Well last day of the blog unfortunately, thoroughly enjoyed writing it and glad I decided to keep a record of it all, not just for posterity but because it got dark every night at 6.30pm and often there was nothing else to do apart from watch US TV which loses it’s novelty quick.  That or drink, but I wanted to stay ‘aff it’ while in Alaska, which amazingly I’ve managed to do.  Full of good intentions for when I get home to keep it going but obviously I’ll be back on the heroin by Friday.  Kidding mum and dad obviously, those days are over.  Although I might use a wee bit to get some of this weight off.  I shouldn’t joke, they worry.

Yesterday was a nice relaxing day for once, managed to sleep for almost 10 hours.  I think the adrenaline of the past couple of weeks had subsided and my body shut down.  Got up and headed into Anchorage to get gifts for those that I knew would bollock me if I didn’t.  You know who you are.  Hope you enjoy your tack, it weighs a ton!

Lol, literally just seen a baggage handler absolutely hurl my bag onto the ‘travelator’ that leads up the plane out the window btw!  Thank Christ I decided to take my camera on board with me after all!  Apologies if the tack is smashed and broken.

So aye, Alaska.  Strongly recommend it.  It’s on the whole a very friendly place, but not as overbearing as other places I’ve been to in the US. I get the feeling people are quite private here, which makes sense given most people come here to get away from other people.  It’s a macho place but then it kinda needs to be due to it’s expanse, industry and climate, not sexist though, even the women are macho. Actually macho isn’t the word, macho infers bullshit, Alaskans have no time for bullshit.  ’Tough’ is the word.

The scenery is absolutely second to none.  I’ve been to the Alps and Pyranees and neither even come close to the splendour of Alaska.  It is HUUUUUUGE.  You could literally just hire a car and drive about for a fortnight, which I suppose is mostly what we’ve done.  So many natural wonders to visit and gawp at.  On the wildlife front you don’t see it much due to the sheer expanse of the place, but when you do it’s magnificent, even the animals are massive.

Foodwise it’s serious big portions of ‘trucker food’ everywhere.  I’ve literally packed on half a stone in 2 weeks.  Absolutely loving it, if I lived here I would almost certainly not make it past 40.  I SERIOUSLY need some roughage, far too much meat and cheese and potato over the last fortnight.  The fart lottery on the Alaska to Minneapolis stretch involved many winning tickets, much to my embarrassment.  There was however an obese Alaskan sitting next to me so I think he made for a good decoy. I could tell he knew I was thinking this.  Double whammy - sitting next to a farter and unfortunately looking like the most obvious culprit. Nae joy.  Not so lucky on the Minneapolis to Amsterdam stretch mind you.  lol.  Oh dear.  

Hope whoever has been following this has enjoyed reading it and checkin the photos. Have been getting mostly great feedback and there’s even talk of sending me elsewhere to blabber pish about it.  I’d start the whip round soon cos I’m eyeing up the Trans Siberian Railway i.e. £££££.  Actually no wait, the Russians love lots of meat and cabbage, f**k being trapped in a train with me on that diet.

Have some random photos.  Cheers!

Got barely any sleep last night due to my upstairs hotel neighbours being utter *****.   Sounded like they were 10 pin bowling on rusty pogo sticks.  Phoned reception twice to complain but nothing happened.  By about 6am I just got up and decided to leave, nothing worse than lying in the dark seething.  Packed up all my stuff and headed over to Sam’s Sourdough Cafe for one last epic breakie.

As I left Fairbanks, the start of the drive was fine, noticed the temperature dropping slightly on the dashboard but the air seemed clear and there was even some gaps in the clouds allowing the sun to shine through.  No snow on the ground and barely any traffic, looked like it would be a good run.  The route from Fairbanks to Anchorage is about 360 miles, about 80 miles outside of Fairbanks you slowly ascend up into the Denali National Park where it plateaus for about 30 miles before slow descending back into the huge 200 mile long valley that eventually takes you into Anchorage.  Lots of nice scenery as usual, which I was gawping at as I made the slow climb to Denali.

Guess who I drive past on the climb, about 100 miles outside of Fairbanks?  Only the wee guy on the bike!!  I was utterly gobsmacked, how…..how was he doing this!?!  I fumbled for my phone and got a pretty awful photo (see below).  The day before he was 600 miles north on the arctic coast!!!  He had obviously got a lift back down somehow but how was he 100 miles outside of Fairbanks at 8.30am?!?!  And why did he get a lift down and not up?  I was so dying to stop and turn around and go and try and chat to him, but there were no turning spaces and the longer I left it the more I talked myself out of it. I’m quite enjoying the enigma of the whole thing too.

About 20 miles past him the temperature dropped to around -3 and it was starting to snow.  The road slowly but surely got whiter and whiter as I slowly climbed to the Denali plateau.  I hadn’t realised but by the time I reached the top it was now about -6c, as I took a big sweeping corner the car just totally lost grip and started to spin sideways on the road.  I absolutely jobbied (Babs friendly) myself.  No idea how but I didn’t leave the road, came to a stop in the middle of it facing the barrier, had to get moving asap before something came round that corner.  The wheels were barely gripping at all but I managed to maneuver myself round and back on track.  Heart was in my mouth!!  Pretty much every vehicle on the road here was bigger than me, especially the 70 ton trucks that flew about everywhere at full pelt.  I set off again at around 20 miles an hour.

