We interrupt the last batch to bring you some surprisingly recent photos: Alaska, from last weekend!

A three-day trip, landing in Anchorage, heading out to Fairbanks and Tok, and then back.


Mt. McKinley at sunrise. Taken from about 2 miles south of Cantwell, so maybe 85 miles to the mountain itself. At about 8.30 in the morning, the mountain was completely clear, having not yet generated the cloud system it’s well-known to shroud itself with by mid-morning.


Halo in downtown Anchorage. Upper tangential arc visible at 12 o’clock, and sundogs on either side.


Overcast day on highway 3, which connects Anchorage to Fairbanks. We pass through the Alaska Range here. The highway was completed between Anchorage and Fairbanks in 1971 – before that, the only road between the two was to go via Glennallen and Delta Junction.


Apart from some blowing snow, the weather is really quite good. The highway department does an excellent job keeping this road open all year round.


High clouds at Nenana.


The 1968 bridge over the Tanana River. Until 2011 or so, the last 16″ route marker in Alaska, marked 1962 on the back, was in service just south of here.

Photo from 2007:

Alas, it is gone now.


High clouds as we head north to Fairbanks. Correction: southeast to Fairbanks. The Parks Highway (route 3) takes a major curve at Nenana.


A tiny halo segment over Fairbanks.


The northern lights! We drove 250 miles east from Fairbanks almost all the way to the Canadian border on the Alaska Highway, hoping to get a clear patch. This low-level haze was the best we did. No moon, so the only source of illumination was … green. It was bright enough that we could’ve driven without headlights.


A bit north of Fox on highway 2 – more overcast weather the next day. We had intended to get to the foot of the Dalton Highway, but snow was threatening, so we turned around about 10 miles north of Fox. This photo is returning southbound.


Nothing to see here, just a DC-6 that is being converted into a bar. On the old alignment of highway 2, in the outskirts of Fox.


Mister Bird Guy welcomes you to the Fairbanks Ice Festival.


This composition was called The Alien and His Dog. This is his dog; alien not seen here.


Excellent detail on the feathers here.


I don’t recall what the entire piece was which yielded this close-up section.


A porcupine. Imagine the effort required to carve out all those quills!


An iridescent section of a sculpture.


Alaska is filled with bears, both real and imaginary.


Our last morning, as we head south to Anchorage again.


Threatening snow clouds as we cross the Alaska Range.


The first direct rays of sunrise.


And there’s Mt. McKinley. We did not actually manage to identify it at first, because it seemed far too clear to be it.


Crystal wearing mukluks. She’s from Alaska, so she knows the value of adequate footwear. I, being of apparently negligible intelligence, ran around in sneakers with holes in them all weekend.


The snow is only at the very northern part of the Alaska range – as we cross it, the weather improves greatly.


The highway department takes care of business.


From the appropriately titled McKinley View Lodge. This is looking northwest now, from maybe 40 miles away. The first clouds are starting to form, around 10am – this is an exceptionally clear day by McKinley standards.


Another view from even further south. I can’t remember which stream this is, but the view is from about 120 miles away.


Our final view, from maybe 140 miles away. As it is so close to the horizon, the Huge Mountain Illusion (a lesser-known cousin of the Huge Moon Illusion) kicks in.