I apologize for the delay in posting this. It's taken some time to get things back together now that I have returned. This is going to be a very long one, so feel free to take a break partway through...
Starting from where the last one left off, we began our trip on Saturday morning to head north to the Brooks Range of northern Alaska. I maxed out the memory card of my camera with almost 200 photos--and that was only on the way up. Instead of trying to embed a select few in this post, I uploaded all the photos to a web album which should be viewable
here. You can click on the slideshow option at the top of them to page through. They should be in chronological order and most have captions describing what they show. The ones that don't have captions usually just follow the photo before with another view or something. The full background story, though, will be here.
The day started off with us driving to the Fairbanks Airport to pick up our van at 6 AM. We rode with a company called Northern Alaska Tour Company which operated their "Dalton Highway Express" service. Our plan was to drive up with them to a point just south of our campsite at Galbraith Lake on the northern slopes of the Brooks Range. We would then meet the hydrologist from the Fairbanks forecast office who was planning to go backpacking and rafing through the mountains for a week before he ended up a Galbraith. We were to pick up his truck and drive it up to Galbraith, then leaving it there the next day after our Dalton Highway Express van came back down to pick us up. So that was the plan.
We expected there to be not many people going up there. However, our van was completely full. Aside from me and Tyler, there was a Hungarian man who had lived in California for many years and a young couple from Switzerland. Those three people were all headed up all the way to Deadhorse-Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean on a kind of tour. There was also a staff member and a graduate student who both worked at the Toolik Lake Research Station which is run by the University of Alaska--Fairbanks and is located on the North Slope. So, there were 8 people in the van going up. But it proved to be good company.
We left Fairbanks and it immediately became apparent that our driver was very cautious. Too cautious for my taste. On the roads leading out of Fairbanks with 55 mph speed limits, he was going a good 40. However, the first hour or two of the trip was what Tyler and I had driven the day before, so not much had changed there. We did stop to drop off supplies at a roadhouse along that highway in the town of Joy. That building was acually the only building in the town of Joy, but nevertheless we took 20 minutes or so there unloading supplies and whatnot. Then, we packed back up and headed to the beginning of the Dalton Highway.
The first hour or two was mostly driving over very hilly terrain through spruce forests. It was mostly that ugly black spruce, so it wasn't too terribly attractive. The hills were big, though, and the grades were steep. There was a constant stream of traffic every few minutes or so going the other way (and several vehicles passing us as well) so it wasn't like it was isolated. I quickly discovered the importance of the CB radio on this road. All of the traffic that has a CB radio is expected to tune to channel 19 and not a truck passed us without saying hi and asking about the conditions of the road ahead. We never had anything bad to report about the conditions as the road seemed to be in pretty good shape. It was mostly gravel, though there are several muli-mile stretches where the road is paved and marked. The entire length of the road is well-signed and there are mileposts along the way.
The Trans-Alaska Pipeline parallels the road for much of the journey north. The pipeline was built by and continues to be run by a consortium of many different major oil companies who banded together to form the Alyeska Pipeline consortium. "Alyeska" is the native Aleut word that means "the great land" and it is the word from which Alaska got its name. Every mile or so along the highway there is a turnoff which is gated that heads towards the pipeline for access. Alyeska maintains a tight watch on the pipeline and flies helicopters along the entire length of it daily to check for leaks or other problems. There are also 7 pumping stations along the Elliot and Dalton Highways north of Fairbanks to keep the oil flowing. These make for good landmarks along the drive.
Our next stop was at the Yukon River Camp next to the Yukon River bridge. The Yukon River is the longest in Alaska, even though it begins back by Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory. The bridge that the Dalton Highway and the pipeline share when crossing the river is the only bridge over the Yukon River in Alaska. The river will freeze over in the winter, and when it breaks up again in the summer the ice flows would crush normal bridge supports. Apparently this bridge was designed to defeat the ice in some way. The bridge was the last section of the pipeline and road to be completed. Before that, people and equipment were ferried across the Yukon River at this point, thus the camp was a major center of activity. It's only about an hour and a half to two hour drive from the start of the road, so it's not that terribly far. There's good food, a phone, "hotel" rooms made out of old pre-fab housing for the pipeline workers and people to help if there are mechanical problems with your vehicle. They do not have gasoline though, which is a big disappointment to many.