After about 15 minutes I found myself on a really long stretch of road and could see headlights coming up behind me so I picked up my speed a little.  I could see as the vehicle neared that it was a 2 wheel drive car like mine, I was begging they wouldn’t try and overtake as I knew there was a huge chance they’d spin out.  They did on both accounts, as soon as the car pulled out onto the opposite side of the road I seen it oversteer badly in my left hand mirror, they had completely lost control, the car snaked from side to side then did a full 360 and disappeared off the road behind me in an explosion of snow.  My god this is really hard not to swear btw.  I couldn’t see where they’d gone but had to stop obviously.  Took me about 200 yards to come to a stop as the road was covered in black ice with snow on top.  Got out and walked back along the road to see if they were okay.  Thankfully the drop at the side of the road was a mellow embankment that was about 8 foot deep, I could see from the distance the car had slid off the road but hadn’t toppled.  I couldn’t work out if what I was doing was the right thing to do, running along a highway on black ice, with my car parked on the tiny hard shoulder.  What if someone skidded out and smashed into my car, or worse me?!  I had to see if whoever was driving the car was okay though and see if we could get them back on the road.  We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere (as you so often are in Alaska).  On approaching the car I could see there was already a guy out pushing, with a girl in the front driving.  They seemed to be fine.  Even better than that they seemed to be laughing! Not sure if it was out of shock or not mind you.  After some introductions and banter about the whole situation I tried to help them push the car out but it wasn’t happening.  They too were heading to Anchorage but declined my offer of a lift, they had a mobile so opted for phoning a pal to come and get them.  I got a ‘thumbs up’ photo of them before heading back to my car (see below).  I set off once again at a snails pace, knowing all to well that at some point I was going to have to make the descent down from Denali.

The next 2 hours were almost certainly some of the scariest I’ve had to endure.  My car was absolutely awful in these conditions.  To make things worse it was starting to snow heavier and I couldn’t make out what was road and what wasn’t.  Thankfully in Alaska they have that corrugated ditch that keeps you awake if you veer off the road on pretty much every road, so I knew I was getting too close to the edge when the vibrations started.  Problem was the snow was getting so deep that even that was getting filled in.  On top of this there were huge 18 wheelers passing me in the opposite direction doing about 50mph as well as 4x4s overtaking me throwing up clouds of snow so I couldn’t see where I was going.  It was an absolute and utter nightmare.  The car was skidding everywhere and as soon as you corrected it, it would skid in the other direction.  I couldn’t stop in case something came up behind me either.  Stress was not the word.

After 20 miles of this I passed my first sign that indicated a big downhill was coming.  My father talked about “sphincter tightening moments” the day before, I don’t think you could have passed a needle through mine at this point.  The worst thing that could have happened did happen right at the start of the descent, I could see a huge 18 wheeler coming up behind me fast in my rear view mirror.  I was going about 15 miles an hour in 2nd gear, if I went any faster I was in danger of losing control, if I stopped I would skid.  He looked like he was going to crash right into the back of me if he kept up his current pace.  Just as I thought this, in front of me appeared another 18 wheeler that was trying to make it up the hill and had skidded off!!  The guy behind had to try and overtake but was in danger of smashing into the other truck!!  FFS!  I know this is a really stupid thing to do, but I reached for my phone and took a photo of the 18 wheeler that had skidded off and another of the 18 wheeler overtaking me.  I am an experienced blogger (2 weeks) and have many years of internet experience so don’t try this at home.  He flew past me, narrowly missing the other truck, then flew back in onto my side of the road, causing a 4x4 coming up the hill to go off the road!!  This was utter bedlam!!  Obviously I couldn’t stop as I was on a 10% gradient in snow and black ice!  Reached the bottom and seriously thought I was going to feint.  Heart was doing about 200 bpm and the car was still sliding about but at least I was off the hill.  Over the next 10 miles or so I passed another truck and 2 other cars at the side of the road.  I still have no idea how I wasn’t one of them too.  (obviously incredible and manly driving skills).  I then reached about another 10 miles of slush, which wasn’t much better, in fact worse in some ways as it threw you about on the road as if you were on tracks. I have never been so glad to see tarmac in my life. 

I am guessing most of you will think this has been grossly exaggerated for dramatic effect but I assure you this is what happened today.  I genuinely thought I was going to die about 3 times this afternoon at least.  I have however learned some valuable lessons…

• always check the local weather forecast before setting off on a long drive when you’re just outside the arctic circle
• never skimp on a 2 wheel drive car when you’re just outside the arctic circle
• try and not cry when you think you’re going to die, you cannae see anything and you look like a fanny (that’s American for bottom Babs).

So I’ve decided I have had enough drama to last me quite some time, tomorrow I’m going shopping and not even taking a car, I cannae handle it.  Hopefully I’ll bump into the bike guy and unravel the secrets of the the ominous self propelled arctic adventurer!

Cannae believe I drove 1000 miles of the Dalton Highway without a hitch then almost carked it on Highway 3…..

Right firstly this was a pretty uneventful day so don’t expect a jampacked update, however today (Day 12) more than made up for it!  I got far more excitement than I needed today.

