Trans-Alaska Pipeline Visitor Center
Location: Fairbanks, AK
When to visit: Anytime during daylight hours (which are nearly 24 hours in summer)
Cost: Free
Time needed to enjoy: 10 minutes
Website: Alyeska Pipeline
Back in the early ‘70s, before the subject of drilling for oil in Alaska became the highly-charged political hot-button issue it is today, the Trans-Alaska (Alyeska) Pipeline was regarded as one of the great feats in modern engineering.
Completed in 1977, the $8 billion pipeline carries 15 percent of America’s domestic oil production. Parts of the pipeline are underground, and parts are above ground, like this portion at the Visitor Center, eight miles north of Fairbanks.
The visitor center has displays that lay out all the facts.
Also on display are some of the “pigs of the pipeline,” which travel through the pipeline along with the oil and help detect any unexpected changes in the system.
The pipeline travels a staggering 800 miles down the entire state. While the visitor center is in Fairbanks, you can drive south for hours and see the pipeline popping up everywhere, over mountains, across rivers, through forested terrain.
The pipeline often has its own bridges as it crosses more than 500 rivers and small streams.
Oh, and this is bizarre but true: The pipeline has its own Twitter account. They tweet the number of barrels that pass through each day.
Oh Alaska! So random and I hate to say it, but I kind of liked that it would pop out of nowhere and zigzag across the road. You never knew where it would pop up next! And it’s not like it was huge or anything. For some reason, as a kid, I thought it would be just ginormous! But it kind of wasn’t, just very very long:-)
Yeah I didn’t mind it. It was crazy how it kept on going.
A quirky attraction indeed!! Nice tid-bits given too, interesting.
The pipeline has a Twitter account and one of the mayors is a cat? This is an interesting state.
It might be the most interesting state I’ve ever seen!
It’s a bit of a scar across Alaska, but It’s also kind of a fascinating marvel of engineering as well.
Agreed. Felip kept saying how much of an eyesore it was, while I was more stunned at the fact they could build this thing for hundreds of miles. We’d drive for two hours without seeing it, and then it would pop up again. I can’t imagine the labor involved to construct it.
This is going on our “must see” list.
If you make it to Fairbanks, definitely stop by.