After pausing briefly at the Yukon River Camp, we continued northward. The rainy, gray, foggy conditions we had been having to that point cleared up as we got out of the Yukon-Tanana uplands and into a broad, sweeping valley (that still had hills) that stretched between those uplands and the foothills of the Brooks Range. There were much fewer trees in this region, so the views got more expansive. Most of what tree stands there were looked to have been at least partially touched by wildfires and there were a lot of stands of burnt trees. This area of Alaska is one of the most convectively active and thus they routinely get thunderstorms with lighting in this region. This lightning is what sets off most of the wildfires. While this was a "valley" there were still many hills that needed to be climbed. One of the most prominent was called "Finger Mountain" for the finger-like boulder at the top of it. There were a lot of these random granite boulders sitting randomly about the ground. We were told that they were called "tors" and that's about it. The road became paved partway through this valley at a point south of the Arctic Circle and continued to be paved all the way to Coldfoot in the southern Brooks Range. This made the drive a little faster and much smoother.
After another three hours or so, we arrived at the Arctic Circle rest area down a little turn off from the main highway. This area has the famous sign saying that you are now at 66 degrees, 33 minutes north latitude and has a map of the northern hemisphere for reference. I was told by he staff member going to the research station in our van that in reality the Arctic Circle is a few miles down the road, but this was the most convenient place for them to put the sign. Regardless, nearly everyone stops here and takes photos. I ran into a few people who were motorcycling down the highway, and another couple in a van with Illinois license plates who happened to be from Decatur (and mentioned how much they enjoyed the Clock Tower Resort in Rockford...?). We arrived at the Arctic Circle on June 20, and since the solstice is between June 20 and 21, I consider this crossing the Arctic Circle on the solstice. North of this line, there are 24 hours of
the sun being completely above the horizon for at least some time during the summer months. It isn't right to say "24 hours of daylight" because even as far south as Anchorage it never gets dark and there's enough light all night during the summer to sit outside and read a book if you wanted to. North of the Arctic Circle is also defined as the true Arctic region, also known as one of the Lands of the Midnight Sun. This too is kind of a misnomer, because the lowest point the sun gets in the sky, the "solar midnight" if you will, actually happens at around 2 AM here. This is because of two things: first, we are not exactly centered in the Alaska Time Zone, so the sun acually sets later than it would otherwise and secondly, we are on daylight savings time, so we're an hour ahead of normal time anyways. Both contribute to the solar midnight sun being at around 2 AM. This becomes important later...
We continued north on the highway, and the hills became broader. Still very few trees. Then, coming over a hill called "Gobblers Knob" we got our first glimpse of the foothills of the Brooks Range. Because the winds were out of the south, they were pushing air that was strongly heated over our broad valley northward and into the mounains. This is a classic example of terrain-induced convection, and sure enough there were several storms and showers on the southern edge of the Brooks Range. We went over a long, winding hill that ran east to wet for a very long ways. According to my Milepost guidebook, this was a the terminal moraine from the last glaciation of the Brooks Range. During the last ice age, glaciers filled the valleys of the Brooks Range and spread out into the valley. That hill marked the southern edge of those glaciers, where all of the rocks and soil they pushed out ahead of them had ended up.
The road wound down into a wide river valley and we entered the Brooks Range proper. The Brooks Range is the northernmost, east-west mountain range in the world, staying entirely above the Arctic Circle and running from the Bering Sea in the west all the way across northern Alaska to the Yukon border. There is a tectonic plate that sits under the north slope and another plate over the interior of Alaska. The collision of these two plates formed the mountains, as the interior plate tries to rise up and over the northern plate and ends up fracturing and breaking in the process. Before the mountain building really started, the entire region was under a shallow sea and, because of this, layers of sand and sediment collected on the sea bottom, forming layered limestone rock over time. It is this ancient seafloor, now in limestone form, that is being forced up to create the mountains. You might be able to see in some of my photos how the sides of the mountains show layers that are tilted with their highest ends to the north and sinking down into the south. You can picture, then, that tectonic plate shoving in from the south, trying to rise up over the northern plate and just fracturing in the process. I was amazed how well this stood out while driving through the mountains and how you could literally see how they were formed.
The pipeline followed the road for most of the way through the valley. Because of the mechanism of formation that I just described, it makes sense that the newer, taller, and more rugged mountains were found at the northern end of the Brooks Range, while here at the southern end they were older, shorter and more weathered. Still highly scenic, though. With all of the rain falling on the southern slopes of the mountains, we saw spruce trees again in great numbers throughout the valleys. The pipeline alternated between its supports above the ground and being buried. The road was still paved by this point, but not in the normal way. It was a kind of pavement called "chip seal" pavement which doesn't look paved, but in reality it is. The road surface was still rather decent.
