I had the privilege of spending a day flying around the greater Cordova area on a job this past August. Things were too busy to stop and post pictures of the trip at the time, but now that the sun is setting at 3:45 in the afternoon, I find myself with a bit more time in the evenings. I wish I had more time to make these blog posts immediately after taking the photos, but the truth is I have 10’s of thousands of images and not enough time to share them all. All the above photos were taken in one day.
For those of you familiar with Alaska, Mike and I left our house at Sheep Mountain and landed in Cordova just 1:15 minutes later. I found it to be a surprisingly short trip, I had never made this flight, and while I knew it was just over the hills, I had not realized just how close it was. The weather needs to be pretty awesome before this trip is even possible, but the day we chose was utterly cloudless. We climbed from our house elevation of 3000′ straight to 9500′ and went right over the top of the Chugach Mountains. Cordova is a stunningly beautiful costal town. It also receives some of the most horrific weather one can imagine.
An interesting piece of Alaskan history is found not far from Cordova. It’s called the million dollar bridge. It was built in 1909 and cost more than a million dollars. The bridge was used to help transport about $200 million dollars of copper ore from Kennicott. I remember it was damaged in an earthquake, but I believe it is still usable if the road getting to the bridge is not washed out. Most of you are probably not impressed by a bridge built in 1909 because it’s only been a 100 years. For us Alaskans, local history like this is relatively rare. Houses built in the 1980’s are considered history … ok, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the point. Alaska did not even become a state until 1959!
Oh ya’ and the last picture is of Mike and I hanging out at Baja Taco for lunch. This was a good time. And yes, if you ever end up in Cordova, Alaska and don’t stop at the Baja Taco bus for lunch … you really screwed up.
One of those pictures up there, I think it’s the first one, is October’s picture in this years Blue Ice Aviation calendar.
Awesome pictures Matt…You’ve had some great posts lately!!