Jack and I just witnessed the biggest hail storm we have ever seen in Fairbanks! Large hail may be normal for the lower 48 but not here. Here are a couple of photos and a video.
Huge hailstorm in Fairbanks
Tag Archives: environment
Cow moose with twins…!
Jack and I had an amazing moose experience in Healy a few days ago. Otto Lake is moose haven. We saw at least 6 moose in a 24 hour period. Here is a photo story of a cow moose and her two babies, and her yearling that she is trying to shoo away. Be sure to click on the first one and scroll to the right to see how it all went down.
The cow moose on the right chased the smaller one, her yearling, away. He doesn’t look too scared but she charged at him several times.
Casually sipping water. The lake is very shallow.
Does he not look just terribly devastated here?!?!? It’s really a sad sight.
She came back several times.
She’s looking back at him but seemed also to be preoccupied.
She heads back the other way.
You can see how close she is to our camper!
And now we know why she was shooing the yearling away! She’s got two calves to take care of.
She keeps trying to scare him away.
One baby ventures out.
But rushes back to the shore.
Then both of them wade into the marshy grass to nibble.
Then they come back toward us, walking along the shore.
Looks like a kangaroo face to us.
What a cute little bugger.
Here comes Mom getting in my shot.
And they follow her.
Trying to keep up.
Before they walk down the hiking trail (aka game trail) Mom stops to nibble.
Looks like they want to nurse.
You can see how very skinny the mother is. It’s no doubt that she needs to constantly eat to keep up her ability to nurse and take care of her babies. Her yearling just doesn’t have a place in this family anymore.
They were very alert but not scared at all by us.
Sometimes it seems like they made the same general movements but it could be that the smaller one, on the left, is copying the larger and more assertive one.
They nuzzle noses and do a lot of other movements that remind you of horses.
They are a lot to take care of, and a lot to trip over.
Bye bye!
Load of pipe goes off the road
The drive line of this truck broke coming down 5 mile last summer. Just like putting it in neutral, the motor didn’t help slow him down. While trying to stop the truck going downhill the driver smoked his brakes, then coasted up 6 mile hill. His brakes wouldn’t hold him when he coasted to a stop, they were too hot. So then he rolled backwards into the ditch. There’s more than accidents that go on up on the road but most of it isn’t exciting enough to post. 🙂
Click to enlarge.
A Glorious Morning on the Road
An amazing thing happened when I was on the road with Jack one time.
We woke up at what the truckers call 62 Mile, a good-sized pullout used by truckers and tourist buses and just anyone traveling the road. It was 
late September and the drive up north had been sunny and crispy cool. I could not have gotten luckier on a time to be on the Haul Road. Orange and yellow autumn colors abounded and even a pink birch tree showed up every so many miles. (Click to enlarge.)
No snow had fallen, but when we woke up that morning at 62 Mile the tundra outside was a winter wonderland. There were tourists milling about, gazing at the frosty grasses that surround the pull out.
And as you can see, there was a long line at the restroom, so I decided to take a walk out onto the tundra, and I’m so glad I did.
I discovered frost-covered fireweed, spider webs glinting in the morning light, and best of all, an absolutely stunning mist rainbow. I hadn’t known they even existed before, but now I have proof they do. As the frost was evaporating off the tundra, the water vapor in the air created a rainbow that shimmered in the sun’s light. As I stood watching, the sunlight slowly burned off the frost on the ground, leaving plants thawed on one side and still frozen on the other, and the glorious rainbow eventually faded away with the warmth of day.
A moment of astounding beauty. Luckily, I took a quick video and lots of photos, some of which may give an inkling of how amazing that morning was. If anyone ever tells you that the arctic tundra is a frozen wasteland with no redeeming qualities, here is proof that it is not true.
(Click on the first one and scroll to the right.)
Huge mod is pushed up “Koyukuk”
The hill that drivers call “Koyukuk” is right next to the Koyukuk River and it’s one of the steepest on the Dalton. It’s about 30 miles south of Coldfoot. The video was taken last winter.
Jack happened to be there to document this huge mod being pushed up the hill by push trucks and also being steered from the back because it’s so long. If you look close you can see someone standing outside on the load as it goes up the hill – he’s steering the rear end as it goes around the curves. The guy doing the steering is one of the former owners of Carlile and he comes up the Dalton for these types of loads that need some special care. (Carlile was sold to Saltchuk Corporation a while ago.)
In case you are wondering, the truck is going pretty slow, about 5 miles an hour in 3rd gear. The last thing you ever want to do, Jack says, is change gears when you’re going that slow with that much weight since you’ll stop before you get it into a different gear. If you stop it’ll take a while to get going again and without the momentum you’re putting a lot of strain on the truck and there’s too much potential for breaking something. The years Jack spent in heavy haul were great years he says, but he doesn’t miss it.
Before and during forest fire photos
A few weeks ago Jack and I went north on the Steese Highway to camp for a few days. When we got there it was a normal clear day but dense smoke rolled in later in the weekend and luckily we were on our way out. The road we were on, US Creek Road, gave us a good view of the hillside and one fire. A helicopter was scoping it out but you can’t see it very well in the photos. Later the road was closed by BLM. There’s a couple of Jack fishing shots too. The grayling weren’t biting but I think Jack could’ve kept trying for hours….well he did actually. To view them at the correct size, click on the top one and scroll to the right.
