single-digit miles per hour.
Then a few years ago, I set out to tackle the pass in my own car – a humble 20-year-old Volvo.
Yes, at times it felt like I might have toppled over backwards, but if your car is 100%, the weather is fine and you get your revs and gearchanges right, I found it to be completely possible. (My main tip: even when the road seems to rise like a wave in front of you, don’t hesitate. A missed gear change can have you rolling back off the carriageway.)
In this age of smart motorways and self-driving cars, for driving-lovers like myself, Hardknott represents a flashback to a time when you had to concentrate on the road as if your life depended on it (it does) and wonder if your car will make it (it might not). Unlike the vast majority of Britain’s roads, this short track offers a memorable driving experience every time. It’s England’s ultimate motoring anachronism.
Indeed, the little road has a long, colourful history. The original route was laid by the Romans around 110 AD and led to a dramatic stronghold at the top of the pass known today as Hardknott Fort. The remaining stone walls of the fortress are an English Heritage site with sweeping views across the fells and are all that’s left of one of the more remote Roman outposts in Britain. After the Romans left in the 5th Century, the road lingered on as an unpaved horse and mule route until the local hoteliers association paid for improvements to the road in the 1880s, hoping to encourage scenic horse and carriage trips. A few years later, the scheme was abandoned.
It wasn’t until 1913 that the first motor vehicles drove over the pass, from the easier Eskdale side. Later, Hardknott’s steep gradient was used to test tanks during World War Two. Their steel tracks chewed up the road so much that it had to be rebuilt.
Today, the road is best tackled on a sunny day – but that’s rare in the West Cumbrian fells. An average day features horizontal rain, buffeting side winds and slippery surfaces. On a bad day, the road becomes impassable.
The driver’s reward for all that steering and gear changing, however, is access to an untouched mountain landscape of rare, wild beauty. The waterfalls, sheer rock faces and sudden stunning views across the fells must be much as the Romans saw them. Cliffs soar into the clouds on either side while hardy sheep wander confidently across the road. They don’t worry about the traffic. After all, cars are the outsiders here.
The Open Road is a celebration of the world’s most remarkable highways and byways, and a reminder that some of the greatest travel adventures happen via wheels.
The Alaska Highway: A subarctic road to prevent invasion
Winding 1,387 miles through some of North America’s most extreme environments, it was the most ambitious construction project since the Panama Canal and built to defend a continent.M
March 2022 marks the 80th anniversary of the start of construction on the Alaska Highway. Considered one of the most scenic highways in Canada, the 1,387-mile highway attracts more than 300,000 road trippers from around the world every year.
Beginning in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, and winding north-westerly 613 miles through BC into Yukon, and then another 577 miles to the US border, the road passes from the Rocky Mountains to subarctic alpine tundra to the jagged peaks of Kluane National Park and Reserve before ending at Delta Junction, Alaska. Along the route, parks, campsites, resorts and small towns welcome visitors while locals relish the opportunity to share stories about life in the northern frontier.
Dawson Creek, a remote farming community located in the rolling foothills of the Northern Rockies near the Alberta border, might seem like an odd place for the start of an international highway. The town wasn’t much more than a 600-person rail terminus when Canada and the US first began discussing plans to build a road connecting the lower 48 states with the far-flung northern outpost in 1929. Until 1930, Alaska was only accessible by boat from the contiguous US, and as US relations cooled with Japan, the isolated territory seemed especially at risk against a potential Japanese attack against the North American mainland, as Alaska’s Aleutian Islands are just 750 miles from the closest Japanese military base.
It’s a bucket list road trip with jaw-dropping scenery
Several options were considered, but on 7 December 1941, the day the Japanese attacked the US’ Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, the debate became urgent. The criteria – a route to send defensive supplies to northern military bases should mainland US or Canada be attacked, far enough inland that enemy planes couldn’t reach it – made the proposed route starting from Dawson Creek the top contender. Three months after the attack, thousands of US troops and an armada of heavy equipment arrived by rail at the little blip of a town to begin one of the US’ most expensive construction projects of World War Two.
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Originally known as the Alaska Military Highway, Alcan or Canadian-Alaskan Military Highway, the stunning $138m (the equivalent of $2.55bn today) feat of engineering is simply called the Alaska Highway today. Its initial military purpose began to fade from memory as soon as the route opened to the public after the war in 1948. Almost immediately, Greyhound buses braved the wilderness track, and before the end of the first year, some 2,000 tourist vehicles would follow in their dust. From there, the legend only grew – the story about an impossible-to-build highway that could take visitors across some of the roughest and most beautiful land imaginable.
It’s a “bucket list road trip with jaw-dropping scenery”, said Maya Lange of Destination BC.
