Tag Archives: winter

Pump stations, Brooks Range, & a raven

Days are getting longer and brighter around here now, but we’ve still got tons of great footage from the dimmer days of winter. Here’s our current favorite.

Over the course of about 2 hours after leaving Prudhoe Bay, Jack drives by Pump Station 3 on the Dalton Highway, then heads down into the foothills of the Brooks Range with Galbraith Airport and Pump 4 in the distance. After communing a few moments with a curious raven, he goes up and over Atigun Pass then down The Shelf, passing Chandalar state camp near the end.

Snow Phenomenon

Below you can see the unique snow phenomenon that Jack saw on the Dalton when he came over the top of Gobbler’s Knob a few weeks ago. The first video shows him seeing it and the low sun casting alpenglow into his cab. The second is a compilation of clips of it with real audio of he and another driver discussing it and other things. The third (at double speed) is coming up and under it and the blowing snow on the road. And the fourth is later that day, just a beautiful drive going south at 4x speed.

Jack believes the snow phenomenon was a localized wind storm that kicked up snow into what looked like a cloud or even a mountain from far away. It was a windy day overall.

Minus 57 degrees!

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.

 

Chucky’s Corner

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.

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!