We quickly arrived in the city of Coldfoot in the southern passes of the Brooks Range. Though this small outpost may regularly be seen as one of the, if not the coldest place in the US at any given time, it was actually named for a group of miners who were headed north to mine but got that far and got "Cold Feet" and turned around to go back. Or so a sign at the place told me. Record lows of -80 degrees fahrenheit and lower have been recorded here. When we got there, it was overcast with temperatures in the upper 40s. The Coldfoot Camp where we stopped has a very good trucker's restaurant, lodging, a convenience store, maitenence facilities and, most importantly, gasoline. It's 240 miles north to the next services in Deadhorse, so everyone fills up with gas here. And it was only $3.74 per gallon--not too bad. Also in "town" across the road is the Arctic Interagency Visitors Center, which has information about the area, specifically with regards to Gates of the Arctic National Park to the west and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the east. While the Dalton Highway never actually crosses the border into either of these, the boundaries for both of these areas come within a mile or two of the highway for most of its trip through the Brooks Range. The Visitors Center was an odd outpost of very modern facilities in this otherwise rustic place. I bought some postcards and picked up some maps there.
After we headed north from Coldfoot, the road stopped being paved again. Truck traffic was rather heavy through this region, for some reason. The mountains also started getting more rugged and taller. The valley we were in got narrower. We paralleled a river and the pipeline for quite some ways. There was a mountain that was very rough and rugged looking and also completely limestone with no trees on it to the east of the highway. This mountain was called Sukakpak Mountain and is a prominent landmark on the road. Nearly every map you see has it marked as an excellent photo opportunity. I liked how you could see the layered limestone rather well in it. However, there was also this very symmetrical-looking and very pointed mountain sticking up across the road and a little north of Sukakpak Mountain that drew my attention. It wasn't overly tall or big, but it seemed very prominent and I rather liked the way it looked. My detailed map of the Brooks Range didn't give it a name. Apparently, at least in Gates of the Arctic National Park, they have intentionally not named most of the mountains that weren't already named so as to help "maintain the wilderness feel". I suppose this makes sense--if the mountain has a name, you know you're not the first person to see it or experience it. Now when you travel through, it's just "that mountain". I thought that was an interesting tactic. While the Dalton Highway, as I mentioned, pretty much rides the park's eastern boundary, there are no roads at all that actually go into the park. You can fly to a small native village a few valleys over called Antanivuk Pass, but that's it for accessing the park unless you hike in from the Dalton Highway, which many people do. Anyhow, this prominent mountain lay right on the eastern edge of Gates of the Arctic National Park and was unnamed. So, Tyler and I decided that from this point on that mountain would be Mount Luke Madaus in the Brooks Range. Maybe if that catches on, one day the USGS will actually attach that name to the peak. Who knows...
We continued on down the gravel road towards our rendezvous with the hydrologist and his truck. As we climbed in elevation, the clouds got thicker and it got somewhat foggy. Still, the mountain views were spectacular, as was the rushing Middle Koyukuk River we were then following. At the junction of the Middle Koyukuk and the Dietrich Rivers, we finally ran into our hydrologist friend and his white Toyota pickup truck. The van dropped us off and we helped the hydrologist and his nephew prepare for their hike. They were going to be hiking and rafting (using inflatable rafts stored in their backpacks) from Saturday through Thursday up through the Brooks Range to our camp at Galbraith Lake. I'm amazed at how people can do that. While we were helping them, a heavily backpacked man rode by on a bicycle and stopped to chat. He was from England and two days previously he had been dropped off up at Deadhorse. His plan? To bike all the way from Deadhorse-Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean down to Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of Argentina. All the way down North and South America. And before you think this is crazy, over the course of this trip we ran into three other completely separate people who were trying to do the same thing. All of them expected it to take months, even a year or so to finish it. If that. I personally wonder how many people start out on these trips with high hopes and a week later, when they finally get into Fairbanks, just say "Ok...that's it..." and stop right there. I guessing a good number...
Tyler and I continued north, but now in our own pickup truck and able to go our own speeds. The hydrologist encouraged us to take his truck and drive all the way up to Deadhorse if we felt like it because, "the scenery is incredible and who knows when you will be able to do it again? Just remember to fill it up with gas in Deadhorse...". And, after some discussion (and knowing we had literally no end of daylight), we decided to do just that, then return to Galbraith Lake to wait to be picked up the next day.
We entered the North Slope Borough, the largest county-level entity in the United States. Definitely one to add to my list of "county (equivalents) I have been to". We passed a big open area in the middle of the Brooks Range called Chandalar Shelf before beginning the ascent to Atigun Pass. This route through the Brooks Range follows the Koyukuk-Dietrich valley as far in as it will go, but the main spine of the Brooks Range blocks the end of that valley. Just on the other side, though, is another valley heading north, so a very steep and tall pass was navigated high in the mountains to get from the southern to northern valleys. We were told by many that the ascent to the pass was a "harrowing, hairpin drive up muddy and unpaved roads where you don't know if there's an out of control truck barreling downhill toward you around the next bend..." so we approached with some trepidation. The truck we were driving had a manual transmission, and though I could have done it, Tyler normally drives a manual vehicle, so he was driving. I actually didn't think the ascent was that bad...sure it was steep, and the weather worsened as we went up, but it only took maybe 5 minutes to get to the top. The height of the pass is at over 4500 feet and there is a wide turnoff there for vehicles to stop. We took many photos, as you can see in the album.