Secondly, that’s an end to the foul language, I discovered my friend Cara’s six year old daughter Babs is a fan of the blog, due to her interest in polar bears.  I am very sorry about the naughty words Babs, I am a very bad man.  I promise there’ll be no more from now and on.  Here’s a photo of Babs enjoying the blog with her polar bear hoodie on….

 

So aye today mainly involved lots and lots of driving in the snow with barely any view to look at.  We left at about 7am in the dark from Wiseman to get back to Fairbanks where we had to pick up my hire car from the hotel, hoover and wash the jeep we had hired, return it to the hire place then get my old man to the airport for 3.30 to catch his plane to Vancouver. Amazingly we did it all and got to the airport for 3.28.  Textbook.

I was sad to say cheerio to the old boy, it was the end of the main part of the trip and it had been a total blast from start to finish, we not only managed to not kill each other but had a laugh and generally got on great.  I headed back to the hotel to chill out and get an early night as I was up at 6am to drive back to Anchorage.  Having had quite an uneventful day I was worried that there wasn’t much else going to happen worth blogging about before I went home.   How wrong I was.

Took a few snaps yesterday but not many….

Was quite sad to say goodbye to Barter Island this morning, having said that we couldn’t have wished for a better couple of days.  It’s rare to be able to fly in and out of the place on the days you had planned, as flights are cancelled regularly due to the weather.  With hire cars to return and planes to catch this would have been an expensive pain in the arse.  We said our goodbyes to Jennifer and Art and flew back to Deadhorse.

Gorgeous day today in the arctic.  Blue, cloudless skies and barely any wind.  The temperature had dropped to about -10c in Deadhorse so it was crystal clear too.  We could even see the Brooks Range mountains as we approached the Dalton, which were over 150 miles away.

As we were leaving Deadhorse my old man suddenly proclaimed “there’s that c**t on the bike!!”, I looked up and sure enough, the wee guy we had seen just outside Coldfoot on the way up was cycling into Deadhorse as we left!  230 miles in 3 days in -10, over a huge mountain range and with some incredibly strong winds and icy roads. Nails. Snapped a wee pic of him on his home stretch, see below. 

Great drive today, seemed to fly in, I think being able to see the half way point in the distance helped immensely, and of course the first warm sun we had had on our faces for days.  We had set ourself 8 hours to get to Wiseman but made it in around 6 due to the good conditions, there was a couple of ‘sphincter tightening moments’ as my old man put it but generally pretty good.  Wiseman is an idyllic old mining village in the middle of a spruce forest just north of Coldfoot.  We were greeted by the owner of the log cabin’s 10 year old son Leo, who stood at the end of the road-end, bolt upright and holding a firm military salute.  We appropriately reciprocated then he burst out laughing at us, cheeky monkey.  I got out and had a blether with him, nice wee guy. Couldn’t help feel sorry for him though with no other pals around to play with.  Probably why he got his kicks winding up tourists.

We were shown to our cabin by his tall, elf-like German mother Oota, who was also very chatty and friendly.  Our home for the night was built by Leo’s father Bernie, a man of few words but evidently quite handy, the cabin was an impressive achievement considering it was built single handed. Like something out of Grizzly Adams but with mod cons, super toasty and made entirely of hand cut and hand carved wood.

Oota came and gave us some sandwiches and canned soup for our dinner which I immediately got on the stove.  True to form my old man decided to go for a “Greyfriars Bobby” as soon as I started cooking, the toilet was right next to the cooker.  My only tip for Bernie is to maybe rethink the sound proofing qualities of whatever timber he is using for the walls.  Suddenly my appetite subsided somewhat.  Managed to get it down my neck though.  (he’s gonny boot my baws for this).

So here we are sipping a couple of whiskeys and chillin’ in our timber crib.  Tomorrow it’s back to Fairbanks down the remaining 200 miles of the Dalton at which point my old man leaves me to fly out to Vancouver to see a friend, absolutely no idea what I’ll be doing after that, got 3 days to kill on my Jack Jones before returning to Anchorage to fly home on Sunday, so hopefully chasing some Aurora photies!

Btw, the first photo of the plane was taken at the ‘airport’ on Barter, it belonged to Robert our rubber dingy Captain.  Some polar bears destroyed it one night and he’s left it there at the side of the run way ever since.  It’s proper fucked. (sorry to all the people that are not my pals that are now reading this blog btw including my parent’s friends and people I have met along the way on my holiday, the language is atrocious I know).

If you’ve been reading this blog and thinking “ach get tae fuck ya show off, stop harping on with endless superlatives about how amazing your stupid wee holiday is, who do you think you are eh?” then a) why are you still reading it and b) prepare to loathe me.  

We got taken out in a boat today by Robert, one of the Kaktovik locals.  He was a total dude.  One of these guys that was naturally friendly and had a reassuring glint of knowing in his eye. He appeared to be very happy with his lot and generally just emitted a good vibe.  A fine captain to have on the tiny wee inflatable dingy we were in.  I mean really tiny, kept wondering if the lifejackets me and my old man had on, which were the size of a child’s waistcoat, and not much thicker would save us if a narwhal decided to make natural history and spike the boat with it’s huge tusk causing it to deflate.  That and the water was just above freezing.  Anyway in Robert’s shovel like hands we felt pretty safe. 

