Alaska, Day 7: to Deadhorse/Prudhoe Bay.

Headed to our northernmost stop today. The landscape changed pretty drastically, pretty quickly.

Mountains no more

Like Kansas, only much, much prettier

Our goal was the 5pm Prudhoe Bay tour. My other goal was a shower. I didn't really care, personally, but thought I'd be kind to the people around me on the plane the next day. Both were accomplished.

The tour was interesting but pretty limited for security reasons. We weren't allowed off the bus except at the Arctic Ocean, so most of my tour photos are blurry, through-a-bus-window shots.

Hisssssssssss

Everything in Prudhoe Bay is temporary, and like the pipeline, when the oil stops Prudhoe Bay will be shut down and the site cleaned up. I don't remember many of the details from the tour, so allow me to pilfer from the Ice Road Truckers web site for a moment:

Sitting 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle, 400 miles north of Fairbanks and 650 miles north of Anchorage, the Prudhoe Bay region of Alaska is home to the largest oil field in North America. ARCO and Exxon first discovered oil in the region in March 1968, drilling the Prudhoe Bay State No. 1 well; BP Exploration drilled a confirmation well in 1969. Over the next eight years, the three companies worked to delineate the region and set up an infrastructure, and Prudhoe Bay came "on stream" in June 1977. In 1979, production at the field reached a maximum rate of 1.5 million barrels per day. By 2006, more than 10 billion barrels of oil had been produced at Prudhoe Bay.

I was surprised at the attention to protecting the tundra. They don't drill or test until the ground has frozen, which minimizes impact on the land, and truck tires are specially designed for minimal impact. The design of the drills is also fairly low-impact. Or so they say...

The inventor of these tires had someone actually drive
a truck over him to prove the tires wouldn't hurt the tundra

The tour included a stop at the Arctic Ocean. For safety reasons, you can't swim anymore, but you can stick your feet in if you wish. I did not wish.

I was really hoping for a polar bear photobomb

After the tour, shower and dinner we headed back to camp.

It's all fun and games until a trucker actually picks me up

The sky was clearer than it had been, and since we were as far north as we could go, I finally decided to try time-lapse to capture the sunlight.

10:38pm

11:30pm

12:54am, at which point rain clouds rolled in
(and I got bored with this project)

Prudhoe Bay and many other northern towns are dry. That didn't stop us from drinking a toast to the Arctic, though!

Carefully rationed over 500 miles

Portland representing in the Arctic!

In true prohibition style, Sean traded lettuce and cereal
with our campsite neighbors in exchange for a couple beers

Despite the awful mossies, we all stayed up a little later than usual - I think we were all sad that our adventure was coming to an end...

Song of the day: Inaudible Melodies, Jack Johnson