A landslide has closed the Dalton Highway, the main road to the North Slope

Heavy rain in the Brooks Range triggered a landslide that shut down the Dalton Highway on Monday morning, blocking the road about 55 miles north of Coldfoot, with a second closure farther south. It's a consequential place to lose: the Dalton is the primary road to Alaska's North Slope, the artery that carries fuel, freight, and supplies to the oil fields and to the handful of communities strung along it.

With the road blocked between mileposts 230 and 231, freight haulers moving fuel and supplies north have nowhere to go, and residents of Coldfoot, Wiseman, and the camps along the corridor are cut off from their main link to the rest of the state.

The closure came as rivers along the corridor rose above flood stage following one to two inches of rain. By Tuesday morning the flood advisory had expired and the water was falling, but forecasters warned that more landslides remain possible on the steep terrain above the road.

It's not the first time. The Dalton has taken repeated hits from flooding in recent years — most dramatically in June 2025, when high water tore an 80-foot-wide, 30-foot-deep gap in the highway and closed a long stretch of it for emergency repairs.