He took us over the lagoon to the spit, from where we had seen the bear family swim over from the day before. From the distance we could see there were around 30 bears over there, unfortunately a good bunch of them did a runner when they heard the boat but many stayed chillin by the water.  We slowly made our way down the beach past many bears (pics below) then ended up at a spot that I can only describe as a polar bear nursery.  2 adults kept watch over 8 cubs that were all tussling and chasing each other in and out of the water.  It was such a joy to watch, they seemed to be having a magic time and didn’t seem to give a shit about us.  This meant we could get out the boat and get a bit closer, under the strict instructions from Robert that if they started to move towards us we must bolt into the boat immediately.  Btw when I say cubs, I’m talking about bears around the size of a regular female black bear, not babies by any means.  These bastards could shift, and were quite capable of mauling I’d imagine.

It was nice to hear that what we were witnessing was a very rare sight, to see so many young bears in the same spot playing.  We watched for about an hour or so, could have sat there all day but me and my old man were absolutely baltic. I think big inuit Robert thought we were a pair of softies.  I could barely move my mouth to speak and my old man’s face was as red as a baboons arse, Robert didn’t even have any gloves on the loon!

So anyhoo, that was the major event today and I’m totally knackered so cannae be bothered typing much tonight.  Tomorrow it’s the reverse journey back over to Deadhorse then down southwards on the Dalton, however instead of staying the night there we’re heading straight back down to a little mining town north of Coldfoot called Wiseman to stay with a German couple in their log cabin B+B. Sounds pretty interesting but doubt they have wifi so may not get a chance to update the morra.  In the meantime have some polar bear porn…..

Woke up at 5.30am (can’t seem to sleep past 6am on this trip) to another overcast day in Deadhorse.  Our plane to Barter Island didn’t leave til 2.45pm so we had some time to kill. Deadhorse/Prudhoe is essentially a huge oilfield, with almost all of it’s population consisting of temporary workers which can exceed 3000 people, so it’s pretty big.  There isn’t a hell of a lot to do, no landscape to look at as such, just industrial machinery and tundra.  So we drove about and gawped at the millions upon millions of dollars of trucks/tankers/cabins/snowmobiles/bulldozers etc etc to kill some time. A lot of it quite interesting to photograph so I was happy.

As we made our way around our circuit of the plant a cheeky little brown/black arctic fox ran out onto the road, didn’t seem too bothered by us at all and even lay at the side of the road for a while just staring at us, shortly after another white one appeared and they ran about together, possibly as part of a precoital ceremony.  It defo looked a bit flirty to us anyway. Got some great shots of the wee rascals but unfortunately I have somehow lost the USB lead to my SLR so cannae post any here just now. After a quick trip to the Deadhorse gift shop for some postcards we made our way to the tiny wee airport to catch our plane, 30 minutes later we had landed in Barter Island.  

Barter was quite beautiful and serene, although overcast the sun was shining through the clouds creating a soft glow to the frozen surroundings and there was barely a whisper of a wind.  Arthur and Jennifer Smith, the film makers I had originally contacted which sparked this entire trip came to meet us in their ‘filmbulance’, a converted US ambulance that they used to get up close to the bears to film.  After some quick ‘hello’s and ‘nice to finally meet you’s we headed over to ‘the boneyard’, a place where the local Kaktovik residents dump the carcasses of the 3 bowhead whales they are allowed to catch and slaughter every year.  Jennifer and ‘Art’ seemed quite excited as there was some bears spotted around there earlier in the day.

If someone could have asked me when I initially conceived the trip what would be the ultimate situation when we arrived at Barter, I’m not sure I would have even been able to come up with what happened next.  I could hear Art getting pretty excited from the front of the truck so I poked my head out the window for a peek.  There in front of us was a HUGE pile of whale bones covering about 50ft square, with the nearest bones to us being part of a skeleton still covered in dripping tentacles of blubber.  Next to the skeleton was a female polar bear with her two cubs, getting stuck into a big slab of whale meat on the ground.  This was literally about 30ft away.  It was almost too much to take in at once.  Could barely hold my camera I was that excited and duffed the first few photos - lens cap on, power off, settings wrong etc.  My head was a mess.  Finally sorted it in time for Jennifer letting me know I could actually get out the truck.  Which I must admit, did feel like a really stupid thing to do, but they were experts so who was I to argue?  Got out and there I was with nothing between me and the 3 bears.  Must have taken about 100 photos in the first 5 minutes. I could see my old man in the front of the truck looking a bit concerned for my safety, but within a few minutes he was out too.  Massive grins all round.

