Saturday, January 22, 2005
The long return
Well, we're all back finally. It was so nice to finally take off my safety glasses once I got off the oil fields, it's a little to controlling up there for me, really good to be out from underneath their thumb. Shane and I were up at 5am yesterday and pulled in at 12:30 last night. I'm beat. The drive was 14 hours, we had a bit of vehicle trouble so the top speed seemed to be 40-45 mph. SLOW. The drive back was totally worth it though. Another partly cloudy day but wow, talk about animals, I bet we saw a couple hundred caribou, fifty or so moose (compared to 10 on the drive up) and some odd ones like a fox and a porcupine (at the time we thought it was a beaver). I was most excited about the musk ox though. I hadn't seen them in the wild before yesterday. They're pretty cool. Just like your typical tourist I went crunching across the snow to get closer with my camera. Didn't get more than 50 yards away though, not to fear, I guess all the more reason to bring the super telephoto up with me on the next trip. Anyway, they were really cool. I picked up a long strand of musk ox hair off the ground but of course I've already lost it. Check out the big fellas though:
So, we saw the musk ox probably about 40 miles south of Deahorse and Prudhoe. The absolute highlight of the trip though is this guy:
It was so funny, we were coming up through the North side of Atigun Pass and were in the avalanche zone when off to the left we saw this little black creature. At the time we were convinced it was a beaver of all animals but instant replay makes it look like a porcupine. Still, it was way way up in Atigun pass, right where I'd seen some sheep on an earlier hiking trip a couple years back. No place for a porucpine that's for sure. ... That's why I bring the camera with me, so I can catch odd ball things like this porcupine up where it totally didn't belong. So, that had us laughing up to the top of Atigun but then there was the scary drive down on the south side of the divide. We made it though and the road was actually good but boy was it tense cutting through all of the avalanche paths. Probably better to drive it when it's dark out...
So, south of the pass Shane thought he saw a huge moose. We stopped the truck and went up to check it out. Talk about cool, an older moose and another moose were mixing it up a bit like the old guy was teaching the younger one some moves for beating other bulls to get the ladies. So, we listened to the clunk of their racks and watched from the road. Pretty neat though.
The sun was setting (it was like 2ish) so that was nice, too. I just love the Brooks Range, the mountains are so incredibly rugged and barren. You can see that a little right here:
We saw tons of caribou all day long north of the brooks range but we ended up also seeing a couple of herds south of it. That was neat. So, here's one that was hanging out right in the road down a few miles from the moose.
So, pretty neat to see all the animals. The problem was we kept seeing moose all the way down the road to Fairbanks at night so it was an extra vigilant trip. There's been a lot of snow this winter so maybe they're hanging out closer to the road. Who knows. It sure is good to be back though!
So, we saw the musk ox probably about 40 miles south of Deahorse and Prudhoe. The absolute highlight of the trip though is this guy:
It was so funny, we were coming up through the North side of Atigun Pass and were in the avalanche zone when off to the left we saw this little black creature. At the time we were convinced it was a beaver of all animals but instant replay makes it look like a porcupine. Still, it was way way up in Atigun pass, right where I'd seen some sheep on an earlier hiking trip a couple years back. No place for a porucpine that's for sure. ... That's why I bring the camera with me, so I can catch odd ball things like this porcupine up where it totally didn't belong. So, that had us laughing up to the top of Atigun but then there was the scary drive down on the south side of the divide. We made it though and the road was actually good but boy was it tense cutting through all of the avalanche paths. Probably better to drive it when it's dark out...
So, south of the pass Shane thought he saw a huge moose. We stopped the truck and went up to check it out. Talk about cool, an older moose and another moose were mixing it up a bit like the old guy was teaching the younger one some moves for beating other bulls to get the ladies. So, we listened to the clunk of their racks and watched from the road. Pretty neat though.
The sun was setting (it was like 2ish) so that was nice, too. I just love the Brooks Range, the mountains are so incredibly rugged and barren. You can see that a little right here:
We saw tons of caribou all day long north of the brooks range but we ended up also seeing a couple of herds south of it. That was neat. So, here's one that was hanging out right in the road down a few miles from the moose.
So, pretty neat to see all the animals. The problem was we kept seeing moose all the way down the road to Fairbanks at night so it was an extra vigilant trip. There's been a lot of snow this winter so maybe they're hanging out closer to the road. Who knows. It sure is good to be back though!
