Day 7 When will they get to the Alaska Pipeline

Its now the final stretch. By this time tomorrow they will have finished but will they have won the race?

We will put an update on the BLOG as soon as we here the final result...

Check out there progress: Where in the world is Tom????? 


See the image below they (the little yellow kayak) are currently camped for the night 24.4kms before Stevens Village. The weather isn't looking the best with isolated thunderstorms accordin to the weather underground website. This could make visability hard in the maze of braided river channels that they will hit in and around Stevens Village.

From the image below you can see that they are in front but not by much. The last leg is 44kms from Stevens Village to the Dalton Hwy Bridge: The Finish Line. We estimate that they will finish at about 12md tomorrow Alaskan time if they get away at 5am as planned and travel at about 10kms/hr which has been there average speed for most of the race. That will be at about 6am Sydney time tomorrow morning. 


The finish line is the white dot on the river at the bottom left of the image below.

The Landcrew are currently sleeping but spent the day driving Fairbanks to Alaskan pipeline 3 1/3 hours of dirt road again!!!!!!! They are booked in to stay at The Yukon River Camp. Last year when the owners returned in the summer. There was a grizzly bear living in the accommodation. It had been sleeping on the merchandise. So they had a special sale bearly used t-shirts.

The Landcrew are out of phone and internet contact so this blog is being written by Tom's son and daughter Daen and Carina who have been sidelined as landcrew since we slept through Tom's Hawkesbury Classic finish a few years ago, but thats another story. 

webcam image from 12:11am on the 26th of July at Stephens Village. Look at those thunder clouds.

Some facts about Stevens Village:

Stevens Village is located on the north bank of the Yukon River, 17 miles upstream of the Dalton Highway bridge crossing, and 90 air miles northwest of Fairbanks. It lies at approximately 66° 01' N Latitude, 149° 06' W Longitude (Sec. 30, T014N, R007W, Fairbanks Meridian). The community is located in the Rampart Recording District. The area encompasses 9 sq. miles of land and 3 sq. miles of water.

The original settlement, called Dinyea (meaning "mouth of the canyon"), was founded by three Athabascan Indian brothers from the Koyukon region: Old Jacob, Gochonayeeya, and Old Steven. The village was named for Old Steven when he was elected Chief in 1902. During the gold rush, residents cut wood for mining operations and to fuel steamboats plying the Yukon River. A trading post was established in the early 1900s. The first school opened in 1907. A post office began operations in 1936, and scheduled air service was initiated in 1939.



Some facts about the Trans Alaska Pipeline

• The Trans Alaska Pipeline System was designed and constructed to move oil from the North Slope of Alaska to the northern most ice-free port in Valdez, Alaska.
• Length: 800 miles.
• Diameter: 48 inches.
• Crosses three mountain ranges and over 800 rivers and streams.
• Cost to build: $8 billion in 1977, largest privately funded construction project at that time.
• Construction began on March 27, 1975 and was completed on May 31, 1977.
• First oil moved through the pipeline on June 20, 1977.
• Over 15 billion barrels have moved through the Trans Alaska Pipeline System.
• First tanker to carry crude oil from Valdez: ARCO Juneau, August 1, 1977.
• Tankers loaded at Valdez: 19,625 through April 30, 2008.
• Storage tanks in Valdez - 18 with total storage capacity of  9.1 million barrels total.
• The mission of Alyeska’s Ship Escort Response Vessel System is to safely escort tankers through Prince William Sound.