Tag Archives: frozen river

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.

Memory Foam Clouds

Jack took these photos a couple of days ago.  The clouds have a really weird consistency to them, like there are air pockets underneath that are pushing them up in patches.

 

It’s kind of hard to make it out but the clouds are indented from the bottom.
It almost looks like there are mountains in the distance but it’s all clouds.
The clouds look like a layer of memory foam being pressed on from below.

Donjek River Bridge, follow up

A few months after Jack helped haul bridge beams to the Donjek River Bridge in Canada, he went back to haul the beams from the staging area off the road onto the ice where they were constructing the bridge. (Best viewed if you click on the first one and scroll to the right.)  See captions for more info.

Two cranes are needed to pick up bridge beams, one on each end, since they will break if they are picked up from the middle. In the construction process they are pre-stressed to take weight from the top and won’t hold up if lifted from the middle.
The old bridge is on the left and the cranes are moving down onto the river.
Jack is down on the frozen river here with the new bridge on the left and what looks to him like concrete joints on the right.
The orange tarp is covering the concrete and keeping the warmth in from heaters so that it will cure.
The 2 cranes are on their way up to the staging area where they will pick up the beams and place them onto the trailers for the trucks to bring them down to the river where the cranes will then pick them back up and place them on the bridge in their correct positions.
They are loaded and following the cranes back down to the river.