Alaska 2008-09

Headed up north on another trip to see the vast lands of Alaska in and around Anchorage. My friend Jim once again kindly offered some local sightseeing and to take me up on a flight, and this time we were going to try our luck at fishing! Up we went hoping to sneak thru the back end of Turn Again Arm to a hot lake for salmon. However, the weather did not cooperate, so we headed for the Kenai Wildlife Refuge and Lake Vogel. It was a bit of bumpy trip but I held my own and got to see yet another jewel of this wide open country. The fishing never materialized, however a day flying in Alaska is its own reward.

A hop, skip and a jump from Anchorage!!!

While most business travel takes you to some pretty mundane places, this is not one of them. A trip to Anchorage has some definite appeal to an outdoor/wildlife photographer, and if one of your peers also has an airplane, you hit the jackpot. I was working away on a nice afternoon and got an offer I could not refuse. Jim told me he has an airplane and if I would like to go for a glacier flyover. It took about maybe 3 nano-seconds to say yes!!! We departed from Lake Hood, which lays the claim to the busiest floatplane base in the world, but not off the water but on the gravel runway they have for water challenged airplanes (Jim had not yet attached his floats). We flew north east up the Cook Inlet, over the Knik Glacier and then returned for a nice dinner at the Glacier Brew House. My many thanks to Jim for the opportunity and his expert flying skills that made the trip a memorable one.

This glacier is just 50 miles north of Anchorage with an ice field 25 miles long and 5 across, feeding the Knik River which empties into the Knik Arm of the Cook Inlet. It is told that early pioneers would wager on the jökulhlaup date (Icelandic term for a glacial lake outburst flood) which would disrupt water traffic between Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Valley.