Tag Archives: environment

Welcome to the Dalton

Jack welcomes you to the Dalton, but kind of in the wrong order.  Instead of just getting on the Dalton, he’s just leaving it.  At the very end you can see the Elliot Highway to the right where it continues on to Manley, and at that point he has left the Dalton and is on the Elliot.  It’s a lot simpler than it sounds.  The Elliot Highway was finished in 1959, goes north from Fairbanks and turns west toward Manley, a town a few miles from the Tanana River.  The Dalton Highway was built in the 1970s to supply and access the Trans-Alaska Pipeline and starts where the Elliot turns west to Manley.  If Jack could, he’d redo this video so it goes the right away, welcoming you to the Dalton at it’s beginning.  But it’s such a beautiful day!

Comin’ down The Shelf

You can barely see the surrounding hills and mountains while Jack drives during a snowfall.  Just a nice calm driving experience with a little music to make it more interesting.

Hurry hurry wait

In this one and a half minute video, Jack drives over the pipeline then has to wait in back of another truck while a grader finishes clearing the road.  Then he continues on down the hill – you can see the grader on the left.  (Don’t forget, the video is in HD so don’t watch it blurry!)

Jack pulls over for an oversize load

About an hour after leaving Prudhoe Bay, Jack meets a pilot car for an over-sized load so he stops at a pull-out and waits.  You’ll see the trucks in back of the big load go around it, then a truck that will be traveling faster than Jack goes ahead of him.

The big load is a 400,000 pound mod (modular unit) and there were four 70,000 pound push trucks to get it from Fairbanks to the last hill which is about 60 miles south of Prudhoe.  Only one push truck is needed to get it the rest of the way into Prudhoe and that’s the one you can see here.

(Your volume needs to be turned up on this one.)