Life in Alaska

[Takn4aFool]

my sister lived in Fairbanks for about 15 years and talked about how the car exhaust and smoke from the chimney's would just hang in the air with no wind and visibility would be just a few feet. she said the shopping mall/ stores would have electrical plug ins so you could plug your car in while shopping. said that city busses only got shut off when they needed an oil change.

[AKwelder]

Interesting 

 

4 longest run 

[hardtail]

Hope its over soon

[AKwelder]

Been a more normal winter here lately. Although they have a storm watch in effect now, but who knows

 

picture dump

me and wife had to drop of her sister in Florida so we took a side trip down to my buddies in the USVI

not sure how it got upside down 

 

my buddy was ice fishing and got a really good sized fish

 

driving south to Valdez for work had a wonderful sunrise

 

Navistar is testing trucks in town

.

 

chime in gents.  

[AKwelder]

Been very cold here, in fact we have been setting records. It was -41 a couple mornings at the airport

[Cool1566]

That sounds horrible. I can’t imagine all that is required to keep basic functions happening in an environment like that.

[AKwelder]

12 minutes ago, Cool1566 said:

That sounds horrible. I can’t imagine all that is required to keep basic functions happening in an environment like that.

It’s not to bad, we are not seeing unheard of temperatures, just unseasonably late. And a lot of them. 
 

what is more concerning is we have a lot of snow this year, when it starts to melt it’s going to be wet this year.  They are predicting it to be unseasonably cold until April, then it will warm up.  I think the temperature will swing hard when it goes and the break up will be a mess with flooding and chaos

 

a construction site near me has frost down 12 feet.  That’s unheard of

[hardtail]

A lot of lines would be in jeopardy here, water lines are minimum 8', weird you have lots of snow and frost to that depth

[TroyDairy]

....we bury at 4'.  2 easy be good enough actually 

[New Englander]

Lots of single digits here and a few negative. Roads are a mess of frost heaves. Our driveway pavement is 12 years old and is pretty beat in a lot of places as well. I've got some well pipes that aren't very deep due to ledge but they've never froze so I stopped worrying about them - good snow cover gives me peace of mind. I dislike the cold so couldn't live in interior AK, coastal like Anchorage not too bad but the short days in winter would suck. I respect those who can live and work in those -40 temps in the dark.

[AKwelder]

normally frost will maybe make it down 5 feet. The case of 12 feet has to be a freak issue.  They are digging now to avoid water in the spring, the pipe is below the water table.

 

its still below zero here this morning, and according to NOAA the temps have been about 30 degrees below average. 
 

my concern is when it swings back to normal it will suddenly be very warm and we will have a lot of spring melt on lots of frost and frozen rivers. So the water isn’t going to get away

[AKwelder]

Been busy.  Was in Minnesota for a quick visit with my youngest boy. Him and dad wanted to get dads Super C running, so we pulled it into the shop

 

It was stuck a little bit and we got it loose and ran it

 

rented a skid steer to remove hardpack here, wrong color but it was the right tool for the job

until the hose let loose

 

state came by and blew some snow, right over my garden and bee hives

 

 

going to talk to them about that

 

still cold, and below zero each morning

[Gabriella Cook]

i lost my hives to the cold 

[AKwelder]

20 hours ago, Gabriella Cook said:

i lost my hives to the cold 

Sorry to hear that. How far south are you?

[AKwelder]

Warming ip

 

Been A hard winter

[TroyDairy]

18 hours ago, AKwelder said:

Warming ip

 

Been A hard winter

I cannot imagine!

 

And the skeeters will survive 

[AKwelder]

On 4/4/2026 at 5:14 AM, TroyDairy said:

I cannot imagine!

 

And the skeeters will survive 

Oh yeah.  The skeeters will not only survive but thrive

 

 

 

[AKwelder]

Been a busy spring.  We have worked along the line and there are some wonderful views.

 

 

 

one going over Antiguan pass

 

don’t see these on the road very often

 

large back up generator in a power house 

 

got out bees, well the first shipment 

[Drysleeves]

What do you mean by “the line”?

I’m going to guess that generator is related.

[CRVB91]

1 hour ago, AKwelder said:

 

 

 

one going over Antiguan pass

 

 

 

This is the absolute dream for me 😍

Thanks for sharing the pics! 🏔

[ray54]

6 hours ago, Drysleeves said:

What do you mean by “the line”?

I’m going to guess that generator is related.

Oil pipe line.

[AKwelder]

12 hours ago, Drysleeves said:

What do you mean by “the line”?

I’m going to guess that generator is related.

I work for a maintenance contractor on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline.
 

The generator is at one of the facilities

[AKwelder]

This is a new one

 

flights canceled 

[AKwelder]

Good grief. 
 

operator error

[New Englander]

We occasionally had to take large detours around Iceland and various Pacific Rim areas due ash clouds. The flight manual has specific actions to accomplish if inadvertent penetration. It's brutal on engines often causing flameouts and sandblasts windshields to near opacity.