Well clearly they did show up since I’m posting the photos!


Aurora Borealis, Fairbanks, AK, Dec 2024

December 2024: For a milestone wedding anniversary, DH suggested that we travel to Fairbanks, AK to try to see the Northern Lights. We were fortunate enough to see them in our hometown in Northern California back in May (see photo below) but it just whet our appetites for more.



Aurora Borealis, Sacramento, CA, May 2024

We decided that we would make a quick 4 day, 3 night weekend trip, keeping our fingers crossed. Here is a brief trip report in hopes that it will be of use to others. If the details of this trip become too boring for you, just skip over the text to see the photos.
Outbound - We flew Alaska Airlines from Sacramento to SEA and then caught a connection from SEA to Fairbanks. Did you know that Fairbanks is almost 3000 miles (driving distance) away from Sacramento? It is hard to conceptualize how gigantic the state of Alaska is. Fairbanks isn’t even at the halfway point as you move south to north. We used Alaska miles and traveled with 1 carry-on duffel and 1 backpack apiece. I was able to squish my giant parka into my duffel, but my husband wore his onboard. We also wore our snow boots onto the plane. This part of the trip went smoothly.

Welcome to Fairbanks, Alaska!

HOWEVER, we arrived at 3:30PM into Fairbanks in the middle of a snowstorm. Of course the sun had already set. I don’t think the storm was really a big deal for the Alaskans. I did not make any tour reservations for our arrival day just in case we had weather related delays or too much cloud cover. In the end, this worked out to our advantage as we wouldn’t have been able to see anything that night anyway. I called the front desk at Pike’s Waterfront Lodge which is literally just down the street (1.5 miles) away from the airport. The hotel shuttle came immediately and we checked into our room. We then walked across the parking lot to pick up our rental car with Alaska Auto Rental. We rented a mid-size SUV with all-wheel drive which of course had an “advanced winterization package” which included the following: engine block heater, engine oil pan heater, transmission pan heater, battery maintainer, arctic grade fluids, winter wiper blades, snow brush, ice scraper, and extension cord (for plugging in the vehicle's winterization package when parked overnight).” We scraped the snow off our car and drove into the “city” to eat dinner at a Thai restaurant. Since we had previously lived in Chicago we were comfortable with driving in the winter conditions. Actually, this first night, it was relatively warm so that with the snow plows going around the clock the roads were easily navigable.

35-40 miles outside of Fairbanks, AK, Dec 2024
Afterwards, we were tired from our early AM flight time and long day of travel. We stopped at a local Fred Meyer to pick up some fruit and then returned to our hotel and realized we did not need to plug our “winterized” car into one of the many outlets stationed in the parking lot. Since the overnight temperature would not drop below 0 deg F we didn’t need to worry about our car “freezing to death” - at least not for this first night. We stowed our leftovers in our mini-fridge and went to bed in our extremely comfortable bed.

The next morning, we woke to darkness since sunrise wasn’t going to occur until 10:50AM. I looked out our window where even more snow had accumulated overnight. We ate our buffet breakfast - I enjoyed some waffles - you know the kind that has the pre-mixed batter that you pour onto the heated cast iron waffle maker and then close, flip and wait for the timer to go off when ready to serve. The Lodge had a nice assortment of breakfast meats, eggs, oatmeal. Of note, the one thing they didn’t really have was fresh fruit. This seemed to be a recurring theme in our meals - the scarcity of fresh fruit and vegetables - completely understandable given the climate and the remote location.

The entrance hall of the Museum of the North
After breakfast we bundled up and drove over to visit the Museum of the North. Located on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, it is a beautifully designed building. The exhibits included ethnographic, geographic, natural history, artistic and historical/political information about Alaska organized by region. For instance, we never realized that during WWII, the Aleut people (of Japanese descent) were also placed in internment camps in the lower 48 states. We highly recommend a visit to this informative and thoughtfully organized museum. After grabbing a warm lunch of soup and sandwiches we drove back to our room to relax and take naps. We wanted to be well rested before our 8PM pick-up for our first Northern Lights tour. I kept looking at the weather app as the snow was STILL falling - which meant that the skies were completely cloudy. According to the app, the snow was supposed to stop around 4PM. When I woke up from my nap I could see the clear night sky! We ate our Thai food leftovers from the night before and then proceeded to layer up for our tour.

