The year was 1973 and we Americans were being blackmailed by OPEC. America was out of gas and the mid-east wasn't selling us any. Remember the red flags at gas stations? That little incident prompted the United States to start construction on the Trans Alaska Pipeline System or "the Pipeline" as it is known up here.
Eight hundred miles long and forty-eight inches in diameter, the pipeline made the Prudhoe Bay oil field economical and delivered oil to the lower forty-eight. At a cost of $8 billion the pipeline crosses three mountain ranges and delivers oil to the port at Valdez, Alaska. Valdez is the northern most year round ice free port in Alaska.
Upon our arrival in Fairbanks we stopped at the pipeline's visitor center, real similar to a wayside park here in Texas, but dang!; there's this huge pipeline flowing over your head. It flows like this or dives underground on it's long trip north. The pipeline is not in a straight line but zig-zag’s along shock absorbers high in the air. The purpose of this curious configuration is protection from earthquakes. The earth can shake and the pipeline can flex. A few years ago a smart young man decided to shoot the pipe. He did it, created a leak and then sat in prison for 17 years with a fine of $150 million. He now lives in a mobile home. Don't know the balance on the debt!
Trips by rental car are not allowed to Prudhoe Bay but, if you have sociopath tendencies you could drive the rugged Dalton Highway (the haul road) 487 miles to Deadhorse . The last nine miles is off limits except by authorization of the oil company. The pipeline parallels the Dalton Highway, but access to the Prudhoe Bay oilfield complex is available only through commercial tour operators. You need to be aware that most rental car companies will not allow their cars to be driven on the Dalton Highway, wonder why?
Stick around for the answer to that question in our continuing saga of traveling to the Arctic Circle. I'll call that one Ice Road Trucker.
See you then!
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