Leaving Dawson Creek, the Alaska Highway meanders past farmlands, forests and rivers to Fort Nelson, BC. It was here, while driving the highway last year with a group in search of winter’s Northern Lights, that I first got a sense of the effort involved in building the highway, which was considered the biggest and most challenging engineering project undertaken since the building of the Panama Canal.
At the Fort Nelson Heritage Museum, located about 280 miles north of Dawson Creek, an old-timer named Marl Brown (who sadly passed away in June 2021) told me he used to worry about the loss of the highway’s history. As a mechanic for the Canadian Army at mile 245 in the 1950s, back when much of the now-paved track was still gravel, Brown noticed that some of the 174 steam shovels, 374 blade graders, 904 tractors and 5,000 trucks used to build the road had been discarded and were rusting away.
“They were working so fast, when a bulldozer, grader or truck broke, it was pushed out of the way and they kept going,” he explained.
Brown started collecting the old machinery. Pretty soon people were dropping all manner of highway-related items at his door. “They knew I was collecting these things, so after a while I decided we needed a place for them.” Raising money for the museum was an enormous effort for the small town; Brown even auctioned off shaving rights for his locally famous long beard. But for the gifted mechanic, preserving the story of the highway was a worthy goal. “Visitors were interested in driving it for the challenge and the scenery,” he said. “But people should know what went on before they came, how the highway came about.”
From Fort Nelson, the highway winds west into the Northern Rockies. We peered out the windows at frozen waterfalls suspended from rugged cliffs and marvelled at lakes and rivers turned into vast skating rinks. In the low angle winter light, the wild expanse turned monochromatic as the black spruce of the boreal forest contrasted with the snow-covered mountains.
Pulling off to the side of the road, we decided to try a hike on one of the frozen rivers. Up close, the ice was milky blue and walkable when going uphill – but when coming back, some patches were so slippery we sat down and slid. Cold, with my breath hanging in the air, rugged landscape all around me, it was possible to imagine the 16,000 US and Canadian soldiers and civilians working through some of the region’s coldest temperatures on record. Historical accounts say drinking water froze solid, diesel thickened, and ice could lock up the wheels of a truck if it stood still for more than a few seconds.
Back on the road, traffic was light; a moose wandered out of the forest ahead of us then faded into the swirling snow. A few miles further on, a timber wolf watched from a hill as we drove by. Later we were forced to stop when a herd of wood bison took over the road, seemingly appreciating the easy path across the wintery landscape.
One summer, on an earlier trip, my husband and I loaded our daughter and a couple of friends from California into a borrowed car and trailer. We were eager to see how far north we could get and crossed the Yukon border at historical mile 635. Over the years, the highway has been straightened, widened and paved, shaving miles off, but the historical mileposts tell the story of how the road builders searched in vain for an easy path through the rugged territory. Their solution was to seek out Indigenous guides who showed them the overland gold rush trails, which overlaid the ancient Indigenous grease trails and trade routes of the Dane-Zaa, Dene (Slavey), Tse’Kene, Tahltan, Kaska, Tagish, Tlingit, Northern and Southern Tutchone and Upper Tanana peoples who still call the region home.
Out on the land, the muskeg, stunted boreal forests, craggy rocks and sparkling jade lakes of the Yukon formed a panorama so vast and ancient I could see how it would have resisted taming. A recruitment notice from the time let workers know: “Temperatures will range from 90F degrees above zero to 70F degrees below zero. Men will have to fight swamps, rivers, ice and cold. Mosquitoes, flies and gnats will not only be annoying but will cause bodily harm.”
Camping at the Marsh Lake Campground at historical mile 890, the notorious mosquitos made an appearance. By morning, the inside of our trailer looked like a crime scene with bloody mosquito carcasses splattered on every surface. My daughter, who was five at the time, refused to remove her bug jacket to eat for two days. She took solace in the idea that the true purpose of mosquitoes might be to keep land wild by chasing humans away.
Incredibly, it only took 10 months to build the Alaska Highway (it took 10 years to complete the Panama Canal). With the extra daylight of the midnight sun, crews worked double shifts in the summer, and 400 miles of road were laid in July 1942 alone. Crossing 129 rivers and 8,000 mountain streams, the highway was built in sections by seven US Army regiments. This meant there were a few places where the builders met and linked their sections of road together. One of the last sections to be linked was Beaver Creek near the Alaska-Yukon border. It was decided that the opening ceremonies should take place at a more scenic spot though, and on 20 November 1942 at historical mile 1061, the highway officially opened to military traffic at a place called Soldier’s Summit in what’s now Kluane National Park.
Kluane is a place where many visitors slow down, stopping to hike or to base themselves for a rafting trip on the Alsek River. We chose a few short hikes, always with the hope of capturing a glimpse of an elusive mountain goat. One morning we were rewarded with a distant sighting of curled-horn Dall sheep. Another day brought a grizzly bear sighting. But the goat still remained a goal.
