 Travelling
north from Wasilla to Fairbanks we passed through the Denali National Park
where Mt. McKinley is. This is the highest mountain in Alaska at around
20,000 feet.
We saw the mountain and all the rest of the ranges in this area, many snow covered, many jagged peaks. Unfortunately it was not possible to photograph them as the roadside rest area was closed and we didn't have time to leave the main road to find another (we had 320 miles to drive this day) and there were too many trees along the roadside to be able to take any pictures. This picture was taken at a rest stop north of the main mountains, of some tiny, but photographic, peak.
Taking photographs from the bus while it is moving is difficult. The near objects are moving across the lens quickly making it difficult for the camera to focus, in addition to the windows being dirty. It is hard to keep the windows clean as the roads around here are very dusty. A further complication is that the windows are darkly tinted which makes internal reflections hard to eliminate, but has an unplanned advantage of being able to shoot directly into the sun as they act like a giant polarizing filter! This picture was taken just
before Fairbanks looking down onto the ??? River.
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While we were in Fairbanks the Eskimo Olympic Games were being held. The games while we were there was various forms of high kicks. The contestant has to jump in the air and kick a ball and land on the kicking foot only; he, or she, must not put the other foot down until they are stable. Sounds easy eh? well some of the kickers could hardly reach the ball standing on tiptoes! |
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 A
couple of concerts in Fairbanks and then one in North Pole, no not THE
NORTH POLE, just a small town of that name, and yes, you guessed it, santa
is the theme. This one is on the side of the highway, but I am told that
the town centre is well adorned with Santa's, elf's etc. Again no time
to go and see, this is all part of the life of one on the road.
While on the subject of roads,
around here they are not very level and suffer from sudden dips. This is
probably due to the land being mainly glacial gravel's. The Alaska highway
is similar to this in many places, coupled with the added problems of potholes,
patchy surface and loose gravel.
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  The
land around is usually heavily forested with White and Black Spruce, strange
"narrow" trees which rarely grow more than 20-25 feet tall, many are a
lot less than that. Occasionally patches of ground may be sparsely forested.
The forests in Alaska and the northern parts of Canada are not cultivated,
they simply grow wild, some trees fall over, some lean at various angles
and dead trees are not removed. Many trees have strangely deformed tops
with extra branches growing out.
There are forest fires raging to the north of Fairbanks and the previous week parts of the city were covered with thick smoke, although a change in wind direction before we arrived cleared it away. There was at some point one million acres of forest on fire (1500 square miles) |
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Temperature
The answer is that Freezing point (0C or 32F) is centre scale. While the summer temperatures are usually 20 to 30C (70 to 84F) it gets as cold as -40 to -50C (-40 to -60F) in the winter time. I'm glad we came in summer. |
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