Hank:
I am aware of that; I just didn't want to get too far away from the main point of the thread.
In 1990, my wife and I flew to Copenhagen, Denmark, rented a car, and drove morth along the Swedish coast and into Norway. We kept going, and exploring, all the way to "Nordcapp" [North Cape in Norse] which is only 1,650 miles from the North Pole. It supposedly is as close to either pole as one can drive anywhere on Earth. For those who wonder, Nordcapp is slightly further north than Pt. Barrow, the northernmost point in Alaska. There was still some vegetation due to the Gulf Stream keeping the waters slightly warmer but not exactly an overabundance.
There still was a lot of grass for the reindeer (it was also high summer), herds of which used the roads for ease of travel. Heck of a way to herd reindeer! We did it for a while until I could ease the car through the reindeer.
Best regards, Hart
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hank Wrote (in part):
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> Just to be picky, it's not the thinness of the
> air, it's the shortness of the growing season. Get
> up high enough, even in the tropics, and you're
> out on the tundra. The farther North (or South)
> you go, the lower the elevation this occurs at. Up
> in Northern Canada there's a "tree line" that
> streches all the way across the continent!
>
> hank, feeling pedantic