![]() The aurora also tends to peak in intensity around the spring equinox (also the fall equinox, but the skies are more frequently clear in spring). Around the spring equinox, March 21, there will be roughly twelve hours of light and twelve hours of darkness, providing good opportunities for both daytime landscape photography and nighttime aurora photography. I recommend visiting in March, for reasons beyond avoiding accidental cryogenic suspension. To give you a better sense for what that means, during one recent January the temperature in Coldfoot, a small encampment 240 miles south of Deadhorse, remained below -60 oF for 17 straight days. The arctic tends to be at its coldest in January and February. To assist those interested in embarking on a similar journey, I thought I’d share what I learned along the way. With more accommodating weather forecasted this year, I decided to do what any committed landscape photographer would do – try it again. The journey, though, left me with memories of an incomparably desolate but pristine winter wilderness, a landscape that beckoned me to return. Snow drifts eventually closed the road, forcing a retreat to Fairbanks with my mission uncompleted. My engine struggled to turn over, the transmission refused to shift, and windows froze shut. The temperature outside had dipped to -65 oF. ![]() My destination was the end of the road – the town of Deadhorse – but more than 400 miles of ice, the Brooks Range and a succession of weather-related obstacles stood in my path. Exactly one year ago I was on my way to Alaska’s north slope, with green aurouae dancing overhead. My mind, however, was wandering much farther north. ![]() Trees were leafing out, flowers were sprouting across nearby deserts, and spring was on the horizon. It was early March, and another cloudless 70 oF day had arrived in Los Angeles.
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