Hello again Pinmapple!
My last post was about my journey up the Steese highway towards our original destination, but there was so much to look at along the way that it deserved it's own post.
While looking for things to do in and around Fairbanks I found a list of 50 things to do written by a local that was infinitely more useful than Tripadvisor.
Rather than recommend a tourist trap paid tour of a maintained Dredge, they suggested the Chatanika Gold Dredge.
This is how the Dredge looked before 2013 when the Dredge was accidently set on fire, burning away the tin and wood structure and exposing the steel skeleton underneath.
And this is how it looks now, (with added filter for dramatic effect). The fire transformed it, taking it from belonging in an old western movie to not looking out of place from the apocalypse scenes in the Terminator movies.
The Dredge was operational between the 1920s and 1960s separating gold from sand, gravel and dirt. Several exist dotted around Alaska.
After a mix up with Google maps we found the correct trail entrance and after a short hike over what appeared to be the gravel byproduct from the Dredges mining days we were right next to it.
Technically the Dredge resides on private property however visitors are allowed.
Something I've realised from showing friends my pictures of the Dredge is that there's nothing next to it to show its true scale. He's a picture of me "onboard" that hopefully will give you a sense of how huge this structure is.
And this is the photo that you can see me taking.
There wasn't an inch on this thing that didn't have graffiti on, even places that were seemingly inaccessible.
Somewhere that wasn't inaccessible were the two highest points of the structure. Both had metal ladders reaching the top but some of the welds holding rungs had failed which did not fill me with confidence.
Maybe it was me being slightly hungover from the night before, maybe I wasn't confident with my footwear, or maybe I'm just getting old. But this was the first time I thought "Nah, not worth the risk". And didn't attempt the climb for a photo.
Would any of you attempted the climb?
I have a lot of respect for the people that climbed up here. Graffiti might be vandalism but damn they worked for it.
The tin that survived the fire must have melted and ended up draped over the beams like fabric
I took a photo of this section because I liked the colour contrast between the rust and the cyan of the wheel. It was only on closer inspection of the photo that I realised someone had spray painted it that colour!
Shout out to my friend Toby, thanks for snapping me from the hill with my camera.
The above pictures show exactly why I invested in a bridge camera. We're taking pictures of each other at exactly the same time but look at the zoom difference!
Photos taken with a Oneplus 10 and Panasonic Lumix FZ1000