June 26: TOUR OF PRUDHOE BAY OIL FIELDS

This picture is on top of the Atigun Pass, going over the Brooks Range. This pic was taken far south of Prudhoe Bay, a couple of days ago.


This is Grayling Lake, taken on our way up here on the "haul road". Look very carefully and you can see the reflection of the mountain in the lake....awesome!
This is me (duh) picking stones in the Arctic Ocean. Yes, it is icewater...you can see the ice floating behind me. I decided to pick white stones out of the water for the grandkids....then decided to only pick up 6 stones....one for each family; a much wiser decision because it would be a lot of rocks to tote around.
We're holding ice from the Arctic Ocean; felt cold like ice anywhere. We decided against a polar bear swim, which we could have done at this point. Too cold for me. The tour guide said that the oldest person he had do the polar bear swim was about 82! That lady was made of far tougher stock than me! It was chilly out there; definitely sweater weather. I didn't have my jacket on; kind of wanted to "feel" how cold it was. I guess that it was about 50 degrees or so.

Tour: Of course I forgot my notes in the camper, so I'll wing it. We are going to take lots more pictures later today, and as usual they will have to wait until the next post, which will be several days from now in Fairbanks, after our return trip down the "haul road".

The tour was well worth the trip. There are 6-8,000 oil field workers up here at any one time; they work 12 hours on and 12 hours off, for 3 weeks on and 3 weeks off, 7 days a week. The company that they were for (and there are several) pay all their expenses: air flight up here from Anchorage, Fairbanks, Katzabu, etc., for their room, and meals. They have gyms, basketball courts, workout equipment, etc. One guy told us that you save lots of money here, cuz there's nothing to spend it on!

There are many, many wells (tour guide: too many to count) and they used to be quite a distance apart. Now with refined drilling and extracting proceedures, they can be as little as 8-10 feet apart; so you see all these little square huts dotting the landscapes....those are the actual wells. Ya don't see that many actual drilling rigs. When we take our drive after lunch I'll take some pictures that I'll have to post later. They have these huge exploration rigs that they drive out on ice roads (they make the ice roads)....so that they explore in the winter, and with the spring, the roads disappear, and there is no impact on the environment.

Tour guide also told us it's time for the caribou to be migrating to calving area right through here....but we saw only one. RATS! He also told me the difference between reigndeer and caribou....get ready.....reigndeer FLY!

Enough for now.

Until we "connect" again....