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Going back South of Alaska
Before quietly thinking about joining back Anchorage where Mino will take his plane, we still made two beautiful hikes.
1. I initiate Mino to river crossings! This one was only about 32°F.
2. Caribou migration southward began, we see several made fearful by the hinting season opened since almost two months.
3. I never tire of these landscapes…
4. I find other paintings of ice…
5. … that trap pebbles.
6. The next day, we explored a valley north of Antigun Pass to climb a nearby summit.
7. We stop at a pass after a hard climb. The view is gorgious.
8. Mino rests admiring the scenery.
9. Going down, I manage to approach ptarmigans in moult.
10. This one is already quite white…
11. … while the neck of that one just starts to lose its summer color.
12. This end of day still reserve us a beautiful light.
13. VivaLaVida along beautiful granite peaks…
14. … and goes down a large valley.
15. A pond that reflects Chugapak Mountain.
16. Crossing the Brooke Range is really beautiful.
This concludes the report of our visit to the Dalton Highway. We continued towards the Denali where we spent the two last days before Mino’s departure.
17. VLV strikes a pose in an old railway tunnel.
18. Quick “wild” visit (because unauthorized) of a still active coal mine.
19. In a rather aesthetic side canyon.
20. VLV has managed to go up the riverbed to pose in front of the cliffs sculpted by wind and rain.
21. Since it is difficult to realize the size of VivaLaVida on pictures – when seeing for the first time, Mino exclaimed “Oh what a monster!” – I took advantage of her presence to give you the scale. She stands under the mirror..! 😀
22. We are approaching a small lake that will give us a nice camp for the night.
23. The south wind blows in gusts but offers me some sunrays.
24. We sleep on the windy shore…
25. The next day, we explore the mine from the top, after a track more than 35% steep !
26. The fall colors have invaded the forest…
27. … and the tundra.
28. The sky clears as the sun sets down…
29. … coloring the nearby mountains of the last boondocking for Mino.
30. Last colors on the taïga.
That ended the few weeks when Mino traveled in VivaLaVida. She walk the over 180 miles I hiked during these almost six weeks and has cooked me some really good dinners! Thanks to her. 😀
At the time of this writing, I do not know what will be the road ahead yet; so you will discover it in a future update. 😉
Fjords, McKinley & Dalton Highway 1…
Pending favorable weather conditions to head to the far north, I took advantage of a brief lull to explore a fjord South of Anchorage. Large glacier valley, it was filled with sediment by the surrounding glaciers to the sea level or nearly. At low tide only remains a narrow channel of water in the middle. Each tide begins with a tidal wave. Not very spectacular the day I was there because the moon was in first quarter…
1. Turnagain fjord at almost low tide.
2. The channel that remains at low tide.
3. More than 150 miles away, the mountains of Kodiak.
4. After crossing swamps to seek a new composition… 😉
5. A non-edible touch of color in the undergrowth.
6. The lull was short-term…
And finally, after more than three weeks of waiting, thinnings were announced on the far north. Vivalavida hit the road for a 1,800 miles way before the arrival of my friend Mino.
An unexpected opportunity: the beautiful weather allows me to see Mount McKinley, a rare opportunity as it is hidden in the clouds more than 80% of the year. It is the highest peak in North America, more than 20,000 feet elevation. A real giant!
7. I’m unable to transmit how big it is through my pictures but I was there still more than 120 miles away…
8. Here, still more than 50 miles away…
9. End of day on the surrounding mountains…
10. Camp next to a small lake.
11. The next morning, the giant is still visible while I’m more than 70 miles North!
To go to the far north, there is only one path: the Dalton Highway, a 500 miles long road serving Prudhoe Bay and its oil fields. It was built along the Alaskan Pipeline and along almost its entire length. It took only five months and a half in 1976 to 15 teams working in parallel to build it, a performance driven by the short northern summer. It’s a road really committed, thin strip of dirt that goes up and down every hill in impressive percentages, then through the Brooke Range with a top at Antigun Pass, at about 3,400 feet. Only one service at mile 249, about midway. Traveled almost exclusively by large trucks that supply the oil workers, it turns into a quagmire when it rains; Vivalavida will find it out… It stays open all year round since the build of the bridge over the Yukon River.
12. at mile 96, “Finger Mountain” points to the sky in the middle of the tundra.
13. The sky is beautiful but cirrus clouds are already announcing the arrival of the next perturbation.
14. The Alaskan Pipeline, also completed in 1976. This is a strategic corridor for the exploitation of northern Alaska oil resources.
15. Its build shows great ingenuity. Each pillar is “free”, only laying on bidirectional Teflon pads. To overcome the expansion created by the magnitude of extreme temperature between winter (-60°F are common and every winter the temperature drops below that!) and summer, each tube is “sleeved free” to the next. Estimation of total theoretical expansion over the entire length would be more than 8 miles from Prudhoe Bay to Valdez terminal, 800 miles south..!
16. An moose grazing aquatic weeds that grow at the bottom of this small lake. They love it!
17. Small lake besides really aesthetic…
18. Everything passes through the Dalton; here, an about 25 feet wide house on this oversize convoy..!
19. Another moose seen from my camp in the morning.
20. Mirror…
21. VivaLaVida on the northern foothills of the Brooke Range.
22. Antigun Pass.
23. The Brooke Range is superb, with beautiful streams that dig valleys.
24. No more tree since mile 215. It’s to far North, the climate is too harsh. Only the tundra remains.
25. I take the opportunity of this thinning to “strafe” these moorland landscapes that are probably the ones that attract me the most…
26. VLV looks really small in these landscapes…
27. … dotted with small lakes.
Following of the thinning and return of bad weather in the next update… 😀
D5 Creation