After clambering over the carcass for about an hour, they made their way off down the beach then swam over the lagoon to the arm of land on the other side.  Through the binoculars we could see 2 other families over there.  About an hour went past without any other action then Jennifer noticed in the distance another family of 3 swimming towards us.  She recognised the family as a mother and two 2 year old bear cubs that she had filmed previously.  The mother had a damaged leg but seemed fine in the water as she sailed towards us with her boys.  When they got out the water the 2 two year olds pointed their snouts into the air for a good sniff in our direction and started making their way over.  The mother on land was a poor old thing, could barely walk with her gammy leg but eventually made it over to the carcass to join the cubs.  Jennifer had warned us that these 2 cubs were particularly cheeky and inquisitive and that if they started coming towards us we should get back in the truck immediately, which they did.  I can tell you that even a 2 year old polar bear coming towards you from 30ft away is a shit scary experience.  They have a gait that suggests they could break into sprint at any moment and barely take eye contact away from you.  The Andersons were back in the truck before you could say ‘fuck this’.  Jennifer and Art stood their ground outside the truck and only barely got inside before the bear was upon them, like seriously the thing was about 6ft away when she closed the door, my heart was in my mouth!  They say they can read the body language but I dunno, I get the feeling today both of them were a wee bit flustered too! Even from within a metal vehicle you don’t feel safe with them so close.  Absolutely amazing stuff.

We got another hour or so shooting this family before the cold just got too much so we made our way back to the Inn for some dinner.  One of the most exhilarating experiences of my life I think (I think I probably keep saying that on this trip), tomorrow we get to spend a full day out in their territory so looking forward to that immensely, doesn’t guarantee we’ll see any of course but after today who cares.  Some pics from the phone below, again the SLR shots will put these to shame obviously….

The 240 mile trip from Coldfoot to Deadhorse today was one I’ll never forget. 

We set off at 9.15am from Coldfoot Camp in an overcast but dry and windless morning.  Within a few miles the road started to get pretty icy and a lot more bumpy than anything we’d experienced so far.  The jeep was sliding around in the ice and snow and we were reduced to around 25mph.  240miles at 25mph takes around 9.5 hours, this potentially meant we’d arrive at Deadhorse in the dark, which was not a good idea in the slightest.  The weather at Deadhorse is notoriously unpredictable so night driving is not advised, especially if you’re in a wee jeep and not in a massive truck.  

Around 20 miles into the journey we suddenly noticed that in the snow at the side of the road was what looked like bike tracks!  We’re stressing about going 25mph in a nice warm jeep and some hardy nutjob was in the middle of nowhere on the Dalton on his shitting bicycle. This went on for about 10 miles until we caught up with the man responsible, a young inuit guy on a mountain bike with tons of pack strapped to it.  My instinct was to jump out and take a photo but I thought it best to leave him to his journey, last thing he needed when cycling in -6c was some excited twat tourist sticking a camera in his face.  I got one from the car though (see below).  

As we made our way into the Brooks Range mountains we barely reached 30mph.  On a plus note the sun had come out behind us and was illuminating the mountains ahead which was a rare treat, the Brooks Range is absolutely stunning, huge Eiger style precipices, spruce forests that sweep right to the top of the mountains and slow rolling ascents and declines in the road.  Check the photos below to see what I mean.  It’s not often I see my old man get excited but I could tell he was pretty blown away by it all today.  Especially when we got to the Atigun Pass.

The Atigun pass is the main climb over the Brooks Range mountains and involves two huge ascents with vertical drops on your right hand side, quite a few truckers have lost their lives on it, if you’re vehicle goes over the side you’re fucked basically. All the big trucks need to put their snow chains on at the bottom so that they can get enough grip to make it over the top, our wee 4x4 thankfully flew up it without a problem however.  The view from the top was absolutely outstanding.  The sun was out, the mountains were caked in snow and at the foot of the descent was the most beautiful cloud inversion, filling the valley that would take us down to the tundra with a blanket of fog.  Again there’s some snaps below but I’ll post some hi res SLR shots when I get home.

After the high of the Atigun, we were slightly apprehensive about the next leg of the journey - the tundra.  The tundra takes up the final 150 miles of the drive to Deadhorse and from seeing on the map how flat it was we assumed it would be pretty monotonous and boring, especially after entering it into thick cloud.  Thankfully we were wrong.  The cloud lifted a little after about 10 miles which meant we could take stock of the landscape.  It was really quite beautiful, a million miles away from everything else we had experienced in Alaska so far, very flat and desolate and barren but aesthetically very pleasing.  The desolation was immediately broken however by a sighting of an fox, pegging it across the road.  He stopped for a moment and checked us out and I managed to get an okay photo of him.  This lifted both our spirits and suddenly the tundra stretch was as exciting as the mountains. As an added bonus, the flatness of the landscape meant the road got quite a bit better so we were back up to 45mph and an expected daytime Deadhorse arrival once again.

A few miles on we stopped to see some crows feasting on a caribou.  I got out and took some morbidly curious photos of the carcass.  As I jumped back in the jeep another guy on a bike cycled past (?!?!?!) We drove on and passed 2 more cyclists then 3 tents in the snow! Camping and cycling in the middle of the arctic tundra. Admirable stuff, hats off to them, whoever they may be.

Further down the Dalton we spied a migrating herd of caribou in the distance, I took a zoomed in shot with the compact but they were but dots on the landscape. We seen that quite a few hunters had parked their jeeps at the side of the road and were making their way over to them dressed in snow camouflage (white boiler suits), quite a weird site in the middle of nowhere.  Unfortunately no photos of that.  They had guns.

By about 4.30pm we could just about see Prudhoe in the distance. Tiny dots of machines and buildings about 15 miles away.  Was a welcome site after the 150 miles of tundra.  To greet us there were 3 snowy owls perched on some of the snow poles at the side of the road, as soon as I took my camera out they took flight obviously but I managed to snap one that landed not far off.

