Had a lovely night of watching the Northern Lights and enjoyed the quiet solitude. Slept in and awoke to another wonderfully blue clear bright sky. Enjoyed a slow breakfast and potter around.
Returned to the Arctic Circle sign post and grabbed a better photo in the morning sun, than yesterdays setting sun. Steven and Maree headed off around 7am, we didn't get out of bed until about 9am.
The drive back was cold, a wind came up, from the north, so the windchill factor was about minus 20C.
The drive up was with no stops except the Yukon river for smoko. So we took a more leisurely drive back. We stopped at 'Finger Moutain' see photo below, where we enjoyed the full effect of the wind and its chill factor. Finger Mountain has a long history with the original Inuit inhabitants as this area is an abundant food area in the summer with caribou herds, moose, bear and berry fruits. It was a navigation marker and it is reported having been standing for the past 1,000 years or more.
Bush Pilots used it as a nav marker as it points /leans directly toward Fairbanks (life before GPS)
At one point along the road, at a high point, the air was freezing around the pine trees and then this ice like snow was blowing off the trees as a thick dust, an unusual effect on a bright clear day.
Lunched back at the Yukon River and deservedly purchased our "I crossed the Arctic Circle" T'Shirts.
Returned to Fairbanks late, dropped into our first Wallmart. Tayla enjoys a transviliquest who does this skit where the dummy would like to work at Wallmart as the greeter and announce, "Welcome to Wallmart, get your s..t and get out of here". So I tried to get her to have her 15 mins of fame, to no avail.
Found an RV camp open, it is where they host the annual international Ice Carving Chamionships. This is a very run down RV Park, not recommended, but it had hot showers, though pathetic and of course free internet, some relief.
We are heading to Denali today.
Weather: About minus 6 C or so, H 0 C
Wildlife: Nil
O/N N 64 50.740 W 147 46.240
You can see the road, this is just below the Arctic Cicle, typical landscape for many miles.
No comments:
Post a Comment