The Arctic Ocean

I received quite the surprise when I finally reached the Arctic Ocean. It was much more frozen than I expected.

Here I am standing on it...

And here I am standing in it...

In the Antarctic they let you swim in the Ocean. This is as far as I could go here. You don't get a natural hot pool either, so probably best not.

The ice was generally pretty mucky too...

Especially with large bits of rust in it.

The record low for Arctic sea ice was last September 13th (2012), when it was 600 miles from here! It will be interesting to see what happens this September.

On September 14th 1984 - only 28 years ago, the Arctic Ice was still at this coastline!

Hmmm! Maybe I shouldn't be driving so much? Although up here I'm easily the smallest thing on the road.

Preparing for the Dalton Highway

One of the big goals for my trip is the Dalton Highway. It would get me past the Arctic Circle, into the Brook Range of Mountains and up to Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic Ocean. 1000 miles from Fairbanks, roundtrip.

One of the tricky parts of travelling to the more remote parts is judging the information you get on how severe the conditions are. Half the time it is difficult to judge the background of the person you talk to. But then of course they don't know the experience of the person they are talking to.

Rental car agencies generally won't let you take their cars up there. There are a few dedicated to providing vehicle for the trip, but they are generally much more expensive and often supply 4x4s.

Advice and info includes things like, take a good spare (no space savers), take a spare spare tire, no services for 240 miles in places, no grocery stores, expensive gas, take an extra gas canister, take a CB radio, don't bother with a CB radio. Oh yes - don't forget your camera.

In the end I decided on a new set of tires for the truck, lots of food and 4 cameras. The truck needed new tires anyway, the roads up to here are not the smoothest. It also needed quite a bit of realignment, more than I've needed on any other car. It took a while to find a tire place whose alignment machine was actually working in Anchorage.

A set of 4 All Terrain tires with a bit of extra knobblyness made me feel alot more confident and much poorer. It wasn't until later that I bothered to check the spare!

My suspicion was that the most dangerous part of the driving would be the big rigs for whom the road was built. Public traffic was not even allowed initially. Advice on this part took many forms, but basically meant - Get out of the way quickly. This was partly why a CB radio was advised.

Prudhoe Bay

One of the ironic things about the Dalton Highway is that you spend alot of money on fuel, (note the English variant agnostic vocab), fuel that gets more expensive the closer you get to the oil rigs.

Then you can't actually get to the coast. You have to stop 10 miles short. But those generous souls in the oil industry then charge only $50 to drive you the last 10 miles in a bus through the industrial complex to the Bay itself. Before I set off from Fairbanks I had provoked the comment from another traveller, "Are you really going to pay big oil for that last bit of road".

To be fair, I did find trip interesting. Driving through the complex we were given lots of insights into its workings and the life of the gas worker. It seems most are on a 2 week on 2 week off schedule, and noone hangs around for the 'off' bit. They're flown straight to Fairbanks.

I guess I wouldn't stick around in these cabins either...

Even though we could only see part of the complex it was impressive in size.

This is one of the drilling rigs they used to use...

The driver/guide pointed it out more as an example of the biggest tire you will ever see. Massive.

Once they've drilled the well a head is put on it...

Not so big. The landscape seems like it dotted with lots of loos. Admittedly large ones.

The oil or gas goes from the well heads into these large plants, which don't seem to do much processing but direct the stuff towards the pipeline. All the three major companies up there pump their output to the same pipeline. They didn't say how they tell which is which when it comes out 800 miles away weeks later in Valdez. (Yes of Exxon Valdez fame.)

They are clearly concerned about safety...

And don't like spills...

They're even keen on promoting the environment...

All very interesting.

Atigun Pass

The Dalton Highway goes right through the Brooks Range of Mountains. It goes over the Atigun Pass, one of the trickier parts of the road.

It turns out its one of those places to have a CB radio...

The local highway crews monitor Ch19 and can tell you when a wide load or convoy is on its way.

Another way to approach it is look up and see what is coming down...

Sometimes it is an extra-wide load. Fortunately they have lead cars well ahead of them with very friendly drivers, who just tell you to get out of the way, in plenty of time. They don't seem to mind that any old charley with a 4x4 uses the road too.

Then when they've gone you get up there as fast as possible.

As you can see the snow and ice is only just receding.

