Day Sixteen - Coldfoot to the Brooks Range

Trucks parked up for the night at Coldfoot

These are our digs at Coldfoot Camp.  It is very basic, but the beds are comfy and the water is hot, though the shower is tiny.

Looking in from the doorway

And looking back to the door from between the beds.  Behind the door on the left is a toilet and a small shower.

Looking out across the truck park, which is mostly empty during the day.  The diner where we have breakfast and dinner is the right-most building.

The view out the entrance door to our accommodation.

Note: the coldest temperature recorded was -82 F which is -63 Celcius.  It was warm when we were there, 10 F which is about -12 C.  We must be acclimatising because we could walk across to the diner without needing coats or hats.

Breakfast was another enormous meal, I had the biscuit sandwich, effectively a scone with a burger pattie cheese and egg.  Yummo, washed down with coffee.

We were on the road again by about midday, heading to a spot Chris had been on an earlier trip that had a patch of really blue ice to photograph.  
It was estimated to be a 3 hour drive, but with photo stops along the way, we didn’t actually get to the first blue ice spot until about 4.30 -  5pm.  We pulled off the road and intended to walk across under the pipeline and to the banks of the frozen river, but we could see a weather front at the head of the valley heading in our direction, so we knew we had to be fast.  We headed out across the snowy ground, sinking knee deep in soft snow in places.  Had time for a few quick snaps, literally, of the blue ice, but didn’t have time to pick our way across the river to get close to it.  As we headed back to the van, the weather hit, strong winds blowing snow and within minutes it all changed completely.  We were only a few metres from the van, and could easily retrace our steps, but it was a reminder just how quickly things can change.

We figured it was now about lunch time, so we handed round the packed lunch that we’d ordered last night.  This was in true American fashion, very substantial.  But it was a sandwich where all the ingredients we’d ordered came separately.  The bread and swiss cheese was wrapped in glad wrap, the lettuce and pickles were in a small ziplock bag, the beef was in a small ziplock bag, and the sandwich had to be constructed while balancing it on your lap, bouncing along the road to our next stop.  Think airline food with more turbulence and less room, there was more than a bit that ended up on the floor.  It tasted good, and was washed down with a drink, topped up with a cookie and a piece of fruit, and a bag of chippies.

We were heading back towards Coldfoot, away from the snow/weather front behind us.  Another photo stop on a frozen lake, which had a layer of fluffy fresh snow on it about a foot deep.  The perfect place to make snow angels.  Chris suggested a group photo and sent up the drone to capture us making a circle of snow angels in the snow.  Our own version of the corona virus.

The team making snow angels.  That's me at the 11 o'clock position.

We have limited access to the outside world here, Spark’s provider does not have a network here so I have no coverage, but I can use Chris’s hot spot from time to time.  We are getting snippets of news, increased restrictions etc.  Claire, one of the guests is basically in charge of running the medical lab for all of Queensland, so she was knee deep in preparations before she came on this trip.  Her theory is this: normally with contagious illnesses, there is a steep bell curve of patient numbers as the virus spreads.  She thinks that they are trying to flatten the curve i.e. that less people will catch it, so that a) services (including testing ability) have time to ramp up to cope with numbers b) we buy time for a vaccine to be developed.  So the measures that are being taken will not stop people getting it, but in theory they will limit it.  We'll see I guess.  Meanwhile I've found that I will need to self isolate for two weeks after I get back, and Jonathan will have to as well.


Dinner was about 8pm, and after that we had time for a wee bit of shut-eye before another midnight rendezvous with northern lights.  I slept for about an hour roughly and woke feeling completely mental.  On the half our drive out to Wiseman I was nodding off in my seat.  A cup of coffee took care of that once we got to the cabin.  It’s very cloudy tonight, quite solid cloud with no sign of stars, so we are not confident of a viewing.  But the guy hosting us (whose name escapes me) came in after about half an hour to say that there were lights but behind the clouds.  Out we all trekked and did manage to capture some.  The lights were putting on a real show, but it was hard to capture with the cloud cover.  The cloud got a bit thicker, so we all trouped inside and sat around chatting, drinking whisky and wine and warming by the fire.

I went out to check, didn’t see anything happening, so brought my camera back inside.  Belinda went out about five minutes later, and came back in to say they were showing off again.  So out we all trouped again, layering up.  They were brief but pretty impressive and we got some nice shots.  Then the cloud thickened up again.  By now it was 3.30am, and time to leave.  We headed back to Coldfoot, trying not to fall asleep again.  Into bed and lights out, another long day done.