To The Arctic Circle We Will Go

For the past 5 months, anytime I looked at a map of Alaska, a certain imaginary line about 200 miles north of Fairbanks caught my eye. I can't really say why a faint, dotted line drew my attention so much but I knew I had to get there. So last Saturday, with 4 friends, I took off north in the rain heading toward The Arctic Circle.



There is only one road out of Fairbanks that heads directly northward. The Dalton Highway, otherwise known as "The Haul Road", begins about 30 miles out of town and continues its northerly track until it dead-ends into the Arctic Ocean at Prudhoe Bay. The highway was built as a supply road for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System and parallels the pipeline for the entire 414 miles. The part of The Dalton that makes it such an adventure though is that only about 25% of it is paved. The rest is a pot-hole prevalent, gravel road that winds endlessly up mountains, across ridges, and back down to beautiful valley floors. While the road is bumpy and makes for a somewhat unpleasant ride, the scenery is more than enough to make up for any discomfort!

Although it was a rainy day, we were still able to see for miles ahead as the road, and pipeline, curve their way over the sprawling terrain. The farther north we drove, the more the colors began to change. On the farm in Ester, the leaves had only just begun to shift from green to yellow. Just an hour north however, they were almost all yellowed with brilliant shades of orange, red, and even purple splattered across the landscape. Every passing moment of the drive took us farther into Fall.


Finally, after driving a little more than 5 hours, we reached our destination. The Arctic Circle is the latitudinal circle that runs around the top of the Earth at 66° 33′ north of the Equator. It marks the line where the sun is above the horizon for all 24 hours of the day on the summer solstice and below the horizon all 24 on the winter solstice. Given that these 2 solstices are only 6 months apart the seasons change with rapidity in this part of the world. Still there is an abundance of life as bears, caribou, snow shoe hares, and many other animals have adjusted to the quick changing seasons and survive here. The Arctic Circle is marked by a large sign overlooking a wide valley where I'm sure all sorts of tourists take their photos. Of course we had to do the same!











After the photo op, we proceeded to the campground that those wonderful people at the Bureau of Land Management have set up about a mile beyond the sign. There we set up camp in the still pouring rain and cooked dinner, doing our best to invite all the bears in the area to join us! :) Luckily, bears in this part of the world still do not associate humans with food and we had no takers. After dinner we took off into the woods to do a little exploring.




In Alaska there are little to no established trails at any park or campground. This provides an excellent opportunity to keep the wilderness just that- wild. This campground was no exception. After a short hike into the nearby forest, we came across an untouched world of blueberry bushes, lichens, and mushrooms. The multitude of vibrant colors were truly astounding! Of course being the lover of lichens that I am (and luckily my friends are too!), we didn't get much farther than this spot and instead spent hours on our stomachs photographing the incredible display of lichen. Hope you think these are as cool as I do!

The woes of slow internet! I'll repost this picture soon

It rained all throughout the night and then around 7 am, the rain ceased and the sun finally peered out from behind the clouds. This made our drive back spectacular. On the way back we decided to stop at this outcrop of granite rocks about a mile off the road. These granite tors, as this type of rock formation is called, are named Finger Mountain. We hiked out to a specific tor, Finger Rock, which is said to look like a finger pointing toward Fairbanks. Of course we had to climb it!

Another 3 hours and we were back on the farm. Check back soon for a post on life on the farm!