Finally Crossing the Arctic Circle

A couple of times I have been very close to the Polar Circles, but never actually managed to cross them. In Iceland in 1991 I think we got to within about 100 miles of the Arctic Circle. You had to take a boat for the last bit. In 2002 we got a little closer, around 80 miles, from the Antarctic Circle. This time we were blocked of by too much ice in the sea.

Of course in the good ole US of A the Arctic Circle is just another drive through. Admittedly it is nearly 200 miles north of Fairbanks and you've already hit dirt of the Dalton Highway.

Despite all that hardship I did make it...

Notice the smile has just been wiped off my face by a Mosquito. The new hoody is for keeping off the mozzies. I'm sweating buckets under there.

The next stop is Gobblers Knob. A good place for viewing the midnight sun, and sharing the innuendo of course. One of those occasions when it would be more fun to have company.

The truck is starting to get a nice 2 tone look to it. I quite like it.

... and the bike is starting to look like it should be covered up.

[Hey Mike - if you're reading this, take a look at my back window. We were nearly right. That wierd plastic lump/wing on our 4Runners is for blasting wind off the roof and down the back. It helps to keep the rear window clean, almost]

Staying ahead of the crowds

In my usual style I am travelling whilst trying to stay away from the crowds. This is tricky especially with places like Denali National Park. It's one of the reasons I left the Bay Area and headed north a little earlier.

In Denali especially it is particularly difficult to avoid the crowds as there is only one road into the park. Most people have to take the park buses to enter so there tend to be groups of people around. This of course makes it much trickier to see the wildlife. Being by myself I'm not so keen on hiking a long way away from the road.

I figured out that the cyclists can go anywhere along the road. So the first day I got there, I drove as far in as I could then jumped on the bike. Almost as soon as I got away from the car I started seeing much more wildlife. Dall sheep, mountain goats and then a grizzly. Fortunately he was a long way away. Too far for a photo.

Then it turns out that the buses will take bikes. So I popped my bike on the front of one and went as far as it would take me. (The road wasn't open all the way to the end then.) Then I jumped on the bike and went further along the road.

I was treated to the wonderful but scary sight of these guys...

They look very cute, but that is probably the most dangerous combination in Alaska. Another agressive mother and her cubs. When I first saw them they were on the other side of a small gulley, but they headed off downhill out of sight and I had to figure out whether they were coming back up my side. A little tricky when out of sight. Then of course I had to figure out whether to continue along the road or beat a hasty retreat back to the car park. A park ranger assured me I'd be okay continuing as long as I kept my eyes open. I don't think they could have got any wider.

I hung around a little longer and got the photo above and many other good ones, until they headed off in the direction of blocking off my route home. Then I headed off further along the road to have lunch near a beaver pond. When I came back again later they'd completely disappeared.

In total, that day, I saw 5 grizzlies, 2 moose, 30 Dall sheep (including loads of lambs), 1 red fox, and a few caribou.

I must've burnt up alot of nervous energy that day as that evening I ordered a huge rack of ribs. I finished them before the waiter returned - he said "Wow, Proud of you Man!".

Alaskan Junkyards

Driving in and out of all these Alaskan towns a pattern emerges. After hours of driving through the middle of nowhere you start to see presentations of different styles of rusty metal. Usually there is a hint of vehicle shape about the metal. Sometimes not so much.

Each house on the edge of town appears to take pride in having the largest selection of rust available. Fortunately things start to get better as you progress further into the town itself.

For a photographer these are vast stores of weird shapes and textures. So it is very tempting to stop at each one. Alot are close to what must be peoples homes, so it's a bit awkward to stop and take pictures.

Some places have tidied things up a bit, so I stopped at one place where it had this...

It can't have moved in years. But was a relatively healthy specimen.

I was there only a few minutes when someone came over quickly from one of the buildings. So I thought Oh, Oh I'm in trouble now. But no it was just the petrol pump and store attendant feeling rather lonely and hoping for a chat.

So I asked him why there were so many of these 'displays' of iron around. He claimed that alot, like this one was indeed set out for display and to generate interest in the place. But most are a collection of spare parts that they hope to be able to use again.

I had my doubts about the spare part bit as I'd seen this around the corner...

I'd love to see someone get that engine going again.

And I'll bet there's not a single usable part in this one.

When I mentioned this location to the guy, he said "Oh that's my uncles yard" and admitted there wasn't much usable there. Just the feeling that one day...

