Day Fifteen - Fairbanks to Coldfoot
We met for breakfast about 7.30am and then it was time to weigh in, all our bags were toted up so that they can calculate how to get us back from Coldfoot. We had to provide our weights to Chris before the trip, and they make an allowance for winter clothing. Because we all have so much stuff including camera gear, they will need two planes for us. We stowed all our excess luggage in the left luggage room at the hotel, and then it was time to hit the road. It’s a 254 mile drive to Coldfoot camp, which will take us 6 ½ hours driving time, so it will be a log day. We had a quick stop at a Starbucks to grab a snack to tide us over, because lunch will not be until around 2pm at the Yukon River Camp.
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| Our ride at the first restroom stop |
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| Icy cold long drops became a feature of the trip. |
As it turned out, we did not make our lunch stop until after 4pm, because there were many photo stops along the way.
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| The Dalton Highway, made famous by the show Ice Road Truckers, will take us to Coldfoot. |
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| The Alaska Pipeline, 850 miles from Prudoe Bay to Valdez. They can shut down the flow of oil on the entire pipeline in 8 minutes, I thought that was pretty impressive. It sits above the ground in most places so the heat doesn't affect the permafrost. |
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| The frozen Yukon River |
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| Lunch stop at the Yukon River Camp |
There was a gift store there, stocked with various furs and things made from fur, as the owners son is a trapper. The place reeked a bit, and while the lynx fur was gorgeous, I was not remotely tempted to buy.
There was a map of the world on the wall, and people had added pins in various countries to show where they are from. Belinda noticed that Tasmania did not have any pins, and suggested I should add a pin to show I was from New Zealand. She received much ribbing for this from both myself and Alastair, who I think I have mentioned is also from Wellington !
Time to hit the road again, more photo stops along the way, including at the enchanted forest (our name for it, not its real name), where the trees are covered in snow, thanks to their location on the top of a hill, and the hoar frosts that blast through there.
We stopped for a group photo at the Artic Circle sign.
We eventually rolled into Coldfoot Camp about 10:30pm.
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| Trucks parked up at Coldfoot |
We were scheduled to leave for a Northern Lights excursion at midnight, so there was only a quick reccie and sorting of camera gear and warm clothes and we were off again, in the van to the small village of Wiseman. The tour company owns a couple of cabins that are soley for accommodating guests to watch the Aurora. The cabin is heated and they provide tea and coffee etc. They were previously lived in cabins, not built for purpose tourist lodges, which was pretty cool. The weather here is much warmer than expected, and much warmer than Talkeetna was. We are averaging between minus 5 and minus 20. So I have used all my layers only once, and have only resorted to toe warmers a few times. It’s a mission to regulate your temperature, as you go from minus 20 outside to plus 21 inside, so you are constantly shedding layers and dropping gloves on the ground, or adding layers and struggling to get your coat zipped up over the bulk of gloves hats and scarves in your pockets. What a hardship.
It was cloudy, but not totally socked in and we could see some stars in the sky. Optimum viewing time is 2am, and we will stay here until at least 3am regardless.
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| Keeping warm between sorties outside. |
The lights did come out to play, and we did manage some pix but were thwarted a bit by the clouds.
By 3am it had clouded over completely, so we called it a very long day and headed back to camp. We were allowed a sleep-in tomorrow morning, breakfast is not until 10:30am but we need all our stuff ready to head out for the day once breakfast is done.
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