It was a beautiful day when we drove in.
You often have things all to yourself in the White Mountains.
In the next photo you’ll see a forest fire on this hillside.
Forest fire, courtesy of a lightning strike the night before.
After a night of thunderstorms several fires had been set by lightning, and as we found out later, similar had happened all over Alaska.
US Creek Road is on the right.
This is a previously burned area in front of a smoky hillside.
Here’s Jack fishing for grayling with smoke in the background.
Arctic Grayling have a large blue spotted fin on top which Jack snapped a good shot of with his phone.
Dalton Highway road construction – June 6 (3 of 3)
Here are the last of the photos from when Jack was leaving Prudhoe Bay on June 6th. There’s more info on the captions. Click on the first one and scroll to the right.
The top is the berm that was created in hopes of keeping the river back and the gap underneath is from where water was flowing.
The remnant on top of the hole was snow pushed up into a berm to try to stop the water flow.
This is the west side of the road, not the Sag River to the east.
East side where the river is, still partly frozen.
A big chunk of grounded river ice in the background.
The Sag in the background.
Eroded road and the pipeline is buried right there.
Staged culverts, but not needed. Probably 40 feet long.
Those white broken pieces are foam board insulation used to prevent the ground ice from melting if it is exposed for some reason. They are now trash.
Another section of reconstructed road.
These concrete forms were originally used to weigh down the pipeline as it was laid, in the 1970s, so that it wouldn’t move or float away, but aren’t needed when the oil is flowing.
Here they’re being used as erosion control for the natural gas line that runs from Prudhoe to Pump Station 4.
Waiting as material gets laid.
Staged culverts, probably not needed.
A Kenworth logo on Jack’s steering wheel thrown in for good measure.
Dalton Highway road construction – June 6 (2 of 3)
Here are more photos from when Jack was leaving Prudhoe on June 6th. There’s more info on the captions. Click on the first one and scroll to the right.
The gap on the right between the tundra and the road used to be road.
This gravel was part of the old road.
The trench where the fiber optic cable is was eroded.
This is where the river normally is.
More wash out.
The mile marker had a rough time of it.
Old gravel, for the new road.
Gearing up for road “reconstruction”.
The start of the new gravel pit, for the new road job.
Equipment in front of the gravel pit.
The top is what’s left of the berm that was created a while ago and the gaps underneath are where the river was flowing.
You can see one of the trenches that were created in hopes of reigning in the river, in the background to the left.
The right side of the road has been eroded. More on the next post.
Dalton Highway road construction – June 6 (1 of 3)
The first ten or so of these photos are from when Jack drove into Prudhoe Bay June 6th. The rest are from when he was leaving Prudhoe about 4 hours later. The place is barely recognizable. There’s more info on the captions. Click on the first one and scroll to the right.
The original road goes straight – the detour is to the right.
This is wash out between the original road and the detour road.
You can see the delineator marking the right side of the old road, on the far left in the photo.
Now you can see new culverts and the orange fiber optic cable that ran along the old road, now exposed.
The window is up, sorry. The old road was right there where that big hole is.
Those are culverts (on the left) that were used to try to save the road, but they didn’t work.
They used super sacks (on the left, big white sand bags) to line the road while they filled it in. It was eaten away though as evidenced by the collapsed tundra. Water started eroding the tundra and exposed layers of ice.
This tundra was supported by ice that has been eroded/melted.
Looking south at the end of the detour.
Now Jack is heading out of Prudhoe with the detour to the left.
Motorcycle tourists are common even this early in the season.
The water from the Sag River eroded ice and material from under the road.
Here is the orange fiber optic cable that was buried next to the old road with a layer of ice behind it. Prehistoric ice, that is.
Layers of ice under the tundra.
On the left, the Sag River, the culprit.
The base of this building was underwater a short time ago.
Just snow that hasn’t melted yet.
Melt water that has frozen over night.
On the right, that gap between the road and the tundra used to be road.
The pieces of 4×4 at the ends of the crumpled culverts are used for marking the ends.
Gravel from the old road on top of tundra on top of ice. More on the next post.
Unbelievable flooding photos from ADN
From Alaska Dispatch News:
Loren Holmes / ADN
Loren Holmes / ADN
Loren Holmes / ADN
Loren Holmes / ADN
Loren Holmes / ADN
Loren Holmes / ADN
Loren Holmes / ADN
Loren Holmes / ADN
Loren Holmes / ADN
DEADHORSE — Unprecedented flooding continues to interfere with daily operations on the North Slope oil patch after surging waters wiped away swaths of the Dalton Highway and isolated a section of Deadhorse, the jumping-off point for the sprawling industrial region.
“This is just epic,” said Mike Coffey, commander of the unified incident command, a response team consisting of the state, the North Slope Borough and oil companies. “People who have been here for decades say they’ve never seen anything like it.”
The state has estimated the costs of the damage and repairs since March at $5.1 million. The federal government may pay for much of that, since the icing and flooding on the highway has been declared a disaster, said Coffey, the director of state transportation maintenance and operations.
You can see more photos and get a lot of more info from the article: http://www.adn.com/article/20150521/epic-flooding-dalton-highway-hinders-north-slope-oil-operations
The Jack Jessee Blog 