Updates from September 2, 2007

This is a huge panorama from spectacular Finger Mountain, shot by spinning my telephoto zoom lens around almost 360 degrees on a tripod and stitching together around 20 exposures. I hope this is about as close as you'll come on a computer to standing on a mountaintop in Alaska taking in the view.

Snowden Mountain in the Brooks Range, viewed here from the north, is one of the most impressive peaks along the Dalton Highway. It's coloration is striking in the evening light out of the west.

This is one of my favorite pictures -- I think it really captures the character of the place. This is the view from the south of Sukakpak Mountain, a prominent landmark on the south side of the Brooks Range. The Dalton Highway winds in an arc around Sukapak, providing very different views from different angles.

This is one of the first creeks crossed on the Dalton Highway itself, but I can't remember its name.

This is the first good view of the Yukon as you come up from the south.

This juvenile Chinook salmon was one of many attacking my fly in a surprisingly fast, deep pool on the Jim River, a tributary of the Koyukuk. There's no fishery there (or anywhere along the Dalton Highway, really) for the adult salmon, because they're too few in number and protected.

View from the Elliott Highway not far north of Fairbanks, on my way up to the Dalton.

The Yukon River Bridge. It doesn't look as intimidating from this angle as from up above when you see that it's "paved" with wood, although I trust that was a wise engineering decision given all the truck traffic and extreme weather conditions.

This view of the pipeline, the Atigun River, and an impressive sunset/rise was one of my first views of the North Slope as I came through Atigun Pass in the middle of the night.

A panoramic view from Finger Mountain along the Dalton Highway. This is one of the more developed rest stops along the highway, and the view is vast and spectacular. The "finger" that gives Finger Mountain its name is sticking up in the distance behind the cars in the parking lot.