Bill & Jan's Excellent Adventure: Long and winding road

We've been in Fairbanks, actually the North Pole right next door, and yes, Jan did go over and talk to Santa. We were able to hit a few stores here, REI, Wally World, and some decent grocery stores, although the choices aren't as good as in the southern parts of the state. Fairbanks is a place of extremes, high summer temps, into the 90's in the summer and really cold winter temps averaging -10 to -20's, but the record low is -66!! It is also kind of rough here, hard to describe, not as pretty or polished as other towns we've visited. I'm sure part of it is due to the weather, but there is something about it.

We wanted to do one thing in particular while we were here. On our last visit, 9 years ago, we drove to the Arctic Circle and then turned around, this time we wanted to get to at least Coldfoot, and maybe Wiseman, both featured on the tv shows, Ice Road Truckers, and Life Below Zero. Crazy, maybe, as Wiseman is 267 miles from our campground on mostly dirt road, the "Haul Road", as the Dalton Highway is referred. We got off at 0515, yes it was light out, still light pretty much all the time, and the first place we stopped was a info spot along the pipeline. As you drive this route you parallel the pipeline the whole way. The pipeline itself is an amazing accomplishment, hard to believe it is 37 years old with virtually no major problems. The Alyeska Pipeline runs 800 miles from the North Slope down to Valdez. We stopped and looked at the pipeline up close. I should mention there is no real security around it, you can walk right up to it, climb on it, etc, although they suggest you don't as it is easy to fall off, I guess, at least that's what the signs say. Amazing in this day and age that there is not major security surrounding it, but as we were talking, how would you protect 800 miles of pipe through some of the greatest wilderness in the world?

The cooling radiator fins

The teflon covered cradle that supports the pipe

Closeup of the support, there is very slippery teflon on these surfaces

You can see the curves they built into the pipeline

The fins you see actually act as radiators to dissipate heat, the vertical supports go down into the permafrost and it is important to make sure the ground remains frozen. They work automatically without any moving parts. The pipeline is not restrained on the cradles, there are no fasteners, it just sits on the teflon coated cradle which is also free to move around the horizontal support, that way with the huge temperature fluctuations, possibility of earthquakes, the pipeline can expand and contract as it needs. That is why the pipeline meanders along curving right and left instead of straight to allow for expansion and contraction. The pipe itself is about 1/2" thick solid welded steel and is insulated with 4" of fiberglass then covered with a metal outer layer to protect it from the elements, and you climbing on it no doubt:-) The crude in the pipe starts off at about 145 degrees and even when it gets to Valdez is still over 100 degrees. The pipeline over its length holds 9 million barrels of oil and it takes about a week for the oil to go all the way through! The flow rate is much reduced now from its original rate and that causes more wax to build up in the pipe so they use pigs to clean and evaluate the line.

An old time pig in the foreground and a modern one behind

The modern polyurethane pig

So moving past the display we got serious about our ride north. The drive to Livengood on the Elliot Highway is all on pavement and there you pick up the Dalton Highway.

You can see the Yukon River ahead

There is only one bridge across the Yukon River and we went over it. It also carries the pipeline across underneath it. The road and therefore the bridge were absolutely necessary so the pipeline could be built and supplied, and they had to have provide access to the Northern Slope, in fact, about 160 semi trucks ply the highway daily. It was a rush job, in fact, all 358 miles of it were built in 154 days!

Am amazing accomplishment especially when you consider the terrain and environment.

The bridge across the Yukon

A good view of the meandering pipeline paralleling the Dalton Highway

Fuel is another consideration, at the Yukon River there is a camp, the Yukon River Camp that sells fuel and food, and a truck stop, and at Coldfoot, there is the Coldfoot Camp that also sells fuel, 119 miles farther on, and of course the home to the truck stop made famous on Ice Road Truckers, our destination for lunch. The Yukon Camp is at the 55 mile marker and the Coldfoot Camp is at the 175 mile marker, and that's it! And we made it about noon!

This is the Trucker's Cafe, no not even a sign

The original Coldfoot Camp

So after our lunch and a couple teeshirts of course, we decided to push another 13 miles to Wiseman. Now we had watched Life Below Zero, and one of the characters lives in Wiseman, but really doesn't give any info on the tiny town, so we didn't know what to expect. It has been a town since 1908, but only connected to the Dalton Highway since the early 1990's, there are 14 residents, and it turned out to be a cute place. When the gold ran out near Coldfoot, the town up and moved to Wiseman, including some of the buildings, it had its heyday in the 1920's, and then has dwindled to where it is today.

The sign approaching the town which is 3 miles from the Dalton

The old Post Office

A thriving little inn in town

One of the buildings

It was fun and a beautiful day, but we had a long, long way to get back, but before we did we went another 5 miles north to a point where you could see Sukakpak Mountain, a gentleman in Wiseman said it was worth seeing. It was cool.