Coming down the other way was even quicker...mostly because the car just went downhill. We drop down immediately into the northern valley, and the first thing you noticed were the lack of trees and much less vegitation. The road quickly drops to the valley floor and the buried pipeline re-emerges to continue its journey alongside. Within ten or fifteen minutes of driving, you could see the clouds breaking and the still tall mountains...abruptly ending? It had taken us around 4 hours of driving through the southern part of the Brooks Range just to get to Atigun Pass, now only 20 minutes to get back out of the mountains? To what?
At the end of the valley, we passed pumping station number 4 and saw the wide expanse of Galbraith Lake to the west. It was a beautiful scene looking back, but I'll get to that later. Right now we planned to continue north to Deadhorse. So we exited the valley...to find the fabled North Slope of Alaska. The mountains literally just stopped and melted into these low hills, completely covered with tundra vegitation as the road wound up and around the hills, paralleling the pipeline. It was such an abrupt transition, but such a beautiful one as well. Of course, seeing the sun again after driving through 4 hours of mountains, fog and rain would make many things look beautiful. But this was really something. Glaces back showed us that the mountains really did just end there...and we continued driving out among the tundra-covered hills. Not a tree in sight. I was immediaely reminded of driving across the Flint Hills or the High Plains in Kansas. It was very, very much the same kind of feeling. Replace the pipeline with a railroad track and it would be exactly that. I took lots of pictures of the area, just because it was so different. We picked up a river to our east (the Sagavanirktok River...which is why I'm just calling it "a river") and that river cut a series of bluffs into its eastern shores that periodically showed up on the drive north.
At one point, there was a wooden viewing platform by the side of the road and we got out to walk around a bit. Apparently, you are not supposed to walk on the tundra because it is very fragile and has a difficult time growing back. I had not heard this until I returned, so I went stalking across the tundra for a ways just for the experience of it. It is the strangest thing ever to walk on--so spongy. And so wet. The entire surface is covered with a plethora of mosses and small grasses and small wildflowers and looks very solid. But, everywhere you step on it your foot sinks in several inches. Half of the time, that's all that happens. But, often, you'll put your foot down, and there will be liquid water or some very muddy-feeling soil under your shoe. It's the strangest thing. I have a photo at the end of the album which is a close-up of the tundra.
The road became paved north of this point and we continued on at a good speed as the hills began to wind down to a plain. We passed pumping station number 3 and noticed that a very low cloud deck was starting to set in. Still, we pressed on. About half an hour further the pavement ended and the clouds set in to a big fog. By now the tundra was completely flat in all directions, as far as the eye could see (minus the bluffs that occasionally appeared off by the river to the east). Never did I expect to find the flatness that you see on the High Plains or out in the panhandles of Texas or Oklahoma anywhere else in the world--but here was land just as flat. And it was cold. Temperature was going down through the 30s by this point, and the fog really began to set in. It really felt like we were driving off to the end of the world--literally and figuratively. Eventually, some creatures loomed up out of the fog crossing the road--caribou. Hundreds of them over a span of some 50 miles leading all the way into Deadhorse. The caribou have very large horns and randomly run splashing across the tundra for no reason. Like I said...there's liquid water below much of that ground. I don't know if it's melted permafrost or what...it's liquid. And when those caribou run across it, they splash...
We saw many caribou in the fog. I don't know if this entirely qualifies as "Caribou Fog", but it was the closest thing I'll probably get. The fog became almost impossibly dense as we headed even further north. We really slowed down. No terrain at all. Finally, we saw some shapes on the horizon--buildings. Like approaching a city on the High Plains, it's just silhouettes on the horizon for a long time. But here we were--Deadhorse-Prudhoe Bay at the northern end of the Dalton Highway. As we entered town, we passed a few Musk-Ox by the side of the road. It was so strange seeing such large animals way up there in the middle of nothingness...
The "city" lies a little inland of the Arctic Ocean and you can't get to the Arctic Ocean without special permission because you have to cross the oilfields. However, Tyler wanted to go as far as we could and I agreed. So we tried navigating the town to find gas and go as far as we could. As my Milepost book says, "Deadhorse in no way resembles any kind of actual town..." and that is very true. There are no services for travellers or anything like that. There are two public gas stations and two hotels, but that's it. No restaurants or anything like that. You pass building after building whose large parking area in front is littered with every kind of construcion and earth moving or drilling vehicle you could imagine. All of he buildings look like steel railroad containers just welded together with windows put in them. Off in the distance you could see countless small buildings with many Eiffel Tower-looking contraptions sticking up, which I assumed were oil wells.