So here we are at the Deadhorse Camp. Our rooms are cosy and look out over the tundra to the lights of the Prudhoe Bay oil field. Tomorrow we fly out to Barter Island to meet Arthur and Jennifer Smith and hopefully see some polar bears.  Every day seems to trump the previous on this holiday so far, I hope this trend continues…

Well we made it to Coldfoot in one piece and on time.  All in it took us 8 hours from Fairbanks, but that included a breakfast stop at the Hilltop Diner (as recommended by the film makers we were going to visit, due to it’s authentic “Ice Road Trucker” clientele and good food) and many stops to take photos.  The weather was also on our side once again, all in all in a successful start to our trip north.

Btw rather than bleat on about how amazing the scenery etc was in this update, I’ll just post a load of photos this time (see below).  I took an absolute pile today, these are just a random pick from my iPhone.

The Dalton Highway turned out to be pretty much exactly as I imagined it. Rollercoaster style hills, grandiose Alaskan scenery, hurtling trucks, rough road surface (actually most of it was pretty good, only a few dodgy patches so far) and wildlife (finally). We had only been on it for about 15 minutes when we turned a corner and at the side of the road were 3 huge moose, all galloping away from us. I managed to get some snaps (see below) just before they disappeared into the forest. You imagine wildlife to be everywhere in Alaska but unfortunately this isn’t the case. You can drive for hours without seeing any sign of life at all, human or otherwise. The only time we have even seen any birds is when they are feasting on some less fortunate creature in the middle of the road. We also glimpsed and almost killed a wee red squirrel later on, luckily he shat it and made a quick u-turn half way across the road, only ever seen one before in Scotland, not sure peeling my 2nd sighting of one out the treads of the tyres on a jeep would be particularly satisfying.

By about mid day the weather was changing, mainly because we were gaining altitude. The road was starting to get icy and snowy and there was patches of dense fog (which in actuality were clouds we were so high up). Not great conditions to be in when there’s 50 tons of juggernaut hurtling towards (or up behind) you. Most of the truckers seemed to be courteous and friendly though, didn’t feel half as vulnerable as I thought we would on ‘their’ road.

About half way we passed a place called ‘Gobbler’s Knob’ or ‘Blowjob’s Dick’ as my old man called it. Fuck knows what went on there, was too misty to see anything, probably better to not know I feel. Got a photo of the sign obviously.

The one constant throughout the trip so far on the Dalton is the Trans-Alaskan pipeline that snakes and weaves it’s way along and under the road.  It pumps around £1million dollars of oil an hour from Prudhoe Bay up at Deadhorse down to Valdez at the south of Alaska where it is then shipped on to various parts of the USA.  Despite it’s controversial existence, you can’t deny that it’s actually quite an incredible feat of engineering.  The fact they built 800 miles of it in 3 years is astounding in itself.  Shame about all the wildlife they had to destroy in the process but I guess most people aren’t so bothered that they’ll stop driving their car.

We eventually arrived at Coldfoot Camp at about 6pm. It is unfortunately a bit of a dump but it was a welcome bed for the night, our rooms are $220 a night each, the most expensive hotel so far on the trip, and are essentially workers porter cabins.  We are in the middle of nowhere in the Arctic Circle though so not many options available to us unfortunately.

Tomorrow we make our way further north up to Deadhorse.  The road is meant to get a bit more ‘technical’ and the weather looks set to worsen but the scenery gets even more dramatic so can’t wait for that (assuming we can even see it).  If we get wifi in Deadhorse I’ll share some more photos and ramblings tomorrow night.

One last wee thing, my old man pulled me up about my landmass comparisons between Alaska and the UK in my 2nd post, it’s not twice as big, it’s 7 times as big.  I was a dingus and read one of the landmasses in Km and the other in miles.  He obviously took great pleasure in calling me out on it. (I thought it best to refrain from mentioning to him that “blowjob’s” wasn’t technically an accurate replacement for “Gobbler’s” as it wasn’t a valid possessive noun.)

Got up at 6am to photograph the sunset above Fairbanks but was unfortunately given wrong information regarding a viewpoint, really quite wrong.  In fact it was in the middle of a forest, and had no view.  Still was nice to be up early and cutting about.  The old man didn’t join me for obvious reasons so I went exploring.  Didny really find much though, decided 1 day in Fairbanks is probably enough to see all the major (barely fuck all) attractions. 

Got back to the hotel to meet the old man at 10am and we then drove out together to pick up the truck that we were going to drive the Dalton with.  GoNorth is the only place in Alaska that rents cars for the Dalton, no other car company will allow their vehicles up it due to the sketchy road surface and dangerous haulage traffic.  We were met at GoNorth by a rotund little German woman called Bianca who was new to the job and although very nice, didn’t seem to have the full knowledge we had hoped for.

We had been given the largest of their trucks, which we figured would be ideal for the trip but on taking it back to the hotel realised that it was horrible to drive and also had a massive crack on the windscreen and a brake-light was out, so back we went and swapped it for a smaller but newer SUV.  We’re just hoping this isn’t going to be a bad decision when we reach the snowier parts of the north.

