May 25 Slept really well last night. Temps get down to about 40º so it’s good sleeping weather. I was awakened about 6:30 by (you guessed it) an airplane reving its engine for takeoff. This is one of the best alarm clocks I could imagine. I’m sure I’ll tire of it if it happens everyday at that time.
I turned on the coffee maker and was checking email on my iPhone. Peggy had gotten up and fixed the rest of our leftover cinnamon rolls. I had just finished eating when there was a light knock on our door.
It was Grant, the owner of the air service we are working for. “Hey, Tom, whatcha doing?” as I stood there in my pajamas. “Want to go look for bears?” "Heck, ya’ I do!" I quickly get dressed. That's the fastest I've put cloths on this body in a long time, and also brushed my teeth.
I grab the camera, take a quick swallow of coffee and bound out the door about the time Grant taxies by in his yellow Piper Super Cub airplane! He fuels it up, has me squeeze into the back seat of this two person plane, and off we go.
I don’t know where I picked up my good luck (my life has been full of it- marriage, birth of 2 kids, having 3 grandkids, etc.) but here I go again for an incredible experience! We climb to about 1000 ft and fly southeast of the Wasilla/Palmer area.
We follow a broad, braided stream bed with little ribbons of water flowing. Off to the right I can see the Cook Inlet which is part of the Pacific Ocean. To the left are mountains and towns in the wide MatSu Valley. It’s what up ahead that has me google-eyed.
In the valleys of the mountains ahead of us are glaciers!! OMG, they are huge looking. Fortunately I took my camera with me. Unfortunately, I had not recharged the battery, and I only have 1/4 charge. Uh-oh!
As we enter the mountain pass, Grant, who incidently worked as an investigator for the FAA and has several pilot certifications, banks towards the left to get us close to the mountainside. Oh, ya’, we're looking for bears.
We almost immediately spot about 8 Dall Sheep and Mountain Goats. Grant says he’s never seen them so close together. A short while later I, (yes, the rookie bear spotter) see a sow bear with her cub. She hears the plane and both of them bolt for the trees. We also see a couple of moose but no other bears.
Grants flies several different interconnected mountain valleys all with glaciers in them of varying sizes. I’m giddy taking pictures of these incredible rivers of ice. After about an hour Grant says in the headset that nature is calling him. Nature’s calling? Look out your window- there’s Nature!
He flies to an area where there are natural (geez...everything’s natural up here) deltas and gravel bars left by the glacial runoff. Off to the right at the base of a mountain I see a small runway with a couple of planes there.
However, Grant cuts the engine’s power, puts down the flaps, and banks to the left. Uh, Grant, the runways over there I’m thinking to myself. I’m sitting in the back seat so I strain to look over Grant’s shoulder. Grant, there ain’t NO runway there! All I see is gravel covered with scrub brush. We go lower, and slower.
The grounds moves up to meet us, and we make a remarkably smooth landing on this gravel alluvial fan left by the retreating glacier. Wow!
We climb out, and I go to one side of the plane to take photos of the glacier while Grant goes to the other side to answer the call of nature. He then comes back around the plane and asks if I want to do a small hike to see more of the glacier. Yes! Grant takes the .22 caliber rifle which is carried on a wing strut and loads it. He said you never take for granted that there isn’t wildlife around that want to do harm to you. And off we walk.
We hike about 1/2 mile up a small hill which give us a better view of the valley and you can see the expanse of the glacier. I take photos of it and also of Grant’s plane and the “runway” he used. I’m speechless to think that we landed there! Grant says he is a fairly typical Alaskan pilot- capable of landing most anywhere. He tells me stories of flying into Eskimo camps where a plane has damage or might have been repaired. His job with the FAA was to determine whether or not planes were air worthy. Some of those camps were not only remote, but the runway was nothing more than a sandbar along a river.
We hike back, take off, and this time he flies low along the foot of the glacier where large blocks of ice are in various stages of breaking off (calving) from the ice sheet. The sights are remarkable. I don’t have enough adjectives to describe what I’m seeing and what I’m feeling! I’m again lucky that the camera battery doesn’t crap out on me, and I continue taking photos. I’ll be sure to post these pixs to the picassa site as soon as we get cable Internet.
(And, guess what...I've found another unprotected wireless hub which I'm conveniently "borrowing"!)
Back at our camper I’m babbling to Peggy about this fantastic experience, and then I realize this poor lady sat home while I had another experience of a lifetime.
So, feeling a tad guilty, I went out and wash as much muck and dirt off the camper and it’s windows as I could. What a guilty feeling guy will do to ease the tension. :o)
We found our way to the laundromat and grocery store after lunch. That’s a start on finding our way around the area. Because Wasilla is in foothills and around a few lakes, none, and I mean none, of the streets run straight. And, there was no rhyme nor reason to naming the streets. Few streets have a number and most have a name. Makes for tough navigating. No wonder “Karen” my GPS is sometimes confused. Seems this area may have outgrown its infrastructure.
Grilled steaks for supper! A walk around the neighborhood put the end to another fantastic day.
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