Home again – Back from the Slope

I tried to post from “the Slope” but had no success. One reason was connectivity issues, but more so, I just didn’t have a lot of free waking time to access the Internet and post.

This was a whirlwind tour. I stayed at the new Aurora Hotel in Deadhorse. This, as it turned out, was significantly better than the digs at PBOC on the field. To be fair, the Aurora is a new camp, with PBOC being the original ARCO base camp back in the 70′s.

All in all, had a great trip. Really only spent a full day, having arrived on Monday afternoon from Anchorage, and departing on Wednesday morning (through Barrow) back home. It was 55F / 13C and sunny on Tuesday. There was just enough wind that the mosquitos didn’t eat you alive, but they were swarming thick. The caribou came up on the roadway, and are oblivious to the few vehicles that pass by. They end up just sauntering down the road at a leisurely pace. You dare not haze or harass the wildlife, so our life comes to a crawl… Literally. Hey, I wouldn’t want to go off in the tundra and stir up the bugs either.

Eventually the ‘bou got out of the way, and we were able to move on past. Drove on to Milne Point, visited a job site at Tract 14 and “home” again. By the way, Tuesday is steak night, so we didn’t want to miss that… PBOC is the only open fire grill on the Slope and it certainly makes a difference. The chow hall was crowded by the time we returned.

All in all, I accomplished “something” but it was far less than anticipated. That is oft times, the way of work on the Slope.

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