An Alaskan Winter – I

Aurora Borealis

So far in this blog, I have been writing only about National Parks I have visited. But I think I should write about this trip, the best so far in my life. We wanted to go to Alaska to see “Aurora Borealis”. Destination – “Fairbanks”. That’s the reason why we decided to go in winter. So how to choose the time for one such trip? December and January are quite cold. Try to avoid those severe winter months. We went in February end and it was close to a new moon. And at least go for 4 nights so that your probability for the “Northern Lights” increases. When it is close to a new moon, you get to see Aurora better is what we read somewhere.

Cleary Summit

Now, we started late in the evening from Seattle towards Fairbanks and on the way from the flight we were already seeing Alaska. The air-hostess was very graceful in pointing us to have a look at the incredible phenomena. The day we landed there was an Aurora storm. As soon as we landed there, we took a couple of 4X4 and drove to the place where we booked. So what is this place like? This was away from the city lights on top of a hill near Fairbanks. The place is called “Cleary Summit”, a ski resort as well as an Aurora observatory. We stayed in the lonely bungalow on top of the hill. I should thank the couple, Steve and Brenda for accomodating us and the facilities were amazing and way beyond our expectations.

The house we stayed in

We captured Aurora with our photographer friend’s camera. Slept wearing all thermals around 3 am after we were exhausted seeing the dance of the lights in the sky. It was mesmerizing. We were freezing at -35 degrees. The reason why we chose this place was to see and capture Aurora and we were able to do it. We were already happy about everything in the trip, for the prime reason already finished. The next morning, we woke up at ease and made breakfast there. We even took bath – we had supply of hot water there on top of the hill. And we hit the roads on the RAV4 and the 4Runner.

Dog-sled

The next morning we simply drove to some little town called North Pole and just bought some stuff and hanged out for sometime and then went to the snowfields. What is so special about these snowfields when Alaska is full of snow? We rid the “snow-mobile” and “dog-sled” on these snowfields. We were given Arctic wear for doing these rides as piercing through the cold needs such a thick covering. The dog-sledding was quite a simple one just that the dogs are quite furious and initially I had a fear getting near them. Later half way through the ride, the guide even taught us how to ride the sled.

Snow-mobile

Then we took the snow-mobile. It was difficult for me in the beginning. Then later it was fun. We climbed small hills of snow and even raced parallel to the great Alaskan oil pipeline. It was serious fun! And we retired to our hill-top bungalow for the stay. That day, there was no signs of Aurora. I spent a few hours staring at the sky and dozed off on the easy chair. So far in the trip everything was new to me. I have never seen Aurora, never rid snow-mobile or a dog-sled, never stayed in such an isolated place on top of the hill. We were totally satisfied and we had planned for 2 more days to come.

I will write more about them in the next post. I will just leave a few more pics here to show how great the Alaskan road service is and they clear snow and keep the roads always in great conditions.

Frozen River Tanana and the bridge on it

Our gang in front of the hill-top bungalow

Snow cleared bridge