It's July, and it's snowing on the road to the Arctic

While most of the country runs its air conditioning, it's snowing on Atigun Pass. Drivers this week have to chain up, and motorcyclists are told to stay off it altogether — in late July, the road is glazed with ice.

This is the Brooks Range, the mountains that wall off Alaska's Arctic from the rest of the state. Atigun Pass is the one place a road gets over it — 4,739 feet up, about eight hours north of Fairbanks on the Dalton Highway, the gravel haul road built for the trans-Alaska pipeline. Cross it and you're on the North Slope, tundra running to the Arctic Ocean. It's the only land route linking that whole region to the rest of Alaska. When Atigun closes, the Slope is cut off by road.

Up this high, winter never fully lets go; snow can fall in any month. Last week the Weather Service called for all snow, lows in the 20s, and a few inches across the central Brooks Range. This is just what summer looks like at the top of Alaska, where the Arctic sets the terms.