Arctic Man- Cancun of the North

Saturday, I headed to Arctic Man. I decided to run down and see what all the hub bub is about. Arctic Man happens down around Summit Lake, just north of Paxson AK, about 60 miles south of Fort Greely. It's a beautiful drive down through the mountains. I passed it at first, it is tucked up back in a valley and I drove right past the entrance and into Paxson. Realizing I had gone too far I turned around and headed back. I saw a glimmer off in the distance up a mountain pass and a train of cars coming out. I guessed it had to be it. You figure with sponsors like Red Bull, the major beer guys and all the snowmachine ATV folks there, they'd have a decent entrance sign up, but no. The saying goes that for the week that its happening, Arctic Man is the 3rd largest city in Alaska. I believe it. It reminded me of a Nascar race. The smell of gas and methanol combined with portipotti freshener and the hum of generators give it the oh so familiar festival assault on one's senses. RVs were everywhere and unlike Nascar open fires are permitted. Like an angry nest of wasps, snow machines, atvs and minibikes scurried to and fro. I headed straight for the Vendor area to check it out. The beer tent was massive, but since I wasn't staying long, I only did a quick once over and headed to the vendor displays. All the 2011 models were on display including fashionably dressed teens and 20 somethings promoting their off road capabilities. One girl was even in snow pants and a bikini top riding around in a 4seat utv. It was about 45 degrees so I'm sure she had to be cold or was so full of anti-freeze it didn't matter. I saw all ages. Kids, teens, young adults, middle agers and even grandmas and grandpas, all whooping it up. It would make for a great family vacation for families into motorsports for sure. I was a bit camera shy walking around so I took some pretty vanilla shots of the general camping set-ups and some shots of the mountains.

You can see the oilpipeline crawling up the mountainside in the middle of this one.

The top of the mountains were obscured by fog. 5 miles of avalanche danger ahead. This area had a big one earlier in the spring that closed the highway for about a week.

Another one of those wonderful Alaska sunsets and sunrises. Civil twilight lasts forever up here after the sun goes down, so you get these transitioning colors literally for hours.