Alaska Trip 2011: June 4-5 - Tok to Fairbanks

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We continued our journey to Fairbanks, stopping in Delta Junction for the official end of the Alaska Highway, and arriving in North Pole, Alaska, just outside Fairbanks.

Along the Road

A good portion of the road between Tok and Fairbanks looks a lot like these pictures. Nice boreal forest on both sides of the road, with occasional views of mountains or foothills in the distance. Not spectacular, but still very scenic. There are mountains in the background, but the trees are tall around a lot of the pullouts, so it is hard to get pictures of them.

This picture was actually a failed attempt to catch a moose along the roadside. It ducked into the woods just before I snapped this one, but it is a pretty good look at what the forest looks like on the sides of the roads.

Here is that elusive moose just before it ducked into the woods.

The speck you see in this picture is not dirt on the windshield, it is a helicopter overhead. Not sure if they were firefighters on the nearby forest fire, or flightseers, or what.

This picture also shows that Alaska roads are not free from frost heavers, but still this is not bad at all compared to the last 100 miles in Yukon Territory.

End of the Alaska Highway

Many people consider Fairbanks to be the end of the Alaska Highway, but the real end is at Delta Junction, at which point you continue on the Richardson Highway to get to Fairbanks. There is a visitor center at the intersection, where you can get the "required" photo op. They also had a couple other interesting items on display here.

A pig is a contraption that they send down the pipeline from time to time for various purposes, such as cleaning pariffin and gunk from the inner walls, or running telemetry to check out the condition of the pipe.

If looking at the pig didn't give you an idea how big the pipeline is, this cross-section will. It compares a 3-inch and 8-inch pipes to the 48-inch oil pipeline.

When they say the skeeters grow big in Alaska, they aren't kidding. Here's Dale trying to tackle a couple of them.

Wildflowers

Our timing must be right for spring wildflowers. These were all found at roadside stops between Tok and Fairbanks.

Ok, the dandelion isn't a big deal, but that's where the butterfly decided to land.

At first, I was having trouble figuring out what these teeny tiny flowers were - they were only about 1/2 inch across. But when I looked at the picture, without the perspective of the tiny size, I instantly identified them as wild strawberries.

I caught a bee checking out this wild rose.

Under the Bridge

We crossed several bridges with massively wide river beds, with only a small fraction of the river actually flowing. I am assuming these get full during the early spring snow melt. We stopped near one of these rivers, and I walked down under the bridge to get some pictures. Unfortunately I did not get a picture of the water, which was running on the other side, but I did get some pictures of the riverbed, and some clear shots of the mountains that have been mostly obscured by the forest on this stretch of road.

This picture shows at least three small forest fires that were burning in the hills in the background. Apparently fires are fairly common around here. Fortunately, we have not been bothered too much by smoke, at least not yet.

Icy River

This location puzzled me a bit. The other rivers on this stretch of road were thawed and nearly dry, but this one was still ice-covered and full. There was no appreciable difference in elevation here, or any other reason I could see for this one to be still frozen when the others were not. I walked out onto the bridge to get these pictures.

The ice on the river was interesting. You could see several layers of ice, apparently from different snowfalls, with some of the layers showing quite blue. These aren't really glaciers, but they do seem to be showing the same effect that makes glaciers blue. That is caused by pressure from the weight of the snow above it, so there must have been a LOT of snow here.

First Glimpse of the Pipeline

Shortly before reaching Fairbanks, we caught our first glimpse of the pipeline at a bridge crossing.

Next: Fairbanks

We set up camp near Fairbanks, and expect to be here several days.

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