Bus trip to the Artic Circle

This is the bus we rode for the 17 hour round trip to the AC. The road is the gravel Dalton Haul road that goes to the oil fields, about another 500 miles above the AC. Our trip was about 430 miles round trip. Fun but about more than a body could stand!

This shows the expansion zig zag built into the oil pipeline to allow it to move as the weather changes.

Note: The pipe line sits on Teflon skids and moves from left to right in the ziz zag areas to allow for the pipe expansion. Pipeline is 799 miles, about 1/2 above ground. All that crosses permafrost areas is above ground. The fins on the top of the legs are to cool the bottom of the support legs because they are in the permafrost. The legs are filled with Ammonia. If the Ammonia gets above 32 degrees it turns to a gas and rises to the fins on top. When it cools below 32 degrees the Ammonia turns to a liquid and falls back below ground. Thus the permafrost stays frozen and this system has no moving parts. The pipeline in 30 years and has never failed because of design flaw! BP did have some trouble with some smaller feeder lines this past year.

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We are in a patch of Fireweed. This is the pioneer species that comes in after a fire. There were 10 million acres burned in Alaska during 2005 & 2006. The pipeline is protected from the fires as there is little vegetation under the line.