A cabin in the woods

Sunday, June 21, 2009 2 comments

I am home in Southern California for a couple of weeks. Spending time with the family and friends.

While in Alaska I am living in Gustavus which is about 50 miles west of Juneau at the mouth of Glacier Bay. I have a small cabin that I am using while there. It is one room with a bed, dining table and kitchenette with an adjoining bathroom. Not a palace, but very comfortable.
This is the gas station in Gustavus. Those old pumps actually work. You can get gas, diesel and stove oil. I took this picture at 9pm. Note the sunlight still in the trees.

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More Excursion Inlet

Saturday, June 13, 2009 0 comments

The approach to Excursion Inlet is a little unusual. They have installed lights and a siren that the pilot can activate from the air to warn the workers at the cannery to stay clear. It is also to notify the bears that a plane is coming. Then a low fly over at about 500 feet to ensure the runway is clear. The wind typically is blowing from the southeast, in this picture the view is to the north west, so the landing is makde coming toward the camera.After flying over head and turning around out over the water, this is the view back to the southeast on "final".


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Glacier Bay and Excursion Inlet

Sunday, June 7, 2009 0 comments

This afternoon I will be giving a flightseeing tour of Glacier bay. More than likely I will be going up the west arm and will be showing the Margerie Glacier at the very north west end of Glacier Bay.

This is the Johns Hopkins Glacier, also in the west arm. You can not really see it in the picture, but there is a lot of ice floating in the water below the glacier.

One of the places I get to fly into is Excursion Inlet. It is a fish cannery located on an inlet just East of Gustavus. Of course there are no roads to get there, so like so many places in Alaska, the only way to get there is boat or plane. Right now we seem to be doing about 3 flights a day into the cannery. We fly a lot of supplies in, as well as workers. And we haul out plenty of fish. Along with the cannery there are a couple of sport fishing lodges and many private cabins located in the inlet.

This is the view you get on take off headed to the south east. Yes it is narrow and the trees are tall. It gets pretty exciting when you are fully loaded!Note the blue sky in these pictures. This past week it has been 80 degrees and sunshine here. Better weather than they have been having back home in So. Cal.!!!


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