We stopped to get gas at one of the unusual gas stations (with its two public pumps that looked like emergency telephones) and it was only $3.80 per gallon. I really had expected far worse... I got out to clean the windows. It was COLD. Definitely below freezing. There was also a strong northerly wind coming off of the still-frozen Arctic Ocean a few miles to our north, which added a wind chill. I found that I had cell phone service, though (randomly, after not having had any since Fairbanks) and sent a few text messages and called my friend Joe (who always wanted to travel up to Deadhorse on the Dalton Highway...). I can't figure out what the place is supposed to be called. I read somewhere that the original name of the town itself was Deadhorse (after the Deadhorse trucking lines that used to serve the area used to operate the only store and service station in town) but since the town lies on Prudhoe Bay and the oil companies call it the Prudhoe Bay field, when the Postal Service established a post office there, they called the town "Prudhoe Bay". So, apparently either name works. All the signs heading north gave mileage to "Deadhorse", so I often use that, though I much prefer the name "Prudhoe Bay".
We passed the North Slope Borough administration center, which I'm told was like the county courthouse building (even though I believe the borough seat is actually in Barrow, which is several hundred miles to the northwest and slightly further north...). We also passed many familiar oil companies and their outposts, including a sinister-looking Halliburton building and yard. Finally, we got to the security gates for the BP oil fields--the furthest north you can go on a public road anywhere in the world. And we were there. I have driven to the end of the road and this, this was literally the end. We took photos and then returned.
After driving back through Deadhorse, we set out to return south to Galbraith Lake. We left Deadhorse around 11 PM. The fog was still there...probably caused by cold air from the Arctic Ocean advecing in over the somewhat warmer ground or something. When midnight rolled around, we wanted to get a photo of the midnight sun, but alas the fog made it impossible, so we pushed on. Finally, another two hours later we had re-entered the North Slope hills (the North Slope is actually the entire region between the Brooks Range and the Arctic Coast) and, as our elevation increased slightly, the fog began to lift. We were treated to some spectacular views.
I got several photos of the sun coming out from behind the fog and over the hilly tundra at around 2 AM. Remember, this is about the time of solar midnight, so this is the true Midnight Sun. It was amazing. The temperatures were back into the 40s this far south, so it wasn't so bad to stand outside and look around. Everything was so still--and so quiet. There were no people or anything around for miles, no wind...just the empty tundra, the fog and the sun at 2 in the morning. Nothing quite like it. As we continued on in the truck, we went up and down several hills which took us back down into the fog and then back up out of it. At one point, we were driving through a dense patch of fog when a dark shape loomed up in the road ahead, completely silhouetted. It was clearly an animal and it was completely motionless. I tried to evaluate it as we inched closer--it was too small to be a bear, definitely had too skinny of legs to be a bear...too short to be a caribou or a moose...definitely not a Musk-Ox...still was rather big...ok, definitely either feline or canine...that's a wolf. Tyler got an excellent photo of the wolf silhouetted in the fog. As we got closer, the wolf moved off to the side of the road and headed away across the tundra. I got one quick photo through the fog before it was gone. But we were close enough to see that it definitely was a gray wolf. A lone wolf too. Pretty amazing what you run across in the arctic fog.
I got a few good photos of the pipeline and the sun through the fog that I rather liked. As we approached the Brooks Range again, the mountains were lit up in this reddish-glow of the midnight sun now due north of the mountains. You never see the sun due north. But here it was. Beautiful mountains. In my mind, the Brooks Range has always been my favorite mountain range, just because of how remote and difficult to get to it is. How northern it is and how imposing it seems. And here it was in all of its glory. Just a fantastic sight.
We pulled into the camping area at Galbraith Lake, and there were already three other SUVs at random places in the area with people no doubt sleeping. The area is by the lake and near an airstrip that serves the Alyeska people and the pipeline. It's also near pumping station number 4 and you could see the lights of the station (not that they needed them) down in the valley, so you knew there were people around. This made the place feel very safe to me, very reassuring and also very beautiful. Tyler still had a lot of energy at 3 AM and wanted to hike down a nearby valley into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I wanted to sleep. So we moved the car to a large turnout by the Dalton Highway and I slept in the reclined front seat of the pickup truck while Tyler went hiking (he does that sort of think a lot). I slept until 10 AM, though Tyler got back around 7 AM and slept in the covered back of the truck for a little while.
