Every summer is a busy one here in AK. Between multiple stints of grueling fieldwork, an arctic trip, and family time, 2019 was another whirlwind of packing 12 months into three months of sunlight. When Khalial, Alex, and I had a few days where our schedules lined up with not just each other but also with the weather we jumped to snag a plane into the Alaska Range.
On a shady Friday morning with the light muted by low clouds hanging over the Anchorage bowl, we met our pilot Kip at Lake Hood. We stuffed our packs into the back of the Cessna, crawled in after, and buckled up as the big wheels of the bush plane left the ground and we pitched away from the city and across Cook Inlet.
With Kip doubling not just as pilot, but also as DJ, the tunes floating into our ears made our flight feel like a dream as we climbed thru wispy clouds and across the inlet. Back over terra firma, we flew past rivers that had left their angry rapids of the steep mountain gradient behind to be replaced by lazy winding oxbows.
We crossed the dusty braids of the Skwentna River which we would paddle a few days later, then mountains spray-painted in a thin coat of orange by the smoke of Siberian wildfires rose around us.