Going soft in California

They say that if you live too long in California you go soft because the living is so easy. Well one of the things I've finally gotten used to is the endless switchbacking of the trails in the heavily managed parks. Almost any trail is doable if you have the time.

Well not in Alaska, they go straight up...

That green slope on the left is what I'm hiking up. One of those situations where it's actually easier going up than coming back down. Especially when the trail is loose gravel.

But then the view is starting to look like this...

At this point I have reached the top that I could see from the campground.

But above me is this...

And these guys are above me too...

(His mates are the other side of the hill.)

So I kept going until I was level with him...

Then I kept going until I was above him...

Then I figured I may as well keep going until I reached the top...

I was only sure it was the top when I saw the Tibetan Prayer Flags (this ones for you Fee ;-))

That was one nine hour hike. Good job it never actually gets dark up here in the summer.

Captain Cook woz 'ea

It seems like everywhere I go I am preceded by the miners of the world. Wandering around Colorado late last year I often found myself following an old miners road. Even alot of the hikes in Snowdonia, North Wales are old miners tracks. I guess that especially while I'm driving someone will have been there before me.

Preceding the miners and other extraction professions is usually the explorer. Growing up, Captain Cook was one of those English explorers that always seemed to get to those interesting places. He was one of those boyhood heroes who made me wish I didn't get seasick so easily. Well it turns out he beat me to Alaska too. He was searching for the Northwest Passage to help get the riches of the Pacific back to Europe. Someone should have told him to wait for global warming.

This is the view from Captain Cook State Park...

Absolutely pristine view of Cook Inlet. 

Then you get the binoculars out to search for wildlife. It turns out there are about 15 oil/gas rigs out there, although I only noticed one initially. Then there is also this low level thrumming noise presumably coming from these things.

Alot of the story of Alaska is of the extraction of the natural wealth, it seems that the appeal of wildlife and nature tourism is only just beginning to take hold.

[woz 'ea means "was here" in Brummie]

Even The Wildlife is More Civilised Than Me!

Well I guess that it's no surprise to some (most?) of you that I'm starting to realise wildlife is somewhat more civilised than me.

I've now got as far as Homer on the end of the Kenai peninsula. It's famous as a spot for seeing large quantities of Bald Eagles. The last time I was here I very nearly got an amazing shot of a bald eagle rising out of the sea with a fish in it's talons. It flew straight at me and I took a sequence of photos as it got bigger. Then the film ran out, and it was all over. Now I have a digital camera with a better lens, faster focus tracking and most importantly almost endless memory capacity.

Apparently though the 'Bird Lady' who used to feed them has since died and alot of the birds have moved on. I had to be content with a reasonable shot of a juvenile digesting its dinner.

On the way 'home' one night I passed a mother moose and calf living in town...

Like most mothers, moose females can be very agressive, but this one tolerated me hanging around taking shots of the two of them until I got bored. Then it was me that had to head out of town to eat and sleep.

Orcas!!!

While the road North is still iced up, I'm staying around the South West of Alaska especially the Kenai Peninsula.

I've only ever seen Orcas in the distance before, so I hopped on the boat into Kenai Fjords National Park from Seward and hoped for the best. Apparently the best times to see them in this area are between 5th May and 5th June! Being highly intelligent, presumably they all share a Google calendar to get the timing consistent.

It is a fair way out into the park, the whole trip is a 6 hour day. Fortunately it was a smooth day, otherwise I would have struggled to enjoy it at all.

As it was we were surrounded by whales right from the beginning. The only real disappointment was that the boat was very full of tourists. It was difficult to get good shots of the wildlife without hitting  a tourist with my big lens. Having the biggest lens on the boat had its advantages. Some were very helpful and got out of the way when they saw me coming. One guy even wanted a photo of himself posing with it.

This large bull Orca came straight over to check us out. He very quickly got too close for my big lens.

I've still yet to see either an Orca or a whale breach.

We also saw all the other stuff you generally see in this area: humpbacks, mountains goats, bears, porpoises, otters and glaciers.

I've Made it to Alaska!!!

WoooHooo!!

As usual my posts are a little bit behind where I am.
It has gotten a little worse as I've just covered 1600 miles since the last post...

All the way from Jasper, Alberta to Tok (pronounced Towke) in Alaska, via The Yukon. All done without Internet access. So it is still possible!

