This will be a short blog after a longish day. We headed south this morning after two nights in our cell.
Our Cell
We knew there were plenty of roadworks on the main (only) road down to anchorage so we figured it could be a longish day. In Alaska they tent to work on 5-10 mile stretches of the road at a time, and use “follow me” vehicles to escort you through. This means waits of up to 30 minutes if you are the first car to be stopped. We had that honour once.
The other unknown was the fire situation near Willow. From what little news we could glean, the road was open but “follow me” vehicles were operating over 22 mile stretch of the highway, using only one direction at a time, this could give up to an hour delay if you were #1 in the queue. As it turned out, they were still using pilot vehicles, but they were operating in both directions, so we only had a 20 minute wait. The road itself was clear, but there were still areas of smoldering brush close by.
Smoke From Fire
Smoldering Brush
On top of all that, our friends Alan & Marie had told us about a scenic flight around Mt McKinley that they took earlier in the week. We decided to splash out and take one. This meant an extra 16 mile detour into the town of Talkeetna to get to the airport. Once there we booked the flight for an hour later. While waiting we noticed that e had parked next to a camper from Australia! They had it shipped over from Oz to s. America and had driven up to Alaska.
I was hoping to fly on a Beaver aircraft, but we finished up on an Otter.
Otter
As we went out one of the passengers asked if they could sit up front with the pilot, he said sure and 3 kids all raised there hands as volunteers. Pilot said he preferred someone over 6 ft tall (i.e. no kids). I quickly volunteered.
View from the Passenger Seat
The flight itself was fantastic, the weather was clear and sunny. I must admit that on a couple of occasions I got very close to tapping the pilot on the shoulder and pointing out large cumulus granitus clouds (rocks) directly n front of us, as he seemed pre-occupied with looking out the side window!
Below are a series of pictures (if the internet gets its act together) from the flight. If I get bored with waiting, I’ll upload them when we get home.
Landing
We’ll have to be up at 0330 on Friday morning for the flight home. I’ll post a final entry in the next few days and update the photos then.