Frost heaves? Huh?
Growing up in Texas I am not too familiar with super cold climates. I lived in Michigan twice but that does not make me a pro when driving on snow or ice. We didn’t encounter either of those during the past couple of days, but we saw the effects of cold weather first hand.
We left Skagway to head toward Valdez (yes, same place as the oil spill) which is 750 miles away. Have I said that Alaska is bigger than Texas? It is, and they are proud of it. Our route required us to cross into Canada and back across the state line into Alaska. We decided to drive about 250 miles per day to allow for any mishaps (detours). It’s a good thing we did because of the road being closed for 7 hours when we passed through Whitehorse. These border crossings are so remote that the officers have living quarters right beside the building. That’s one way to make sure everyone shows up for work on time!
First, let me define frost heaving. It is the upward swelling of soil during freezing conditions caused by an increasing presence of ice as it grows toward the surface, upwards from the depth of the soil where freezing temperatures have penetrated into the soil. On a road it looks like this:
It’s a little hard to see in the picture, but trust me, they were there. Not all of them wave the road from side to side. Many of them were on an angle and our trailers would rock back and forth as we drove over them. For about 480 miles we had to deal with these roads.
At times we had to drive 35-40mph. When we got to Tok, Alaska, we had things scattered around the insides of the RVs and cabinet doors had popped open. Dad said it was probably the worst roads he has towed on.
If that wasn’t enough to deal with, we also had to drive through single lanes during the sections that were being repaired. A lead car or truck would drive each way and we followed behind. Some of these stops could be a 10 minute wait. Mom took advantage of it and used the bathroom in their RV with time to spare.
I guess the higher they raise the road, the longer it takes for the frost heaves to get up to it. We passed a couple of experimental sections where scientists are trying to vent cold air under the road so it never thaws. I didn’t snap a picture of those.
We started to tell when the road would get bad by looking at the trees. In the picture above, the trees did not grow very tall. This is because they are living in permafrost soil. The ground never totally thaws and therefore stunts the growth of plants and trees. They are very old, but their growing season is very short.
Our route took us north, then west, and back south. We passed the road to the town that is known for the coldest temperature on record in Alaska. They are famed with -84 degrees! What?
Jest before Destruction Bay, we saw beautiful mountains and sand was being blown across the road into a lake. The dirt came from a dried up riverbed. Formerly, the river was flowing with water from a melted glacier, but the glacier has retreated so much that the water flows another direction down the mountain now. The beautiful shades of blue water in rivers and lakes come from the silt in the glacier run off.
Enough of the Debbie downer stuff about the roads. We didn’t see much wildlife during these 3 days of driving either. We saw lots of prairie dogs along the highway and a porcupine was spotted as we Approached Valdez. Not much else to talk about.
I do want to share a joke with you that we heard from our tour guide in Skagway. The below picture is the Meals on Wheels program for the Alaskan bears…..
