Alaska, Day 3: to Arctic Circle wayside.

Caribou sausage and eggs for breakfast, then lots of driving.

Lots and lots and lots of driving

First, a stop right outside Fox to get a close up view of the pipeline. Despite it being 40 years old and right by the side of the road, it was surprisingly shiny and graffiti-free.

And massive. And ugly. The road follows this trail of steel all the way north. It was rarely out of our sight. Quick pipeline facts:

• it's 800 miles long
• it's 4 feet wide
• it was built in 3 years
  
• it takes 37 days for oil leaving Prudhoe Bay to reach Valdez
• residents get an annual stipend of about $1200 from the oil revenue (plus other mineral royalties)
• by law, it must be removed when the oil dries up

And? It's ugly.

Not ugly, on the other hand, was the view from a quick hike we took just to get out of the car for a little while.

My valley was pretty darned green, actually

I loved hiking in Alaska. Unlike here, where trails are maintained and bushwhacking is less common, up there we would just pull over and start walking. Always with bear spray, of course. There were trails too... but those weren't as much fun.

We stopped at the Yukon River Visitor Center (why not?) where I met Doug from Eastern Oregon. Doug's sons live within two miles of me here in Portland, and the older couple running the visitor center were also from Oregon. Doug and his wife were celebrating their 40th anniversary on this trip; the visitor center woman snorted and said, "you know what I got for my 40th anniversary? Half a hamburger at the Hot Spot!" A few miles up the road we passed the Hot Spot and I got the snort.

A few other stops as we continued north...

More tors at Finger Mountain

Fire weed and permafrost

Finally, the sign we were all waiting for.

Pole #2 - check

The campsite was absolutely riddled with mosquitoes (which we all took to calling "mossies" like the Aussie). Setting up camp was an obnoxious task, even with head nets; dinner was an exercise in futility since we had to constantly wave our arms around; and since there really is no "night" they never went away. That didn't stop us from a few rounds of frisbee baseball, though, and eventually we went to sleep under the summer sun.

Song of the day: Into the Great Wide Open, Tom Petty