Happy 2020! Jack has been seeing very cold temperatures up on the Dalton. It’s been as cold as 40 below around Fairbanks but closer to 60 below up north. Here are some photos from the recent weeks. Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and has a terrific 2020!
Click here to go to the Anchorage Daily News and find out what happens at these cold temperatures.
Jack participated in the Joy Wiebe Memorial Truck Convoy last Saturday that started at the Colville yard (Joy worked for Colville) on Van Horn Way and ended in Fox for a gathering. There are 4 videos here with the 1st, 2nd and 4th being sped up versions of the convoy, as viewed from the dash cam in Jack’s truck. The 3rd video in the sequence is “Joy’s Last Call” and comments from truckers over the radio, then the convoy goes by the pipeline viewing station where many onlookers are gathered and Jack lays on the horn like he was told to do. There were 70-80 trucks in the convoy.
Below are the videos of the Memorial “Joy Ride” and here are a few photos Jack took of the procession and gathering. If you aren’t interested in the sped up versions of the convoy and just want to see the real time comments on the radio just watch video #3.
Jack’s been doing a little bit of heavy haul this past week. He took a 95 foot cement panel from Anchorage to Fairbanks. The panel was just one small part of a natural gas tank that is being built in south Fairbanks, as you can see in the below photos. It was about a foot of cement poured on a thick metal sheet that is slightly curved. We stood on it to take photos.
The truck’s shadow is elusive at first but toward the middle of the clip it comes out in all it’s glory and gets down with the funky music.
Here’s two 2-minute clips of a section of the road that is about 130+ miles from Fairbanks. At the beginning, Jack passes by Chucky’s Corner on the right. Chucky was a trucker who lost his life on that corner and it’s memorialized with the name, and the cross.
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!
Travel to another planet with Jack when he drives by one otherworldly track rig after another. This might be the best video yet so don’t give up half way through when there’s a lull in the traffic…there are more of these crazy rigs coming! (There’s music but it’s quiet at the beginning.)
Some of you have requested clips where you can hear real audio from the road. Here are two mixtures of clips with real audio in real time.
Jack takes a break at Hilltop before heading down the road. This is sped up very fast so you can see the daylight fade. At some point the camera’s time clock locks up.
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.