The show starts...We knew from our Internet research that once the skies clear the temperature tends to drop. We knew that it was projected to drop below 0 deg F so we made sure to plug our car into one of the outlets to protect it from the extreme cold. We each put on about 4 layers of pants, 4 layers of tops, our hooded winter parkas, our water-proofed snow boots. We had neck gaiters, warm hats and a couple pairs of gloves each. We also each had an electronic hand warmer to hold onto if we needed them.

Our guide Ed picked us up in his heated Mercedes van. There were ten of us and he drove us to a pre-selected somewhat elevated location about 35-40 miles outside of Fairbanks to wait for the show. Despite some unfavorable indicators he thought that we probably had a pretty good chance to see the lights. And see them we did! Ed and his wife Elena were so enthusiastic. They really love the Aurora Borealis. This enthusiasm was helpful because they had set up very high grade photography equipment and were constantly encouraging us to stand and pose with the Northern Lights in the background. They also took time lapse photography and made a short video. Afterwards we received a link after they had a chance to download and edit our photos. This was great because my husband despite his experience with photography (look at our Africa trip report) just did not get the best photos. I am so thrilled that we were able to have these photos as a keepsake. Personally I was too mesmerized just watching the lights. I didn’t realize that it’s not like they just sit there - they move, dance, scintillate, soar, shimmer. As a group we would all start exclaiming out loud with some of the displays. You just can’t help yourself as it was so exciting!
Around 2 to 2:30AM Ed asked if we wanted to go back. He personally was willing to stay out longer if we all wanted to stay longer. However, all of us were tired by this point. Even though we would sit inside the relatively warm van and only jumps out when the lights would reappear, the temperature was dropping progressively lower and lower. It was harder and harder to warm back up whenever we got back into the van. Also, I don’t know how others felt but I really needed to use the bathroom. We had been out for about 7 hours and of course there were no facilities nearby.

After we arrived back at the hotel we went to sleep immediately. We woke the next morning and had a late breakfast. We decided to go and see a movie in the early afternoon. Afterward we drove to a small gourmet pizza shop to eat an early dinner. Once we returned to the hotel we plugged our car in again, dropped off the keys at the rental counter and went back to our room to take a nap. We woke up in the early evening to perform our dressing ritual. This time we were picked up by Moke and driven to the Aurora Borealis Lodge. This is a cozy and warm house with somewhat large picture windows. We would hang out inside the house watching to see if the lights were appearing. Once they started to appear we would run outside of the house to stand on the deck to watch the lights. While the show was not quite as impressive as the night before - it was still pretty amazing.Additionally, by closing time around 2-2:30AM the temperature had now dropped to about -35 to -40 deg F with the wind. It was FREEZING. Being able to go inside for a bit with warm hot chocolate, a bathroom and comfy chairs to relax was definitely more comfortable on such a night.

2nd night of our trip.
Moke drove us back to the hotel where we had already packed in preparation for our early AM departure. We took the hotel shuttle back to the airport around 6AM after having only had a couple of hours of sleep. We had a very stressful trip back as we were supposed to fly from Fairbanks to Anchorage to Seattle to Sacramento. However, we were informed in Anchorage that the plane that was to take us to Seattle was stuck in Juneau because it was “broken .” I kid you not, they kept saying it was broken. Anyway, they were able to repair it but I had to scramble and rebook our final leg onto a Southwest flight. We made it home 14 hours later pretty exhausted but at least we were home.


No, that is not the sun. It's a waxing gibbous moon.


Some last comments:

I use contact lenses some of the time but I was worried about the extreme cold and dryness affecting my eyes. However, wearing glasses did not work out that well. When I would pull up my neck gaiter to cover my face, the warmth of my breath would escape upward, steam up my glasses and then promptly freeze. So I would have to keep removing my glasses to wipe them or pull my neck gaiter down. I should have just gone with the contact lenses.

