Winging On Top Of The World In the last week of 2017 and my very last week as a full time resident of Alaska I got another chance to shoot the snow fleet. This time it was again way up north in the interior as the ARRC dispatched a pair of GPs with Spreader 9 to work north winging out sidings over the course of several days. Frank Keller and I got an early start out of Anchorage and headed north on the lonely Parks Highway to meet up with the train just south of Broad Pass. We'd spend all day shooting the train working in temperatures below zero, although on the day after solstice this only amounts to just over 4 1/2 hours between sunrise and sunset here at 63 degrees north latitude! The train is seen here racing north through the tundra curling to cross beneath the Parks Highway right at about MP 314. They are a couple miles north of Summit Siding (which would stay OOS and not be cleared this day) which is the high point on the Alaska Railroad at the Northern Continental Divide here. They are now in the watershed of the Arctic Ocean as they start down about two miles of 1% descent here. Considering that this wide valley is where the railroad crosses the Alaska Range, home of 20,310 foot Denali only 60 miles distant, it is utterly remarkable that this spot is only 2363 feet above sea level! Summit, Alaska |