After grabbing the car we went to visit North Pole, a little town outside of Fairbanks that changed it’s name to ‘North Pole’ and all it’s streets to things like ‘Snowman Avenue’ and ‘Santa Claus Lane’ back in 1952.  It had done this to try and attract toy companies to produce toys there, it never happened.  So they are stuck with this all year round Christmassyness.  The place is about as Christmassy as Iraq btw but they’ve tried their best.  The local welding company has huge candy canes at it’s gates.  Welding ffs!! “please mummy, please can we go to the welding company this year again??”.  Dafties.

So that was today, not a hell of a lot of action I’m afraid.  Tomorrow the real stuff begins though.  The Dalton Highway, the riskiest and almost certainly the most picturesque of any of the roads we’ve been on so far.  I reckon I’ll get wifi at Coldfoot tomorrow night but after that I have no idea so may be offline for a few days.  No idea what to expect at all from here on in, exciting!

Here’s some random snaps from the stay in Fairbanks…

 

Like I say not a shitload to do around Fairbanks.  Kind feel like we’re just filling time before hitting the Dalton Highway on Saturday morning.  After the now inevitable massive breakfast we took a wander into ‘downtown’ Fairbanks to go to the Tourist Information center and get some info about things to do around the area.  On the back wall of the center was a huge LCD telly and on the telly was a film that I recognised and indeed owned back home.  It was by Dick Proenneke, a legendary Alaskan naturalist who lived in the Alaskan wilderness alone for 30 years.  

His films are just beautiful, can’t recommend them enough.  Little idyllic 8mm vignettes (with the occasional and quite comical cut to more modern footage) from the 60s, with warm, informative voiceovers (done by the man himself) showing how he survived in the harsh environment alone.  Pretty inspirational stuff, he builds everything from his log cabin to the furniture within, kitchen utensils, tables, sledges, you name it from the wood around him and ends up with a lush wee pad and everything you need to live a relatively comfortable life. He was hard as fuckin nails and to this day his cabin still stands, 43 years after he built it. 

So anyway this gave me an idea, I’m going to look into seeing if I can find a seaplane company that will fly me out there on my last day to see his cabin, as it’s nowhere near any road systems.  No idea if it’s possible yet but will phone around tomorrow.  I think it would be a nice wee end to the trip and I have 2 days in Anchorage by myself to kill.

After the tourist information we headed out for a jaunt to the Chena natural hot springs, around 60 miles East.  To be honest this was a bit of an anticlimax as let’s face it I was never going to be chillin in some hot springs with my father.  It’s not the Anderson way.  That and the springs were a bit pish and stank of shite. It was no Reykjavik. Was a lovely drive though so not all lost.

Getting up early tomorrow to drive up a hill and photograph the sunrise over Fairbanks, which has been spectacular the last 2 days.  Apart from that no idea what we’re up to tomorrow, probably keeping a close eye on the weather for most of it, looks like dense fog is moving in up in Coldfoot, which is not the best news.  The Dalton is going to be hazardous enough without not being able to see the road in front of us! (I’m really trying to sex this Dalton thing up, hope it’s working).  

I’ll post a taste of Dick’s films above this post.

(yeah yeah I know, I said taste of Dick)

Night night.

Struggling to be bothered to type this tonight.  Just ate the “triple combo” fajitas at Chilis here in Fairbanks.  Holy shizen.  Steak, grilled chicken and lime fried prawns.  Spectacular.

Today was pretty decent, a nice slow meander from Anchorage up to Fairbanks through the Denali National park.  Lots of the now expected stunning scenery and a wee bit of snowfall and not much else on the 350 mile drive.  As it’s the end of season everything in the National Park is closed, but this also meant the roads were nice and quiet.  Me and the old boy just blethered pish about women and drugs and mortgages.  Quite entertaining.  We were meant to stop by a burger joint that had featured on Man Vs Food for lunch but had been grossly misinformed about how long it would take to get there.  Even big laddies like us couldn’t handle a burger the size of a bowler hat (I’ll try and quantify all large meals by comparing them to common objects) about an hour and a half after breakfast (yes I know bowler hats aren’t common).  I’ll be heading back down this road myself after he flies out to Vancouver from Fairbanks so I’ll check it out then.

The only 2 bits of wildlife we seen were both dead.  Firstly a porcupine with it’s head crushed in, then what was left of a caribou.  Both hit by vehicles and lying in the road. 

Fairbanks is very much a utilitarian town, lots of industrial estates and truckers and railroad workers and nothing that fancy anywhere.  Got chatting to a scientist guy in the lobby of the hotel about the northern lights who pointed me to a website that forecasts them. He says they get so bright up here that even when it’s cloudy their light penetrates them and you get huge pulsating colours as if a UFO is about to land. This got me awfy excited so first thing I did was check the forecast site in my room but nothing forecasted for tonight.  SHITE.

Below is a photo of the oddest thing I’ve seen for a while.  A kind of tacky Igloo Hotel that was stuck in the middle of nowhere on the drive on the way up.  Totally dilapidated and oozing eeriness. It’s the kind of thing as a child you had nightmares about being trapped in by some evil pedo. Maybe that was just me though.

We’re in Fairbanks for 2 full days before hitting the Dalton Highway on Saturday morning, and I’m not sure there’s that much to do. If there isn’t I’ll just make up all manner of guff to make my blog more exciting. 