We then returned to the main camping area at Galbraith Lake to await our van, which was supposed to arrive at 2 PM. Some soup was had for lunch, and I hiked off (across the tundra again...) to the base of one of the nearby mountains to find a stone to take back with me. I found one and washed it off in a stream. That stone will always remind me of the Brooks Range when I look at it, and I enjoy having a piece of that place with me. Anyhow, the mosquitoes were very, very bad by the lake and I wore a bug shirt made of netting over my clothes and my head for much of our waiting time. There was an outhouse at the camping area (stocked with toilet paper by the people at the airstrip, no less...) so that was taken care of. The van arrived promptly around 2 and we began our return trip.
At about that point I maxed out the photos on my camera, so there our none of the return trip. It was almost completely uneventful, so nothing much was missed. Just the entire story in reverse. However, we stopped at Coldfoot again on the way back and this time I had their all-you-can-eat buffet for $18.95 (which was the only thing you could order...) and it was amazingly good. I always enjoy sampling local cuisine...this is about as local as you can get. They had a good meatloaf with mashed potatoes, a tuna casserole, salad, steamed vegetables, and several different desserts. Very satisfying. I recommend you try it if you're ever in Coldfoot.
Then, about 50 miles south of Coldfoot, we were back on gravel road and we came around this curve and there's a young man, about my age, standing in the middle of the road waving his arms. Our driver slowed and rolled down the window and the guy said that his friend was driving their car and they had just gone off the road. The road at that point was coming around a hill and there was a very, very steep embankment on the side leading down to a black spruce forest. We could not see the car from the road, but the guy and his friend, the driver said they were both all right. They wanted a ride "into town" to make arrangements. While our driver and these guys were talking, one of the Alyeska Pipeline surveying helicopters that was making its rounds apparently noticed the car off the road from above and came swooping down, landing right next to our van in a small turnoff. This is the closest I've been to a helicopter landing and taking off, and it was oddly thrilling... Anyhow, one man got out of the helicopter and wanted to know if anyone was injured and needed to get to a hospital. Since no one did, he got back in and took off. Our driver went to get out the satellite phone to call someone, but upon opening its box discovered that the satellite phone was not there. So, he offered the two guys a ride "into town".
So these guys...I didn't notice at the time, but it turns out when they got into our van, they didn't go back to get any of their stuff out of their car at all. An hour later they realized that only one of them had his wallet and they had no clothes or anything. They did have their cell phones, though, so that was good. But still...Tyler asked them where they were from. "Texas," they said (and then it all made sense...). They had driven the driver's fathers' 2008 Honda Civic up the Alaska Highway and had just arrived in Alaska the other day (even more sense...). "Where did you stay last night?" I asked, assuming they had stayed in Fairbanks. "I don't know...the first town we got to after arriving in Alaska...some place...". "Tok?" I asked, now being familiar with the route. "Oh yeah....that place," was the response. So I asked, "So how far were you headed?" and they responded, "Oh...no clue...to the last city on that road?" "Deadhorse?" I asked. "Umm...if that's the last city, then yeah...".
My point is, and not to be hard on them because it's obvious they were shaken up, but...you don't travel to and around Alaska without a plan. I had been planning my drive up the Alaska Highway for months, and I congratulate these two on getting that far. But there's no way in the would you should even consider taking a little 2008 Honda Civic down a road that is considered to be one of the most difficult traverses in the entire road system of North America. Not knowing where you're going can mean very bad things up here. You have to ration yourself, know where the gas stations are and where it's safe to stop. You have to consider your resources and drive carefully. When we got to the Yukon River Camp again, they went in and our driver made some calls. The two guys refused to stay at the Yukon River Camp (even though the staff there was more than accommodating) because they just didn't want to. This means we hauled them all the way back into Fairbanks. A good 6 hours away from their car down that empty road. After dropping them at a nearby hotel, our driver effectively washed his hands of them. I still wonder what happened with them--the embankment was steep enough that they would need some heavy equipment to get the car up. And then if it was damaged to the extent of being undriveable (which, from what I heard, it didn't sound like it...), it would have to be towed into a garage. I don't know if either Coldfoot or the Yukon River Camp had the resources to handle that kind of repair. And it's in such a remote place...tally the cost of this hotel expenditure, getting someone out to that remote site (probably from Fairbanks), extricating the car, towing it, repairing it--you're probably talking about a multi-thousand dollar mistake there. So just a warning for those who aren't careful and don't plan...
Even so, with as remote as the highway is, it's so well-travelled and with the Alyeska people surveying the entire pipeline every day in helicopters--if you do break down or have a problem, someone will be around rather soon who will be able to help. I highly recommend this journey to everyone. That was one of the greatest, if not the greatest, excursion I have ever been on. And, though the Brooks Range was even more majestic and powerful than I had pictured it, I am very glad we drove all the way up. That scenery on the tundra--even in its emptiness it is so beautiful. The wildlife, the weather, the history, the end-of-the-world-ness...such a fantastic trip. An experience I will never forget, that's for sure.
