On the road again

Leaving Phoenix in the morning for Valley Center, Calif, will spend a couple days and get in a game or two of golf with Tim Ghierman and Hilda, then on to Atascadero to visit with my daughter Cathy. We will be back in Redding for the March 6th book signing at Barnes and Nobel and another on the 20th, then we will head north back to Alaska for the summer and catching fish and enjoying the Land of the Midnight sun, best wishes to all, Cliff.

Arizona Sunshine

Got to play golf at Sun City and it was'nt in the rain, we actually had real sunshine and it was great. My wife Jeanne and her sister Tini have been garage saleing every day, I dont know if we will have room to haul it all back to Calif. when we leave next week. I have 2 book signings in Redding, Calif. on the 6th & 20th of March at Barnes & Nobel, we will depart soon after for Alaska in our motorhome. It will be good to get back after all of the unforseen things that came up on our trip. the biggest of course was Jeanne's emergency operation in Quincy, Illinois and the three month recuperation after that, she is doing real well now and we are very grateful for all of the wonderful health care that she recieved also for all the kind thoughts and prayers. Until later

Alaska Picnic and on to Phoenix.

We arrived in Yuma saturday evening from Valley Center, Calif. contacted Skip Weeks an old time Alaskan friend and got the details on picnic. Met up with about 450 or more sunday AM and renewed old time frienships with people I had not seen in many years, Leonard Willbanks, Pete Wylie,Carol Neeley and many more, it was certainly worth the long trip and time to attend this long running function and hope to do it again. We had a night out in Yuma and the next morning went across the border to Algodones, Mexico and bought some odds and ends like all tourists, also had nice evening at the local Casino with Jeanne and her Sister Tiny. Hope to get in some golf while here in all this beautiful sunshine, best to all, later.

Traveling

I finished up the short story about the Arctic trip and submitted it to several magazines and the first day got a reply from Overdrive magazine, they put it in their publication which is a great help in getting the book out into the whole country, I will enter their internet link into blog and on my webpage which is a work in progress. We traveled from Anderson, Calif. to Valley Center out of San Diego and spent the night with Hilda and Tim Gierman then played a round of golf with Tim this morning and then drove over to Yuma, Ariz. We will go to the Alaska picnic here in the morning and then go down to Mexico monday for some shopping. We plan on going back up to Phoenix for a stay with Tiny and Rich before going back to Anderson, talk to you again in a few days, Cheers.

Burned Snow Train.

Snow Train Recovery.

The Snow Train was left by the side of the trail and was later pulled out to the Taylor Highway useing Cats pulling one unit at a time. The Taylor Highway should have been named the Goat Trail as it was a narrow and steep trail through the 40 mile country that ran some 160 miles into Eagle from the Akaska Highway at Tetlin Junction. I took on the task of recovering this crippled machine and takeing it out to the Highway. I transported my Cat bulldozer up to Boundry on the Alaska, Yukon border where these 6 units were located and in minus 62 degree weather began moveing thse big rigs one at a time down the road. There were several bridges across rivers that the big 16 foot wide rigs were wider than the bridges, so I had to build ice roads and take these units across the rivers off to one side or the other, this turned out to be quite a big operation, with -60 weather and many other unforseen problems we ran into,all of these complete story's and many more in my book 18 Wheels North to Alaska, available at, publicationconsultants.com . There is ample material within this book about this historic journey and other story's of the Alaskan and Arctic north to make a great movie, read it, you will like it. End Snow Train Story. Start of many more excerpts from book and other tales.

Maiden voyage to the Arctic.

The Snow Train was loaded up and set out for it's maiden voyage, there were a lot of people who had grave doubts as to whether this huge machine could possibly make such a trip, however it performed very well and reached the Arctic without any major problems, it was left on the trail after unloading and returned back to Eagle, Alaska on the Yukon River in the early winter of 1955 and reloaded for the much longer trip back to the Arctic 1900 miles northeast of Eagle, however this giant machine jack knifed ino a canyon which caused a fire and burned up all of the electrical system, this totally disabled it and they were forced to offload all of the freight onto sleds that were pulled by the Cats and went along with the rest of the truck convoy to their destinations. Cont.

Really Big

Cats removed 60 foot snow drift

24 Wheels across the Tundra

Rolling North

The Snow Train

The next chapter in this historic ice road trip will focus on the machine that was the creation of Al Ghezzi the man who came up with the idea and inspiration for this history making journey to the Arctic Ocean, this huge 274 foot long train was built especially for this trip and remains the only one of it's kind ever to run overland to the Arctic Ocean. This train consisted of 6 units, the front unit contained the diesel engines that ran the electric generators which delivered over 700 horsepower to each of the 24 electric powered drive wheels, the overall width was 16ft for the power unit and each of the 5 following trailers, the engine cab was 17ft- 4 inches high, truly a sight to behold. This train was built by the R.G. LeTourneau Company and was designed to carry 25,000 lbs. on each of the 5 trailers, this rig weighed in the range of 400,00 lbs. gross when loaded, the train was completed in time to join the first trip from Fairbanks, Alaska to the Arctic Ocean in the winter of 1954-55. Cont.

Thanks for the lift.

More than a flat tire.

Not so solid ice

Homeward Bound

Due to delays from mechanical problems, river crossings and the rig falling through the ice, they were running quite a bit behind schedule, this meant that the lakes; rivers and tundra were getting more dangerous to cross with each passing day, the nights were still getting very cold but daytime temperatures were melting the ice very rapidly, several rigs broke through and had to be winched out by the Cats but they did;nt lose any. When they reached the Yukon River after many days and nights of travel and overcoming any and all the problems that arose they found that the banks of the river were very steep, so they ran a Cat down into the bed of the river and pushed gravel up from the bottom to make entry and escape ramps to cross this last big barricade, the water came up over the operators lap with Cat all nut completly submerged in the river, the details of this and other storys can be found in my book 18 Wheels North to Alaska, also the names of many of these Pioneer truckers. For all intents and purposes when they crossed the river this historic journey was completed. Looking back over the past two winters and all the miles traveled over these vast areas this hard working group of Pioneeer truckers stand alone to this day for being the only one's to ever travel these difficult if not impossible area's.

Through the ice

On solid ground

On to the Arctic ocean ice

They knew that the Arctic Ocean was very near when they saw the Eskimo seal hunter, they stopped and took pictures and handed out some goodies to the Eskimo and then headed out onto the ice covered water towards Victoria Island , one of their destinations, they had gone about 35 miles out when one of the heavy loaded Macks broke through the ice and all but the front steering tires ended up beneath the surface, the bottom of the trailer was flat against the ocean ice. Had this rig gone any further and broke clear through it was over 700 feet to the bottom of the ocean. They offloaded the frieght and pumped the diesel fuel out of the in bed storage and then were able to get the rig out of the ice. They decided that the danger of others breaking through was not worh taking the risk so they off loaded all of the heavyest loads and put the frieght on sleds and continued on with Cats pulling them to their destinations which they reached with no further problems. These Pioneer truckers had made this historic trip a reality and all that was left to do was return some 1900 plus miles back to Alaska. Cont.