What It Takes to Make It to the Top

How to get there: MarkAir, an intrastate airline, flies daily from Anchorage via Fairbanks and Prudhoe Bay. A 3 1/2-hour flight gets workers and tourists there at about noon.

Tours: MarkAir offers two tours--a one-day or an overnighter--to Barrow from May 9 to Sept. 30.A one-day visit from Anchorage costs $424; from Fairbanks the price is $338. An overnight trip from Anchorage is $483; from Fairbanks, $388. Both are per person, double occupancy.

Restaurants: Next door to the Top of the World is Pepe’s North of the Border Restaurant, which is--guess what?--the northernmost Mexican restaurant in the world. It has three kinds of cuisine: Mexican, steak and seafood. Mexican dinners range from $12 to $20; steak dinners are $19 to $27, and seafood dinners (steak and lobster) cost $18 to $39.

Although Mattie’s Cafe has been a restaurant serving such local dishes as reindeer soup (pleasant but bland) and Eskimo doughnuts (similar to Indian fry bread and very tasty), food service has been suspended due to the owner’s illness. It is expected to be reopened after the owner recovers.

Accommodations: Top of the World Hotel, where tour groups stay, is the largest hotel in Barrow. It has no restaurant. Write P.O. Box 189, Barrow, Alaska 99723, or call (907) 852-3900. There are other hotels, too numerous to mention here.

For more information: Contact travel agents or MarkAir at (800) 426-6784. The Alaska Division of Tourism, P.O. Box E, Juneau, Alaska 99811, (907) 465-2010, also can provide information.