Having gotten a bit of rest on the way back and not wanting to spend more on a hotel in Fairbanks, Tyler and I picked up my car and drove the five and a half hours back to Anchorage that night. We got into Fairbanks around one in the morning (though by this point I had not seen the sun below the horizon for nearly 48 hours and my sense of time was so messed up...) and got into Anchorage around 7. I had already planned not to come into work on Monday, so I just slept all day (which of course messed my internal clock up even more). I was so tired that I apparently slept through the 5.6 magnitude earthquake that shook Anchorage late Monday morning. So I've been through an earthquake now, too. Some people I know here felt it, many did not. Who knew...
And if you've gotten this far in the story, through you're long reading you've gotten a sense of the marathon that this trip was as well. Please enjoy the photos in that album and I really hope that some of you get to experience the same thing some day...
The Alaskan Brewery is the largest regional brewer in Alaska, and its beers are more popular than any other mainstream on-tap beer in the state. All of their beer is brewed at their Juneau brewing facility here, back in the hills of the Tongass rainforest. It was lightly raining out when I go there, which kind of added to the liquid atmosphere. I have never toured a brewery or winery or anything like that before, though (at least up here) I have been to many brewhouse pubs and restaurants. I've started collecting glasses with he brewing company logos on them, maybe to outfit a wet bar in my future home one day or something like that. I just like that kind of item to collect. Anyway, I decided to take advantage of my 21 years of age and go on the tour of this place.
Their "tour" didn't exactly go through the brewing part, but they did have a gift shop and "gallery" room where we got a 20 minute presentation by one of the brewers about the history of the brewery and why their beers are so special. Small digression here. Way back in January when I first flew to Anchorage for my site visit, I had just turned 21. I flew Alaska Airlines on my way up and our flight was delayed due to some refueling issue. To make up for that delay, the flight crew announced that, for their beverage service, they would not charge for any alcoholic beverages that people ordered. One thing that Alaska Airlines "proudly" offers is small bottles of Alaskan Amber beer, which is the flagship beer of the Alaskan Brewing Company. On my flight up, I was sitting next to a native Yupik Eskimo who was a doctor of some kind, and he ordered an Alaskan Amber. At the time, having just turned 21 the week before, I was still leery about ordering alcoholic things so I opted for a tomato juice. However, this man insisted to me that while I was in Alaska, I had to try an Alaskan Amber at some point, because it was such a local staple and, according to him, amazingly good. Every time I went out to eat in Anchorage on that trip there were always people around me orderin Alaskan Ambers or Alaskan IPAs or Alaskan Oatmeal Stouts...I began to realize how big of a deal this was. So when I returned for this summer, one of my earliest goals (now having had more experience with the different varieties of beers) was to try this Alaskan Amber and soon after I got here I bought six bottles from the store. And the beer was fantastic--it's by far my new favorite. It still retains the hoppy flavor that comes out so strongly in the craft beers, but at the same time I find it very drinkable, with or without food. I really, really do enjoy it. So, this added to my excitement at visiting the Alaskan Brewing Company.
Now that the stage is better set, I enjoyed their little presentation and asked several questions about their fermentation processes and whatnot. Having tried to ferment wine myself in a closet at college, I was aware of some of these challenges, even if wine is an entirely different concept. Of course, the highlight of this kind of brewery visit is the free beer. They have a little bar in their gift shop area with every variety of beer that the brewery produces, and they hand you a small sampling glass when you come in, encouraging you to return to the bar many times to sample their wares. I tried the Alaskan Summer Ale (which tasted like a lighter version of the Alaskan Amber to me...), the White (which is a wheat ale--definitely had a more fruity flavor) and the India Pale Ale IPA (which was an odd combination of bitter and slightly fruity?). I'm not a big one for stouts or darker beers, and after having one of their roasted malt beers described to me as, "It's like drinking liquid campfire smoke..." I was glad to stick to my lighter beers. The amber is still my favorite, though.
In their gallery where they gave their presentation, they had bottles from craft breweries in "every state," and I was eager to explore this (as recently finding these craft brewers has started to become a hobby of mine). There were several from Illinois, a ton from Wisconsin, and none from Oklahoma. (I do know that COOP Ale Works opened in March in Oklahoma City as I believe the first craft brewery in the state of Oklahoma...I'm looking forward to sampling their stuff...). At the gift shop, since this was a big deal for me, I bought two large pint glasses with the Alaskan logo on them, two smaller sample glasses and a set of coasters. I think it would be fun one day to have a little wet bar in the corner of the basement of my house and stock it with a few bottles of all these different kinds of local craft brews from around the country. It would be even more fun if I could serve these brews in the actual glasses I bought when visiting the brewery... But that's just a whimsical plan for the future. Anyhow, if anyone out there has any suggestions for any good craft breweries, by all means let me know--I'm finding exploring them to be fun. And Alaska is as good of a place to start as any. Alaskan beers are only distributed in Alaska and in basically every state from the Rocky Mountains west, so locally you won't be able to find them. This is kind of sad, but at the same time adds to the uniqueness.
