Great to have you here! Before proceeding I must urge you to check out Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, if you haven’t already!
If you have then let’s continue along this roller coaster…
Day 7: September 9th, Sunday
The cool misty Sunday morning saw us waking up to our own sweet time.We reluctantly said goodbye to Denali and left for Fairbanks. The Aurora was predicted to be quite active that night (scale of 4 here) so Anuj and Papa had woken up in the dead of night in order to check. But they soon learnt that in order to view a good Aurora, one needs to be at a vantage point where the valley can be seen clearly without artificial light pollution. We were kinda dejected at that stage because the following days (when we were scheduled for an Aurora viewing experience) showed a consistent decline in the Aurora activity trend.
As we made our way upstate towards Fairbanks, we were constantly looking out for good viewing spots finding plenty near Healy which is the closest town to Denali. We crossed the Nenana river in good time and stopped for brunch at a Roadside inn in the “ghost” town of Nenana. The streets were devoid of a single soul giving us an eerie feeling even though the sun was standing guard right above us.
Here we had some great homemade brunch — I got the signature Jose Jack which was delicious. The Roadhouse was run, so typically by two old ladies. One cooked while the other served. On asking for tea, obviously thinking it would be served hot, I was served iced tea! …that too in this part of the globe! To top it off, upon questioning this, I was rebuked for my knowledge of what tea means by default in America! But I let that punch from the old lady go. Here we also got to know of the Nenana Ice Classic, a fascinating competition in which one has to predict the time of break of the river ice, thus signaling the advent of summer.
Driving on, we stopped couple of times, to view the magnificent valley between Fairbanks and the Alaska Range with Mt. Denali in full sight.
Having reached Fairbanks in good time, we decided to divert to the University of Fairbanks in lieu of checking in to our hotel so as to get some auroral information as well as to check-out the famous Museum of the North. The modern architecture of the Museum building was very impressive with lines and spaces evoking images of glaciers, ridges and the aurora. Here we learnt about Alaskan art, wildlife and the culture of its people. Apart from the wonderful exhibits here, we also learnt how almost every car here has engine block heaters to warm the engine before ignition.
Since the auroral activity was predicted to be “Moderate” that night we decided to arrange a stakeout. A detailed google search and few phone calls led us to a remote ski-lodge around 30 miles north of Fairbanks. We made our way here after checking in to our hotel and doing some grocery shopping. This was a “so-called” dry-run to check whether the place was worth our effort. Although the drive was quite lonely and mountainous and the lodge in the middle of nowhere, we decided to go-forth with the plan.
We came back to our hotel, stocked up with some supplies (Mcdonalds for Anuj and I, and subway for Mom and Pop) and then made our way in the dead of the night on full-beam headlights. Suffice to say this was by far the toughest driving I had ever done!
The stake-out was a grand success, as we enjoyed our time watching the movie — Secret in Their Eyes, had some great coffee and packed food; And then last but not the least, managed to view our first aurora!!! The lodge had a caretaker who was tasked to go out and check for auroral activity every 30 minutes or so. Whenever her alarm rang, she used to grunt and step outside while we waited with baited breath. Then after the 3rd or 4th time, she nonchalantly gestured to us to step out and boy did we scramble!
This was my first go at night photography and it did take me a bit of time to get used to my camera settings. The pick of the lot from my camera can be seen underneath. The guerrilla tripod that I had been carrying finally revealed its utility here as the cold bit through my shivering hands.
We then drew back the lonely road back to the hotel, going to bed around 3:45 am.
Day 8: September 10th, Monday
We were quite buoyed with our Aurora sighting last night. The feeling that transcended was of a relieved kind, as we had till then been criticizing ourselves for having booked the Aurora Arctic adventure for a day of moderate to low auroral activity. Little did we know that nature had another trick up its sleeve…
We were picked up from our hotel by the shuttle at a comfortable time at noon. This wake-up time was quite unlike our rest of the trip. So we managed to grab some subway sandwiches and roam around the resort before that. Suffice to say, we were all well rested for the upcoming adventure.
We were briefed about security procedure at the airport terminal, before we boarded a small charter(~10-seater) plane onwards to Coldfoot base camp.
We got bucketloads of cool info on this short flight. We passed by the Wickersham dome and noticed the distinct withdrawal in the tree line as we flew northwards. We crossed the Saw tooth mountains, Livengood gold mine, Yukon river, Arctic circle, Caribou hills, Fort Yukon, Beavers hill, Finger hill all in order. The pilot told us that most of these places (Fort Yukon, Bethel, Nome) can only be reached by air or boat, and thus offer in the truest sense an off-the-grid experience. The Treeline was barely 2000ft at Coldfoot with no more trees northward of a certain place few miles further north.
On landing at the Coldfoot basecamp, we were given few minutes to check out this old trucker-stop which was pretty much barren, save for a cafe, gift shop and an old telephone booth straight out of the movies. We boarded a bus shepherded by our guide Sabrina, a native working grandma and were on our way down south by land this time.
We were traveling by the great Dalton Highway, the northern most motorable road. This road was built in the 1970’s to connect the oil mines of Prudhoe Bay with Fairbanks and the rest of the major Alaskan cities. The road is unpaved for most parts owing to the extreme conditions subjected to it. There’s a lot of adventure and mystique surrounding the road, which is why it was also the subject of a few episodes of a reality TV show on Ice-Road Truckers.
The first stop on our bus ride was a Ranger’s station where we got some more informative leaflets, signed “I’ve been here” card with some fancy stamps as well as some good news on aurora forecast for the night.
Alongside the road runs the Great Alaskan Oil Pipeline, of which we managed to get some amazing shots. We even stopped at a juncture to walk right across and around the magnificent structure — a freak of mankind.
We then stopped at the Arctic Circle sign and got some cool creds in the form of certificates.
We then trudged along the Dalton Highway, eating our snacks whilst gazing at the amazing tundra vegetation (Tundra means treeless vegetation) and stopping here and there for photos. Anuj also quite courageously managed to run along into the mushy Tundra for a bit. Around dusk, we managed to reach the Yukon river camp which was basically another truck stop. This camp lies halfway between Fairbanks and the Brooks Mountain Range. It is a summer seasonal operation located at mile 56 on the Dalton Highway at the north end of the only bridge to cross the Yukon River in Alaska.Got to see the mighty Yukon river from the banks here taking some great pictures. The Yukon River Camp Cafe was bustling with activity and we were treated to a nice hot dinner after which we proceeded our journey back to Fairbanks.
And then came our aurora sightings, right in the middle of nowhere!! Someone on our bus (can’t remember who) called out to us to look towards our left and there it was in all its magnificent glory — the Aurora Borealis.
I set up base here collecting some exquisite and rare shots that I am mighty proud of! At some point I was also lying down on the road trying to get my viewing angle right. I tried getting shots with the lowest ISO, highest Aperture(F1.4) and slowest Shutter Speed.
The one thing I did regret was not having the knowledge of taking a video of the dancing lights, with all my ISO, Aperture and Shutter Speed settings. But we can save that for next time as it will be tough to not redo this adventure soon.
Suffice to say we were pretty much over the moon. We hardly cared for a stop at a lookout homestay (which we had paid extra for) and returned back to our hotel around 3am, to catch a well-deserved sleep.
I’ll try to wrap up our last few days at Alaska followed by our learnings from the trip in Part 4, so stay tuned!
