Ed & Nelson departing Fairbanks
scanned photo by Jack Utton)
Nelson Kibler (from Rochester, NY) and I started out from my old neighborhood on Gilmore Trail in Fairbanks, then heading down Bennett Road (gravel) and Steele Creek Road (gravel) for Chena Hot Springs Road.
I met Nelson in response to my solicitation on the CYCLEVENTS website for interest in continuing beyond the tour's scheduled termination at Dawson Creek, British Columbia. Nelson contacted me by e-mail and phone to say he was interested in bicycling with me from Fairbanks to the Delta Junction, Alaska tour starting point and from Dawson Creek, BC to Calgary, Alberta. I picked him up at Fairbanks International Airport and we saw the sights in the Fairbanks area (such as the UAF Museum) for a couple of days before riding off.
As we departed Jack's house, we were both pretty heavily loaded (54.8 lbs plus my bike's 35 lbs. for me); slightly more for Nelson, but my body weight put us about equal. Our bicycles would have weighed even more but we arranged for Jack to deliver some of our gear to the rest of the group at the airport on June 1.
| 1/97 Note: This photo was taken recently from the window in the picture above. Moose are regular visitors to the neighborhood. This cow and two calves are typical. When we lived just two tenths of a mile up the road, we often lost our entire garden to the moose. One winter evening when my wife went out to feed the dog in the dark, she couldn't see his dog house and realized that there was a 1,000 pound moose standing between her and the dog house 20' away. Our 160 lb dog was hiding in his house. scanned photo |  |
After only 1.8 miles on the road (about 0.8 on gravel) Nelson
had 2 flats and it became immediately apparent that his tires were not up
to the task of handling gravel roads. So, we used my cellular phone to call
my friend Jack and request a rescue. Jack took us in his truck to All Weather
Sports in Fairbanks, where Nelson purchased a set of 700 x 32 Continental
Top Tour tires like mine for his Schwinn (I have 700 x 37 tires on my Cannondale).
Jack then took us back to his house, our original starting point, where
Nelson mounted his tires and we started out again (about 2-1/2 hours later),
this time going on the paved road -- down the Steese Highway to Chena Hot
Springs Road. We headed east on CHS Road several miles to Nordale Road.
After a steep climb up a small hill (<100 ft. vertical) we passed Weller
School, my daughter's elementary school. I recall teaching her in the parking
lot there one summer to ride a bicycle with training wheels.
Later we passed ESRO Rd. The European Space Agency used to have a satellite
tracking station down that road and I was their attorney. The facility was
incredible. It had huge dish antennas, its own wastewater treatment plant,
lodging for the staff of 24, diesel generators and all sorts of high tech
equipment. The buildings were constructed on freon pylons so as to the avoid
settling into the permafrost. ESA opted to close that station in favor of
an equatorial station in a less expensive tropical area.
My primary contacts were stereotypical air force Generals: a German who
was a "bean counter" (accountant) always concerned with detail;
and an Italian who always wanted to know where we were eating and where
the party was. We had a lot of fun together.
When the station was offered for sale by closed bid, I submitted
one of my own (aiming at using the site for permafrost research), but I
came in second. The successful buyer sought to convert the space tracking
station into a home for juvenile delinquents and the neighbors protested.
One neighbor went so far as to bulldoze a portion of the road away. There
was ultimately litigation over the nature of the easement granted to the
space agency and the neighborhood prevailed. Eventually the site was abandoned
and the buildings were vandalized. What a waste! A permafrost research facility
similar to what I envisioned was built by the Northwest (gas) Pipeline consortium
nearby.
After ESRO Rd we started climbing. We climbed a couple of serious hills
(nothing like Cleary Summit, though). Then we turned south on Nordale Road.
We cycled past an area of permafrost and "scrub spruce."
Oh, I should explain "permafrost." This is ground that is permanently frozen. The ice may be as much as 1,000 feet deep. The average temperature of this ground is below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 C). Basically, this ground is subjected to temperatures below freezing more than above freezing, so it stays frozen. If you keep a popcicle in the freezer more than outside of it, the popsicle should stay frozen too, especially if it is insulated with snow and ground cover (tundra vegetation). Much of the ground in Alaska and Northern Canada is permafrost. Ground like this can support vegetation, but due to the soil temperature, growth is stunted. A scrub spruce 100 years old may be only 2-3 inches in diameter. Permafrost is the primary location of tundra, vegetation that survives on the surface where the sun manages to melt off some of the ice.
Along with permafrost, there are subsurface pockets of water
which freeze and form what are called "ice lenses." I recall seeing
a 30' ice lens on Gilmore Trail when they were paving it, that melted when
exposed to the light and summer air. A huge D-9 Caterpillar bulldozer dropped
into the muck and it took two such bulldozers days to recover it.
About 1 mile south of CHS Rd, is a huge blueberry patch (hundreds of yards
deep).
