Alaska Factoids

Twice the square footage of Texas
33,000 miles of shoreline
The state could stretch all the way from Florida to California (if you add in the islands)
Coldest Temperatures in the U.S.
39 mountain ranges
1/2 of world's glaciers
10 months of winter
2 months of thaw
Same amount of roads as Vermont (even though Alaska is 62 times bigger)
most critical road (Fairbanks to Anchorage)
Thompson pass on this road gets 42 feet of snow average a year so lot of avalanches(20 per year average)
All time record for snow (974 inches)over 81 feet of snow
yearly average over 500 inches (more than 41 feet of snow)

The majority of Alaska is not accessible by road.

The state has more than 40 active volcanoes and has experienced a 9.2 Earthquake which is still the 2nd largest recorded earthquake on earth. It also has the record of the largest tsunami ever recorded of over 1700 feet high which knocked down millions of trees in Alaska and those areas are still bare today. This took place in Lituya Bay and pictures of the aftermath are shown in this TV program on Modern Marvels.

This is something developed for truck drivers driving in whiteouts. They developed a GPS system accurate to 3 centimeters. The normal one is only good to 3 feet. But with a 3 centimeter accuracy they can literally project a copy of the video screen upon the front window of the truck so if it goes white out they can navigate from the gps reflection on the driver's front window. The center lines mile markers and all other important designations is also on the GPS TV screen reflected on the drivers front window. They have a device that causes the driver's seat to vibrate if he or she goes over the centerline. There is a vibration on the right side of the driver's seat if they go too far to the right as well. They also can see on this screen all trucks or cars coming at them down the approaching lane of traffic as well as people coming up behind them that might be traveling faster than them.

They also developed a system like the above one for pilots of planes using GPS. ON the tv screen anything yellow is at their altitude and anything red is above their altitude. This keeps pilots from flying into mountains or rising terrains in whiteouts and conditions when they can't see properly where they are flying visually. This way they reduced pilot deaths from one every 9 days  by 40% since installing this new GPS real time technology into Alaskan Planes. So, I guess now they only lose a pilot in Alaska every 12.6 days now. In a state where most people have to fly to get anywhere this is a really big deal.

Fiberglass skis for planes allowed people to land planes under difficult conditions and not be so worried that a wooden ski would break from concussions and bumps in the takeoffs and landings. Since Fiberglass can be reinforced in various ways it can bend quite a ways from concussions without breaking and is much lighter than aluminum or steel and yet still very strong.

The above facts are all from" Modern Marvels" on "Alaska" on the History TV channel off of cable tv.

By the way the most snow I have ever skied on is around 40 feet(but that is here in northern California) on Mt. Shasta in the most extreme high snow year. All you can see is the tops of the highest trees. But you still have to not get to close to the trees because trees tend to melt out around three feet around the bases and all the way up the trees, so if you fall in next to them you might fall 40 feet if you aren't stopped by branches. So, this is something to be aware of if you are in over 5 or 10 feet of snow. In even ten feet of snow if you fall in these tree melts you might not be able to get out. Skiers, snowboarders and snowshoers die often of this fate if they are not careful.

One winter in the city of Mt. Shasta city in town they got between 12 and 15 feet of snow at one time. The problem became that people's roofs started to collapse on some people. And as people got on their roofs to shovel snow off some would slip off the snowy roof into the drifts around the house which can be very dangerous in that much snow. Also, the problem was that you had to throw snow up off the roof because there was no down place to put snow off a single story roof. This was difficult for many retired people in the area unless they could find or hire someone to shovel off their roofs. I think this was 1992 in the winter this happened. One of the years like this in town was when I skied on 40 feet of snow up on Mt. Shasta on mountaineering skis with metal edges. Even trying to drive up on the mountain was strange with snow piled that high alongside the paved road to Bunny Flats. They have large snowblowers with snow blades around 7 to 9 feet high to keep some of the paved roads open up the mountain in the winters as far as Bunny Flats. Also, the large snow blower trucks keep the roads open to the Mt. Shasta Ski area which is up on the mountain from Snowman Summit on the pass between Mt. Shasta city and McCloud on Hiway 89.