At historical mile 1,221, drivers reach Port Alcan and pass from Canada into the US. From here, the road continues along the winding Tanana River. Framed by the famed Alaska Range, the rugged landscape gradually gives way to farmland, seemingly echoing the way the highway began. The endpoint is at Delta Junction, mile 1,387 (historical mile 1,422), a small 993-person town at the confluence of the Delta and Tanana Rivers.
Delta Junction has an end-of-highway monument where you can snap a photo proving you made the drive. The sign tells the road’s story in numbers: 77 contractors; 15,000 soldiers; 11,000 pieces of equipment. It can be easy to get lost in these staggering figures and miss a more subtle point. Eighty years ago, when facing a threat, two countries came together in friendship to build an impossible road to prevent an attack that never came.
And as you drive through the highway’s vast mountain ranges and over raging rivers, past ancient forests and deep lakes, and through traditional Indigenous villages and friendly small towns, there’s plenty of time to dream about the other impossible things we could choose to accomplish next.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Alaska Highway was the US’ most expensive construction project of World War Two. This has now been corrected.
The Open Road is a celebration of the world’s most remarkable highways and byways, and a reminder that some of the greatest travel adventures happen via wheels.
The world’s loneliest bus route
North America’s most northerly bus service, the Dalton Highway Express covers a rugged 500 miles from Fairbanks, Alaska, to the ominously named settlement of Deadhorse.O
Outside the window the frigid tundra stretched away to meet the horizon; vast, treeless and unnerving. I was the sole passenger on North America’s most northerly bus service, the Dalton Highway Express, as it bumped its way along Alaska’s notorious haul road towards the ominously named settlement of Deadhorse near the Arctic Ocean. The only other traveller, a laconic Canadian, had disembarked several hours previously at a desolate truck stop called Coldfoot. Since then, the driver and I had been motoring north past the road’s last campground, its last outhouse and its last tree (a forlorn looking spruce with a “do not cut” sign). It was as if I was experiencing an extreme form of social distancing before Covid-19 made it de rigueur.
Extending 414 miles from Livengood just north of Fairbanks to the rugged Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Deadhorse, the Dalton Highway is America’s most northerly interconnecting road. It’s also, arguably, its most dangerous. Huge 18-wheel trucks hog the centre of the unpaved thoroughfare; arctic storms can reduce visibility to practically zero; and the weather can be deathly cold. In 1971, Cat Prospect Camp just south of Coldfoot recorded the US’ lowest-ever temperature, a bone-chilling -80F (-62C).
The Dalton Highway was built in 1974 to serve the Prudhoe Bay oil patch, Alaska’s economic lifeblood and supplier of nearly 85% of the state’s budget. In its early days, it was purely a haul road for trucks. Then, in 1994, the state opened the highway to private vehicles. With 100,000lb juggernauts thundering full throttle over loose gravel, don’t expect an easy ride.
“Driving the Dalton Highway can be extreme in summer or winter,” said John Rapphahn, park ranger and manager of the Arctic Interagency Visitor Center in Coldfoot. “In summer, trucks throw up dust and muddy roads can make surfaces slippery. Winter brings icy conditions and avalanches. With only about one quarter of the road paved, motorists should be prepared for a flat tyre or two.”
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Breakdowns can be costly. “I once found a couple stuck in a ditch in the wintertime at -30F,” recounted Rapphahn. “I couldn’t get their vehicle out, so I gave them a ride to Yukon River Camp where they called for a tow truck. It cost them around $1,200.”
If you’re driving, he recommends equipping yourself with a radio. “It’s worth investing in a handheld CB tuned to Channel 19. In this way, approaching truckers and pilot cars can notify you of an oversize load when they see you on the road. You will also have the added benefit of being able to communicate with other vehicles if a problem occurs.”
Lacking a car or radio, I needed help to reach Deadhorse via terra firma and fulfil my ambition of crossing the Arctic Circle by land. Hitching a lift with a truck wasn’t an option as commercial trucks are prohibited from taking hitchhikers on the Dalton for liability reasons. Instead, I booked a ticket with America’s unlikeliest bus service.
The Dalton Highway Express was launched more than 20 years ago to meet a small but growing demand for ground transportation on the road.
“Our guests come from all over, although the majority are US travellers,” explained the company’s marketing coordinator, Kathy Hedges. “Some are looking for low-cost transportation to get to or from Deadhorse on a scenic route; others are trying to get to a good starting point to hike into the Gates of the Arctic National Park or take a canoe out at the Yukon River bridge. A growing number of travellers are biking one way and looking for a ride in the other direction.”
Between the beginning of June and the end of August, the company runs a twice-weekly return service between Fairbanks and Deadhorse covering a rugged 500 miles in just 16 hours.
