Well, today was day 2 of my 4 day, 3 night tour up north of the Arctic Circle in Alaska.

I got out of bed at 9.30am and prepared myself for the day. Shower, put on my thermals, then my mid layer, then my outer layer – including scarf, mittens, woollen hat. Then I was ready to walk the 50 metres to breakfast! Being in the USA, I decided to have a traditional American breakfast – Biscuits and Gravy. I have wondered for some time what sort of biscuits you’d put in gravy, and why you’d have gravy for breakfast. Anyway, the biscuits are Australian scones, cut in half, and the gravy is a mix of what tastes like mayonnaise, white sauce and bits of sausage in it. Surprisingly, it was actually quite tasty. But still something I’d more likely have for lunch than breakfast.

Before I speak of the next event, I’ll introduce you to the four other people on my tour – Marian and Rodney from Queensland, and Connie and Mark from Oregon (if I remember properly).They were delightful company across the trip. A better group I could not have asked for. I had met Rodney previously on a photo tour in Anchorage.

At 11am I went along with Marian and Rodney (also a keen photographer) on a Mountain Safari, which consisted of a trip up the Dalton Highway to a DOT (Department of Transport) way station, the role of which is to keep the lifeline that is the Dalton Highway operational. Given this is the mode of transportation for almost everything up to Prudhoe Bay, a high level of monitoring is required to ensure no cessation of services and deliveries.

I got some really nice photos, again some will be helped along with Photoshop and Lightroom, however here are a few. I really like the texture in a couple of them. I also really like the way the fog lays over very thin parts of the landscape, and the effect it has on the light.

One of the things we learnt was that the moose population was fairly thin in the area due to there only being a couple of months of green shoots in the spruce trees in summer. There is twice as long (four months worth) in Fairbanks, so hence there are more moose closer to that city. Also we heard that the day with the lowest amount of sunlight will be December 21. The sun comes up but this north it does not go higher than the horizon. So there is light from around 10.30am to around 2.45pm, but no sun. December 21 will only have around 10 minutes of sunlight, after which it will increase by 9 minutes per day, until it gets to mid year, when there will be approximately 21-22 hours of sunlight. Not sure how comfortable that would be especially the type of curtains needed to get to sleep.

The TransAlaska Oil pipeline started being built in 1974, after the 1973 international oil crisis caused prices to skyrocket in the USA as it did elsewhere around the world. Special techniques were required during construction to offset the Permafrost problem. Without this, any heat from the pipes would cause a melting of the ice and therefore a pressure downwards due to gravity of the pipes. So some of the pipeline is built above ground on a frame / stilts (see photos yesterday), and some is underground.

The pipeline was developed for approximately 2.1 million barrels per day. The current flow is around 500,000 barrels per day. This is due to a number of factors including that the pipeline is now approximately 39 years old, and was built to last 25 years. So reducing the flow is extending the life of the pipe system.

Not all pumping stations (12 were built along the pipeline) are operational due to the reduced flow of oil. And one of the roles of the operational pumping stations is to keep the oil from gelling up due to the cold. So a certain amount is filtered out when it gets to the stations, is warmed up and then filtered back into the pipes.

With the ageing pipeline, there is now a decision to be made as to when to replace it, and where the finances are sourced to allow this to happen.

One of the things we did see on this trip was the northern-most tree. Here it is, all on its lonesome 😦

And here is an ice road trucker – without the ice at this point.

Then after a while we headed back to the Inn for 3pm finish of the tour. A very enjoyable tour. It also got to the coldest temperature of my whole trip on one part of the tour. The temperature reached approximately minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit, which works out to approximately minus 43 Celsius. Brrr it was cold.

At 11pm, I got up to go over to the pond (it was frozen – about 50 metres from the Inn I was staying at, to take some photos of the Aurora Borealis if it decided to appear. I wandered over first in the dark without my gear to make sure I could get there and back without any problems. Then I got my gear and walked back across and set up. Nothing much happened for the first 20 minutes, and then it came out. Here are a few photos.

After an hour it started to settle down. I was very cold at the time (about 10 minutes after midnight), so I packed up and headed back to the Inn to sleep.