Had a 11:45 AM pick-up at the park office to go the Arctic Circle. We went to the Fairbanks airport where we took an Air Arctic 9 seat plane to Coldfoot, AK about 255 miles North of Fairbanks. The 1 hour and 10minute flight was a little bumpy . The pilot was good at pointing out landmarks in the terrain but we saw no wildlife. Alaska’s Artic is one of the last great wilderness regions on earth. It is a remote, wild, and sparsely populated land of vast wilderness expanses. The flight followed along the rugged Dalton Highway through remote country where the amenities common in today’s modern world are rare or non-existent. The landing was smooth on a dirt runway at Coldfoot.
We had a light lunch in the trucker café there. It’s 240 miles north to Prudhoe Bay Coldfoot. There was 10 people in a van for the trip back to Fairbanks. The only road is the Dalton Highway which is a rough dirt road that the Ice Truckers use. We saw one large moose early on but nothing after that for the next 9 hours. We had a few rest stops and a photo stop at the Arctic Circle. Mostly the road follows the pipeline. Got back to the RV just before midnight. We all wished we had not taken that tour as it was mostly a waste of time and money.
Our young pilot. Fly's in Hawaii in the winter and Alaska in the summer.
Huge airport - note all the 747's!!!!
One of ll pump stations.
The line next to the road is the pipeline from a birds eye view.
Cindy and I were happy to land.
Just a small section of the 800 mile pipeline.
Finally made it to the "sign". Pretty cool actually.
This is our group from our Caravan: Ron & Cindy on the left, Bruce and I in the middle and Marge and Gene on the right.
Our driver made us a dessert and gave us a certificate stating we made it to the Arctic Circle.
This is the home of a couple that had 5 of their own children and adopted 18 more. I'm quite serious. They run a Trading Post and live there all year.
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