Wow. Today was really quite special.

After another traditional West US breakfast of grits, patties, omelettes and coffee, we decided today was definitely the day to take a plane out to Mt McKinley.  The weather was perfect, barely a cloud in the sky and great visibility.  After a quick phonecall to a recommended ‘Flightseeing’ company, we headed off to Lake Hood for 10am to board our wee seaplane.

For all those seaplane statistics fans out there, Lake Hood is the busiest seaplane port in the world.  And for all those mountain statistic fans out there, Mt McKinley is the tallest mountain in North America.

Our pilot Bruce was a relaxed and capable old mountain climbing dude and pretty much had the best job in the world.  We flew out of Anchorage and straight across to McKinley which you could see looming in the distance from takeoff, despite being about 240 miles away.  It and it’s adjacent mountains were covered in snow and connecting them all was giant glaciers.  We were treated to probably the most awesome spectacle I have ever witnessed.  Bruce steadily flew us through the mountains, narrowly missing jagged peaks and swooping down across the expansive glaciers.  I almost pissed myself with utter glee, I can’t actually describe how amazing the experience was.  Some small photos below all taken on my compact, will post larger ones from the SLR when I get home.  They really don’t do it justice.

On the way back he landed on a remote lake called ‘Swan Lake’ where we stopped for 20 minutes or so to take photos of Mt McKinley in the distance. This was totally what we came here for.  I knew Alaska was going to be a visual treat but I wasn’t prepared for what we seen today.

HAVE I GONE ON ABOUT THIS ENOUGH NOW?

So anyhoo, went for a wander around Anchorage after.  My old man had paid about £500 for the flight so I treated him to a new belt.  He didn’t need to say anything, I could tell from his eyes he was utterly chuffed and felt my ‘thank you’ gift was more than enough.

Off for a chinese tonight, not sure I could top today to be honest.  Let’s see what tomorrow brings, we’re driving up through Denali National Park to Fairbanks where it’s about to get more remote and a hell of a lot colder…..

Well the good news is it is good, amazing in fact. Waking up in Anchorage is pretty special if you’ve arrived at night and don’t have a scooby where you are. The whole city is surrounded by utterly awesome (in the truest sense of the word), jagged mountain ranges. As an added bonus the first snow had fallen the night we got there so we were treated to dusted peaks in all directions. Everything you hope Alaska will be like is pretty much everywhere you look.

Breakfast was great. An omelette the size of a small cat with hashbrowns, coffee and sour dough toast. Nobody does breakfast like the yanks. As soon as we finished we checked out and picked up our Chevrolet Impala and headed south towards a place called Seward.

One thing that becomes evident pretty quickly is that Alaska is absolutely massive with barely anything in it. About two and a half times the size of the UK in landmass but around the population of Glasgow in the whole state. There is essentially 1 main highway that goes from Seward in the south to Fairbanks in the middle and that’s really it. Most of the country is just ‘bush’. It took us 2 hours to drive from Anchorage to Seward and we didn’t go through any other towns. Just endless breathtaking scenery. Not taking photos every 200 yards was difficult but I restrained myself (kinda) to avoid doing my old man’s nut in.

Tomorrow we’re going to try and get a flight up over Mt McKinley (the tallest mountain in North America) to some glacier for a wander.

The very first error of the holiday was only getting 1 hour sleep before the 24 hour, 3 leg journey to Anchorage.  2nd was wearing brand new slip on Vans as travelling footwear.  Thought I’d be clever and wear slip on shoes, as you need to remove them at most airport security checks.  What I forgot was that brand new slip on Vans are blister machines.  By the time I’d even got to the airport I was a half asleep hobbling eejit with bleeding ankles.

First flight to Amsterdam was decent (apart from a 45 minute delay due to fog in Amsterdam), sat next a a guy who turned out to be the managing director of a TV Production company who we’d just finished a website for, and also was pals with the guy that created the Ice Road Truckers programme so was interested in our wee trip.  Small world on both fronts.

2nd flight to Minneapolis wasn’t so great.  Was sandwiched in between my old man (who despite being called Jim is not slim) and some wee dutch plonker who had decided my arm rest was his.  Something that struck me immediately was that all the air hostesses were about 60, and to be honest, a bit rough.  Gone were the days of tall, smiling dolly-birds caked in makeup.  This was like an airborne retirement home for old porn stars.  A small paranoid voice in my head had an irrational notion that maybe they put the older, burnt out hostesses on the less reliable planes.  Flying turns you (me) into an idiot like that.  The next 8 hours was a mixture of being uncomfortable, thinking about what it would actually be like to be in a plane crash, sleeping very badly and fart gambling.  Thankfully none of them smelled.

3rd flight from Minneapolis to Anchorage was also delayed by an hour and a half and is a bit of a blur.  Short, bad sleeps.  Excruciating back pain.  Lots of soldiers and fat people.  We were definitely in the US.  On landing on Anchorage they lost our luggage.  Apparently the wee luggage cart ran out of ‘gas’ between the plane and the airport?!?!  Thankfully they found some ‘gas’ and it arrived an hour later.  

So despite a fucked spine, sore and bleeding feet, barely any sleep for around 40 hours, delayed flights and lost luggage, we made it to Alaska!   IT HAD BETTER BE GOOD.