Another weekend, another Alaskan adventure. I'm a fan of less mainstream tourist attractions so when I was presented with the choice of visiting a Gold Dredge that had been turned into a pay to visit tour, or a giant hulk of abandoned corroded metal, you can be sure that I picked the latter.
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"The Soccermom mobile"
Our mighty steed was a Chrysler Pacifica. Very comfortable (The seats even have arm rests) but consumes fuel at a ridiculous rate. For some reason 35mpg is classed as "super economical" here while the rest of the world calls 50mpg not bad on fuel.
We were only heading an hour out of town to visit the Chatanika gold dredge, but made an effort to stop at every landmark on the way. I was pleasantly surprised to find enough stops to write about just the journey.
Our first stop was the Alyeska Pipeline viewing point. We had seen the pipeline running parallel to the highway before but the viewing point had a car park and path allowing you to walk right up to it.
The pipeline is 800 miles long starting at the northern coast of Alaska and spans the entire state ending at the south coast.
Personally I didn't consider climbing the pipeline for a second and I'm notorious for climbing landmarks! (See my Darwin falls and Yosemite posts) I imagine enough people attempt it here to warrant the huge sign.
The white blotches on the pipe is glue residue from removed stickers. American tourists seen unable to visit anywhere here without plastering the landmark in stickers of their school logo or business.
We made a quick stop at the Felix Pedro monument. A plaque commemorating the Italian immigrant that discovered gold in Alaska in 1902 effectively causing Fairbanks to exist from the resulting gold rush.
As we travelled further north the landscape began getting prettier.
I am in Alaska during the change from Winter to Summer (Spring doesn't seem to be a thing here). Rivers have thawed and the huge amount of snow that was here when I arrived has nearly entirely melted.
Once the snow has gone there seems to be an awkward couple of weeks where the vegetation underneath stays a dull brown colour before turning green.
The next stop was the Aurora Viewpoint. Obviously in the middle of the day we weren't going to see the Aurora (post coming soon about the time I did!) but it did offer some amazing views.
I nearly didn't bring my FZ1000 with me because I usually depend on my phone camera for travelling. But views like this make me glad I packed it. You can only just see this mountain range in the photo above, but with the zoom of my bridge camera I can bring it much closer.
We arrived at the Gold Dredge to find a padlocked gate and a large sign saying "NO ACCESS TO PUBLIC, KEEP OUT" but quickly realised Google maps had mistaken someone's property as the trail access. Instead we parked at a bar opposite the dredge trail.
As soon as we got out of the car a large ball of fluff awoke from his nap in the snow.
This enormous Alaskan Mamalute started walking towards us and I had to use every ounce of will power that I had to not walk over and pet him.
Once we located the trail to the dredge we set off, and sure enough, looming in the distance...
Part 2 coming soon!
