Fodor's Expert Review Trans-Alaska Pipeline

Just north of Fairbanks you can see and touch the famous Trans-Alaska Pipeline. This 48-inch-diameter pipe travels 800 miles from the oil fields on the North Slope of the Brooks Range over three mountain ranges and over more than 500 rivers and streams to the terminal in Valdez. There the crude oil is pumped onto tanker ships and transported to oil refineries in the Lower 48 states. Since the pipeline began operations in 1977, more than 18 billion barrels of North Slope crude have been pumped. Currently the pipe is carrying about 450,000 barrels per day (less than a quarter of its peak figures from 1988).