Short on time but intrigued to experience what promised to be one of the world’s most surreal bus rides, I booked the Express one-way to Deadhorse with the intention of flying back. I chose 21 June as my departure date. With 24-hour daylight north of the Arctic Circle, I wanted to witness the ethereal midnight sun.
With little in the way of settlements along the road’s course, the Dalton Highway Express doesn’t operate a spontaneous request-stop service. You book in advance and arrange your itinerary. Some people like to camp overnight and reboard the bus on its return leg; others plan ambitious hiking excursions with survival gear across Alaska’s trail-less wilderness.
“We like to think we are a service people can rely on,” said Hedges, “If customers get dropped off on one day and make a reservation to be picked up, they can count on us being there for them.”
As a visitor from lower latitudes, I felt as if I was transiting a strange new universe
Reliability is essential. The Dalton is an intensely lonely road. There are no medical services, little mobile-phone coverage and only two pinprick settlements en route: Coldfoot (population: 10) and the subsistence hunting community of Wiseman (population: 14).
With the bus, I felt in safe hands. The company’s drivers are experienced and subject to professional in-house training. “Usually, people get into trouble on the highway either because their vehicle isn’t meant to go on gravel roads or they themselves are not prepared,” Hedges revealed. “They go too fast for the conditions or make poor turning and lane placement decisions.
Leaving Fairbanks promptly at 06:00, our durable Ford Econoline van motored past spindly spruce and paper birch trees to the start of the road proper at Livengood. With just myself and the Canadian on board, there was plenty of space. Eight hours later, after crossing the mighty Yukon River and the Arctic Circle, we grabbed a quick lunch at the Trucker’s Café in Coldfoot, the last refreshments for 240 miles and the disembarkation point for my fellow passenger.
Beyond Coldfoot, the Dalton climbed the remote Brooks Range before summiting the 4,739ft Atigun Pass and descending onto the eerie North Slope, one of the most isolated stretches of road on Earth. The scenery – vast intact ecosystems barely touched by humans – was unlike anything I’d ever seen. Cleaver-shaped mountains were slowly replaced by a barren tundra of shallow lakes, frost mounds and ice-wedge polygons sculpted by the extreme arctic weather. As a visitor from lower latitudes, I felt as if I was transiting a strange new universe. Even the bus driver seemed to be silently awe-struck as he skilfully negotiated the steep grades and sharp curves.
“What isn’t a highlight on the Dalton Highway?” Hedges agreed, acknowledging the road’s unique allure, even to hardened regulars. “Travelling it even once a week, our drivers notice the differences. It seems overnight to make changes. It is amazing what 24-hour daylight will do for the vegetation.”
In the south, aspen, birch and spruce trees are interspersed with cottongrass and sedge meadows. Further north, the flat monotony of the tundra is broken by willow shrubs, reindeer lichen, pink lousewort and blue anemone. The wildlife is legion and varied. Moose, lynx, beavers, wolves and grizzly bears inhabit the boreal and mountain regions, while on the bleak North Slope, musk oxen and caribou can be seen by the herd. Ironically, my most memorable “wildlife” encounter happened when we made an obligatory photo stop at the Arctic Circle and a swarm of mosquitos literally ate me for lunch.
The only constant on the road is the Trans-Alaska pipeline. Carried above ground in these high northern latitudes due to permafrost, the pipeline pumps out nearly 500,000 barrels of oil a day. As we approached Deadhorse, with 500 miles of empty tundra stretching out on either side of the road, it was one of the few visible features, aside from pingos (ice-cored hills) and musk oxen.
Even though I’d played no role in driving or navigation, reaching Deadhorse after 16 hours of loose stones and half-frozen mud felt like crossing the finish line at the Dakar Rally. I wanted to give the driver a trophy as well as a tip.
Huddled eight miles south of the Arctic Ocean, the drab, utilitarian Prudhoe Bay oil-camp resembled a dystopian movie set. With brutal winds whipping across the coastal plains, getting here was more about the journey than the destination.
I’d prebooked a room in the Prudhoe Bay Hotel, an industrial work-camp with 24/7 canteen food, a ban on booze and a sign on the door that read, “Everyone must take their boots off”. Full of ruddy-faced oil-workers counting the days to their next vacation (and drink), this was an integral part of the Dalton Highway experience.
After a celebratory sandwich, I stepped outside for a night-time walk. It was midnight and still light. Across a lake, half-hidden behind low clouds, the midnight sun did its best to emit a weak, paltry radiance. I had reached the top of the continent, the last stop on the line for the Dalton’s only means of scheduled land transport. For one day at least, I could enjoy the unique honour of being the most northerly bus passenger in the Americas.
The Open Road is a celebration of the world’s most remarkable highways and byways, and a reminder that some of the greatest travel adventures happen via wheels.