The official Alaska Highway starts in a place called Dawson Creek at Mile 0, but then everything else is in Kilometres!

As you can see it starts off nice and sunny. Alot further north it looked more like this...

Bike Rack to the Rescue

So that new bike rack I have been proudly featuring in some of my pics has solved a few problems.

On my previous trips, earlier this year and last year I really missed my mountain bike. It's a great bit of exercise, especially after a long day in the drivers seat.

I tried all sorts of combinations of bike inside the truck or on the back door with my ancient rack. But this new one leaves you with good access to the boot, and it all locks to the car. Truly amazing.

The other big problem I was left with when I decided not to buy a camper, was how to cook in the rain. Turns out the bike rack is good for that too...

Unless the rain is really heavy this configuration works great, and I have a tarp which (should) wrap around the lot for really bad weather. It's even possible to get from there to bed, without going 'outside' although I could get stuck.

Note the Trangia cooker I bought in 1991! How's that for re-use?

Canadian Motels are Expensive

The Motel up the road wanted $100 for a room with a view of the car park.

Just down the road I found this spot for nothing...

In the US I've developed the taste for Free camping in National Forests. It's one of the reasons I'm so keen on being able to kip in the truck. It means it doesn't matter what the terrain is like.

Fortunately the Canadians also have these vast public areas where you can camp as long as you bring your own facilities. This spot is right outside of Banff National Park. I can't tell you exactly where as the guy 100 trees over bought my silence with a beer.

A Wise Investment

While I still had a job I invested in a nice big lens. It cost a pretty penny, but produced some good stuff in Costa Rica last year. You can buy happiness apparently.

This was the first time I actually felt it made me safer...

Yup two Grizzlies scrapping away in Banff National Park. With a good lens and a bit of cropping they didn't even notice me.

I'm not sure whether it was play fighting, mating or what.

A Loooong Memory

A long long time ago before the InterWebs, when they'd only just invented mountain bikes, but not suspension, I worked a summer in the Canadian Rockies. Johnstone Canyon Resort, 15 miles North of Banff and run by the incomparable Nokes family, was a fantastic place to spend the summer.

I looked the place up on the InterWeb and found that it is now being run by one of the brothers that was there at the time. So I just could not resist dropping by and saying "Hi".

The beginnings of this years summer staff were there opening and cleaning the place up. No sign of anyone I knew but one of the brothers - Geordie, would be on his way back in a short while. So I checked the place out. I had been a burger chef (voted best in the park - even now) and cabin cleaner. The kitchen looked the same. The diner and dining room looked the same, although some of it is now used for a bigger gift shop.

Out the front there was still the Gas pump that worked when I was there, but not any longer.

The pump only went up to $9.99, so you had to count the number of times the counter went fully around the clock. Extra tricky when the customer has a truck with a big tank on the other side too. We were provided a Mickey Mouse calculator to 'help'. Yes it had Mouse pictures all over it, but was the worst one I've ever used. As a Computer Science student I could see it didn't do 'operator precedence' properly, but the customer was never impressed by that excuse for his bill coming out too high!

The swing door into the kitchen looked the same as the day I marched through and got a cream pie in the face.

While I was busy reminiscing Geordie appeared and he remembered me immediately. He even remembered my name. 29 years later!!! With a fresh crew every summer. Either, I did something wrong (we did get into trouble over a chicken), or I did something right, or he just has an amazing memory. I didn't ask and I'm going for the last option.

No Need to go Further

On one of the ferry rides through the San Juan Islands, I overhead a fellow passenger, also struck by the beauty of the the place, say "It's just like an Alaska cruise". And yes it felt that way.

Then I stayed for just under a week with some good friends in Vancouver. Amidst all the pessimism of us Humans destroying the planet, Vancouver is one of those places where the wildlife is returning.

While I was there we heard that Beaver had returned to Stanley Park. 'Beaver Pool' has been empty of beaver for quite a while... until recently. So myself and Darren headed out beaver hunting just the other night. It was more successful than usual!

I'm starting to think that there's no real reason to travel into the wilder places. Maybe I should stay in the urban areas and let it come to me.

Vancouver even has art!

Now I'm headed for the Rockies.

The Only Casualty was a Pig!

Getting a taste for island hopping I then headed for the San Juan Islands as they are already seeing Orcas this season.