We used to come there to pick blueberries, which my wife cooked
into jam. One year my wife cooked up a few jars of jam and asked what I
thought of it. I turned up my nose a bit and said it was too sweet, but
she entered it nevertheless in the Alaska State Fair, but threw the rest
out because she didn't eat jam and I didn't think much of it. Well, as you
can guess, she won the Grand Prize. Was I ever in trouble. To make matters
even worse, my wife and family never did get to taste the jam, because it
was stolen from the Fairgrounds.
Near here my wife won 160 acres of land in a State Land Lottery, but lost
it following litigation that invalidated Alaska's land lottery scheme on
environmental grounds. Alaska used land lotteries to prompt settlement of
agricultural and recreational land. This area was designated for agricultural
purposes. We were going to "grow" scrub spruce trees, wild ducks
and geese, planning to donate the property to the Nature Conservancy. My
wife's parcel was not subject to the environmental considerations (it had
good high ground access) and would have made a nice nature site because
it had a couple of good sized ponds and wetlands.
After the blueberry patch, we crossed the Little Chena River,
then the Chena River and then the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline. On the south
side of the Chena River out here in North Pole, Alaska, the ground is not
permafrost, so the pipeline is buried. Just south of the Pipeline here is
the Nordale Road Distribution Center, where Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.
stores replacement pipe and equipment to use if the pipeline springs a leak.
Along here one time I had a weird mobile home case. I represented a bank
seeking to be paid for an allegedly defective mobile home. The building
was real tight and owners had several children, so did quite a lot of laundry.
During the winter, they had a real problem with condensation. Drips from
the ceiling would fall onto electrical appliances, like the TV. The owners'
solution was a classic example of what not to do. To stop the drips from
going onto the TV, they punctured the ceiling in another place with a screwdriver.
Sure enough the dripping migrated over to the places where they punched
holes, but in puncturing the ceiling vapor barrier, they caused the roof
insulation to be even more saturated, and actually compounded the problem.
The case was a mess. Though I thought the owners were actually responsible
for the problem, the court ordered the bank loan paid by the manufacturer.
At Badger Road, we turned left onto a 1 year old bicycle route that took
us several miles into downtown North Pole. This paved bike path is really
nice. Unlike most such bike paths, this one is close enough to the road
that the stop signs for traffic allow the bicycles to proceed ahead of the
traffic.
Back in 1987, I was the first attorney ever to open an office in North Pole
(on Santa Claus Lane--seriously), a town of 20,000 if you include military
personnel. That venture failed. I discovered that most folks preferred to
deal with me in my Fairbanks office. Some folks suggested that what I needed
in North Pole was another attorney (it takes 2 to tango) and a judge.
In North Pole we stopped at Santa Claus House, a touristy gift shop, where
we were welcomed by Santa himself:
I should mention the military bases around here. There are two large
bases in the Fairbanks/North Pole area: Fort Wainright (army) and Eielson
Air Force Base. I've been told that many of the military personnel and their
families never leave the base, thinking of this duty as tantamount to being
sent to Siberia. On the other hand, I know numerous people who came to Alaska
in the military and fell in love with it, returning permanently when their
tour of duty ended.
We then headed onto the Richardson Highway (which runs from Valdez to Fairbanks),
where we immediately stopped at Santa Claus House (a gift shop) where we
saw Santa:
We crossed part of an earthen dam constructed by the Army Corps of Engineers
to help Fairbanks to avoid a repetition of the 1967 flood that inundated
the Fairbanks area (by my recollection 32,000 sq. miles). Digging gravel
for the dam created a series of lakes and the Chena Lake Recreation Area
run by the Fairbanks North Star Borough. We used to go there to canoe, swim
and sail (there were Hobie Cat sailboats for rent).
Then we passed Eielson Air Force Base. Over the years, I've seen
some amazing aircraft flying out of here: U-2's, SR-71's, F-16's (taking
off straight up), C-5's, A-10's, AWAC's and more. Today we saw only a Warthog
and the military equivalent of the DC-10 cargo plane.
From North Pole to Eielson we climbed very gradually (almost imperceptibly)
about 100'.
Several miles past Eielson we came on the scene where a horrible head-on
truck accident had happened several years ago. I represented a driver of
a 2-1/2 ton mail van who was thrown from his vehicle through the windshield
into the woods when a semi-tractor driver fell asleep and plowed head-on
into him. Just a few minutes earlier, we had stopped to use the facilities
at an store and ran into the first witness on the scene. In his recorded
statement, the witness explained that he found the semi driver moving debris
from one side of the roadway to the other so as to make it look as though
my client was at fault and that the driver had made no attempt to find my
severely injured client. The witness was extremely credible: a member of
University Board of Regents, a Bank board member and church leader. To the
witnesses' testimony I added some photographs, showing the scouring of the
pavement upon impact, confirming the fact that the semi was definitely in
my client's lane, which I took while flying my helicopter over the scene.
The case settled quickly.
At Harding Lake the mosquitoes were ferocious, but Cutters bug dope worked
pretty well. Nevertheless, we retired to our tents hastily.
51 miles
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© Ed Noonan 1996, 1997