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Astrocat's Winter drive on Parks Highway
Was off work for a few days
and a spur of the moment decision turned into a 14 hour 400 mile drive.
Conditions
for unobstucted views of Mount McKinley were perfect and I was itching
to take a nice drive out of town.
Left at 9 a.m. while it was still dark to catch the sunrise, drove all
day and arrived back home after 1 a.m.
The
long drive was worth it, it was extremely cold but incredibly
beautiful.
Drove south down Parks Highway about 200 miles to the abandoned Igloo
Hotel which is about as close
as you can get to Mount McKinley in the winter time as the road into
Denali National Park is closed.
cloud to be seen anywhere else for miles and miles, but hovering right above McKinley was a round lenticular cloud.
The weather has been exceptionally clear due to an extremely high pressure mass of frigid arctic air over central interior Alaska.
Barometer pressures have been over 31 millibars which has caused problems for pilots because their altimeters only go up to 31.
Anything over 31 and they don't function properly.
A local pilot who was on the ground said his altimeter indicated he was 200 feet below sea level and
Fairbanks has an elevation of almost 500 feet. Cannot do night time instrument flights in these conditions!
Sun is obscured by morning ice fog near Healy.
Interesting sun rays in the morning ice fog.
Approaching Healy power plant - sun is illuminating the plant's smoke stack vapor.
I think Astrocat takes grest photos.
Click Here for Part Two