Upper foothills open for tundra travel

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources announced Feb. 10 that it was opening the Upper Foothills Tundra Opening Area for tundra travel. Conditions in the area have met the opening criteria of a 9-inch snow depth and temperatures below minus 5 C at a 30-cm depth, DNR said.

“This opening applies only to those operators who have valid off-road vehicle travel permits to operate on state-owned lands on the North Slope,” DNR said.

All state land on the North Slope is now open for tundra travel. The eastern and western coastal areas opened on Dec. 29, while the lower foothills opened Jan. 14.

This has been a really interesting year for off-road travel on the North Slope, Gary Schultz of Alaska’s Division of Mining, Land and Water told Petroleum News Feb. 12.

“We got snow really, really early,” Schultz said.

As a consequence of that early snow, companies wishing to build ice roads to remote North Slope sites were able to start pre-packing the snow much earlier than normal. Chevron, for example, started pre-packing the ice road for its White Hills exploration drilling on Oct. 7 — the previous earliest date for the start of pre-packing on the North Slope was Oct. 25, Schultz said.

But the downside to the early snow was a slowing down of the rate of freezing of the underlying tundra. That pushed back somewhat the opening dates for tundra travel in each of the state’s four tundra travel management areas.

“That deep snow insulated the tundra,” Schultz said.

The snow was particularly deep in the upper foothills, where the tundra travel season has only just opened.

But no one is working in the upper foothills this winter and the early start to ice road construction has in fact enabled companies to get a head start on their winter work. Overall, companies are happy with the situation this winter, Schultz said.

And early snow packing of ice road routes is a win-win situation, in that it enables companies to start off-road work early while at the same time being beneficial in providing extra protection to the tundra, Schultz said.

—Alan Bailey