Most Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) are white brick or white siding with blue, Culvers-like roofs (to echo the blue and white logo of their parent organization, NOAA, furher representing the sea and the sky), but this one is all wood siding with a green roof (to echo the trunks and leaves of trees, like one would expect from the Forest Service). I will say that I found it somewhat odd that the Forest Service, dedicated to preserving and maintaining our National Forests, would want buildings that were covered with wooden siding. But...who am I to judge. There are several trails that lead from the Forest Service's headquarters out into the National Forest, and apparently this is a major hiking trailhead for local hikers. However, none depart from the Forecast Office, as this sign that I though was AMAZING and unique out front indicated...
What other WFO is concerned with trailheads? There were a few people working that day, and I was quickly welcomed into their little fold. It has been amazing how accomodating all the people in these WFOs I've been visiting have been. They are all very interested in what I'm doing and quick to engage me in conversations about everything. I don't feel like I'm impinging on their time or that they feel like they have far better things to do than talk to me. On the contrary, they seem eager to have someone else to talk to. Maybe that's saying something about professional meteorologists... Anyhow, I also met their two summer interns, one who is a graduate student at Oklahoma named Richard who I had met while I was still in Oklahoma, and another who is one of my Anchorage roommate's best friends from college and is also a Hollings Scholar like me who will be doing her internship next semester. Once again, this feeling of belonging and community was really there. After an hour-long discussion about the local weather and how they use their radar, Richard and Andrea (the other intern) offered to drive me out to the Mendenhall Glacier in the WFO's government car and then on to the airport, all without my having asked. I had planned on taking the bus to the airport and hadn't even planned on seeing that glacier--luck and providence come through again!
You're a lot closer to the glacier and it's a whole lot bigger than this photo makes it seem. There's a visitor's center on a small hill behind where I took this photo, and they have an elevated viewing deck there (with a roof over it...very important in this rainforest...), but it cost three dollars to go into the visitor's center, so we didn't enter. Richard and Andrea had been here many times before, so they knew a lot of the trails to get closer to the glacier and the lake. We headed down a few and I was able to get some good photos.
The glacier periodically calves off several very large and very blue icebergs into the lake below. The lake water was not as freezing cold as I thought it would be--maybe all the rainwater mixing in near the surface helped keep it warmer. But, however cold it was, it was cold enough to support these icebergs. They came in all shapes and sizes and were this very pleasant and rich shade of blue--more so than you can tell from the photograph. I'm told that this blue hue comes from the rock sediments that are compressed into the ice as the glacier grinds its way down the mountain. These particles help scatter the reflected blue light better, so it gives a very bluish hue. If you ever look at a river or stream that forms at the end of a glacier, often the waer will also have a blue, milky color. In free-flowing water, those rock sediments are called "glacial flour" and, because of their presence, it's apparently not advisable to drink water freshly melted off a glacier. You'll end up with a mouthfull of rock and sand. Remember this the next time you see an adverisement for "Pure Glacial Water...". It had to be filtered first.
There was a very powerful-feeling waterfall next to the glacier that just seemed to pop out of the rainforest up the hill. Lots of people from cruise ships ventured out and got very, very close to this waterfall. It was very refreshing to be near it, though, as it gave off a spray that was, for some reason, far more pleasant than the light rain that continued to fall. From the base of the waterfall, we were as close as we could get to the glacier.
Because I had my flight to catch, we couldn't stay long, otherwise I would have explored more and taken more photos. Since I was with a few friends now, I finally did manage to have a photo of me taken while I was in Juneau...
Richard drove me to the airport and arrived two hours before my flight was scheduled to leave. Right on time if you're planning to fly out of O'Hare. Way, way, way too early if you're planning to fly out of Juneau. I was sitting in their gate area, which is probably the size of a banquet hall and has only 5 gates (all Alaska Airlines), and was the only person in the gate area for at least 45 minutes. There weren't even any airlines people working any desks or anything...I was literally the only person there. Then, another family of three arrived and a business traveller, so now there were five of us. And the five of us were the only people waiting for our flight until ten minutes until boarding time when 20 people suddenly showed up all at once. I guess you don't have to worry about waiting in lines to check in or get through security in Juneau (I certainly didn't). Our flight was immediately cleared for departure and we arrived back in Anchorage early. I wish all flying was like that. Though I suppose growing up flying out of O'Hare I've only seen the worst of air travel and assumed all air travel was like that--it can only get better, right?