Besides being on a ferry between the islands makes this feel like a holiday ;-)

I ended up on San Juan Island which was the center of a territorial dispute between the US and Canada/Britain. An agreement had the division between the US and Canada a little ambiguous leaving both side claiming sovereignty over San Juan Island. This was fine until 1859 when an Irishmans pig ate some Americans potatoes who then shot the pig. The dispute escalated until US and British troups were dispatched to the islands to spend the next few years goading each with insults and trying to get the other side to fire the first shot. Nobody did and the arbitrator, Kaiser Wilhelm I eventually awarded the island to the US.

So only the pig was a casualty of this 'war'.

The English and American Camps are still there as Parks and tributes to solving a dispute without a human dying. They couldn't tell me who ate the pig.

In my unbiased opinion the the English Camp was by far the nicest.

Didn't see any Whales of any kind, but did get to see a family of foxes playing one afternoon.

Finally Heading North

Well after all this faffing around I'm finally heading north.

The first day I managed about 500 miles and stopped just south of Eugene Oregon. I confess... I used a motel!!! By the second night I made it to Whidby Island just east of Seattle. Now the scenery is fantastic. So Tuesday night I camped at Deception Pass.

Beautiful location in the middle of nowhere. Right on the waterfront but right next to the local Air Force base. Fortunately the lads were in the pub and not shattering the stillness.

My Blood is Sooo Thin

After a few years in California and a couple of extended trips to the Tropics, I reckon my blood is alot thinner than it used to be. I used to be very tolerant of the cold - quite enjoyed it really.

So when I casually turned up at the rim of Bryce Canyon, I got quite a shock. It is definitely a Dawn location, so you need to be there really early - especially it's particularly popular with photographers.

So there I am at 6:30AM (Pretty good start for me), at 9000ft on the rim waiting for the sun to come up in the howling wind. The trouble with the spot being popular is that you need to claim a spot and not move. The wind was strong enough that there was a chance of the tripod being blown over.

So an hour later when the sun has risen sufficiently for reasonable coverage of the bowl I am as cold as I can ever remember being. This is my excuse for this particular shot not being my best of the place...

I had a long hot shower after that.

Maybe I'll change my plans and go to Hawaii next year rather than Alaska. Hopefully I'll survive England at Xmas.

What Planet is This?

This is my second time to the Bisti Badlands in New Mexico, but the weirdness of the rock formations still amazes me.

This photo could easily be of another planet.

It is particularly spooky wandering around there by yourself. You do wonder if there are Alien eggs in there somewhere waiting for the right opportunity.

It gets even spookier because the best (read weirdest) rocks are about a half hour walk from the car park. And of course the best light is around sunset. And the location is miles from anywhere. So the walk back to the car is in almost complete darkness.

It's actually one of those times when a GPS is really useful for hiking.

The White Rim Road

I have been to Canyonlands National Park a number of times. There's lots of very high viewpoints, looking deep into the canyons. Of course I wanted to get down there and explore. Just as soon as I had enough time. Dead Horse Point State Park is right next to Canyonlands and it has one of the best views in the area. See that road down there it's called White Rim Road. 100 miles of 'off-roading', meaning you need a couple of days to do it and camp down there.

So I dropped by the Park office and got my camping permits. I also got lots of dire warnings from the rangers about rockfalls and ice on the road and questions about do I have enough fuel to get back out the way I came if I get blocked. 100 miles or so doesn't sound very much and on the normal road I'm getting a range of about 500 miles. But when you go off-road fuel consumption skyrockets. On a steep hill in 4Lo I've seen it go under 5MPG, at which rate I wouldn't make it round. So it totally depends on road conditions. I didn't want to have to buy extra fuel canisters, so I thought I'd wing it.

One of the campsites came highly recommended by the Park Ranger because it had the tree! The only facilities were what you brought with you. This campsite had a rock.

Alot of the road is fairly smooth gravel, but there are some very interesting spots where 4Lo is very handy. When it's very steep and rough, crawling along slowly is the only way to go.

Sometimes it doesn't look like there's enough road for even one car. Plenty of river though. That's the Green river, the biggest tributary of the Colorado.

But why is it called the White Rim Road? Seems like there's more red than anything else, right? Well here's another view of it from above...

If you like you isolation, I can highly recommend this trip, I saw one other 4x4 and 2 bikes in three days. Take a copy of Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" with you.