We resigned ourselves to accept that we could not control the weather or solar activity. December isn’t even the best time to increase your chances to see the aurora. However, I did start watching the extended forecast for Fairbanks - particularly to see if any huge storms were blowing in. Since I had fully refundable reservations for almost everything I had decided that if a blizzard was forecast I would cancel. I noticed that every single day the forecast would change for the days of our visit. But there weren't any major storms so we crossed our fingers and got on the plane. In the end we just lucked out. Our guide Ed told us the story of a South American women who had come last year for 2 weeks and did not get to see the aurora even once. I thought that was so sad.

Also, we visited during a time when there was almost a full moon. As you can see, we were able to see the aurora just fine. It was kind of weird how bright it made the surrounding landscape. However, you will note the difference in quality and brightness of the photos that Ed and Elena took on the first night. My husband observed that they were using very expensive camera equipment on tripods with very long exposure times. The second night my husband was on his own and even though the moon was just as bright he couldn't use the same exposure time, especially without a tripod. Also, some of the photos appear blurry because despite having to use a long exposure time, the lights may be actively moving throughout the shot!

Finally, there were other outdoor activities to explore (dog sledding, reindeer farm, etc.) but for such a short trip with very little daylight we decided to conserve our energy for those freezing nighttime trips.

In the end, we were just grateful that we were able to share this experience together. It was truly amazing and awe-inspiring.

How interesting -- wonderful photos! Both Ed's and your DH's. I've always wanted to go to Fairbanks and points north for the Aurora, crossing the Arctic Circle, etc . . . but I have relatives in/near Anchorage and I'd be in big trouble if I didn't visit them too and - well enough said LOL.

Thank you for sharing your trip! As someone who wears glasses, I’ll make sure to wear contacts if I visit too

Wow, you were lucky. As you guide said, some people are there for weeks and never see the aurora.

Great report of a fun trip. Glad you lucked out on exciting aurora and great photos. Thanks.

These are great photos! And god bless that guy wearing the Chicago Cubs jacket.

janisj - if you don't get up that way very often, surely your family would forgive you trying to fit in some way to try to see the lights? It could be a 2-for-1 trip!

schmerl, dfrostnh - Yes - we tried to take a really Zen approach to whether or not we would see them and we were so, so excited that we saw them both nights. Watching them move across the sky was a surprisingly emotional experience.

liza97 - I googled the whole contact lens question because I was worried that the lens would freeze onto my eyeballs! I felt kind of silly looking it up but apparently others have asked the same question. The dry eye issue had me a little worried as I figured it might be hard to bring eyedrops (they might freeze too!) so I went with the glasses.

Trongenius - as a former Chicagoan - I didn't even notice that!

As an additional note - another reason we had rented the car was that if we came in on a clear night and couldn't find a last minute tour to join, we figured we could drive ourselves to a location outside Fairbanks by ourself. In the end it was convenient for us to get around Fairbanks for eating out, visiting the Museum and the movies without having to rely on Uber (though it was certainly an option).

That's the problem . . . one has some family they want/like to visit, and then there is family . . . not so much There would be hell to pay if I went to AK and didn't see/stay with them.

(I've visited them in Anchorage/Wasilla twice which is about my max. )

But I guess I could manage one day/night in Anchorage and and 'take one for the team' LOL

ohhh...that's a tough one. Now I get it. Hope you can figure out a way to get around this "little" obstacle.

That is so awesome! I have the worst Northern Light luck in the world but good to know you can do a tour since I don't drive in snow.

A UCLA college classmate/roommate was an exhibit designer (and design director) at the Museum of the North for 30 years. She retired over 10 years ago but maybe you saw one of her designs.

https://www.uaf.edu/news/archives/ne...1022093256.php

Love the photos, 61luv2travel. Thanks for posting them.

That is so cool! Your roommate did an amazing job - my husband and I loved this museum. It really is a model for how today's museums should be conceptualized.

Great photos! Thanks for sharing. We enjoyed our brief stop in Fairbanks a couple of years ago, including a visit to the Museum of the North. It was in much different weather, however, at the very end of August. We also lucked out with the aurora the evening before, from our cabin near Denali -- and we didn't have to bundle up!

And yes, this Cubs fan spotted the jacket!

I'm glad you both enjoyed the museum. It was clear even 50 years ago that she was supremely talented and creative.

There's really no winning 😅– either our glasses fog up or our eyeballs freeze!