I am thankful for a great trip to South western Alaska. I am also thankful to be back home with my family. Scroll down to see 50 photos from the past week.
Heading for Cold Bay Alaska in less than ideal conditions. It’s 350 miles from King Salmon to Cold Bay. Most of the trip was awesome … but there always seems to be a little bit of this along the way.
There are a lot of things I have never seen … I had never seen a rain-shower rainbow hovering off shore.
On the beach on Unimak Island at the mouth of the Pogromni River. It’s a rare day when Pogromni Volcano (in the back ground) is visible.
We call it the “Thunder Dome” but it’s an old building on Unimak Island at Cape Sarichef. The link will tell you a little bit about this area. This structure was a military building from the WWII era.
This is Scotch Cap. This is the first Costal Alaskan lighthouse, build in 1903. Here is a bit of the history of Scotch Cap. There was massive tsunami in 1946 that killed 5 men here.
In the foreground is the arch on Unimak Island. Across the water (Unimak Pass) is Ugamak Island.
The south end of Unimak Island.
Fisher Caldera on Unimak Island.
Fisher Caldera. There are three lakes in the Fisher Caldera area, I don’t know their individual names.
A poor picture of a beautiful wolf on Unimak.
Happy to be on the ground in Cold Bay on a beautiful evening. Using generators and electric heaters to keep the engines warm overnight.
This picture shows Pavlof volcano on April 7th 2016. Visit my post from April 1st here to see a photo of Pavlof Volcano blowing it’s top on March 27th 2016. I was fortunate enough to be down here working near Pavlof in June of 2014 when Pavlof erupted last time. You can see those pictures from 2 years ago here
This is flying around the base of Pavlof’s sister you can see the obvious line where fresh snow has covered a fairly thick layer of ash.
Another picture showing the contrast of fresh snow and ash.
Looking out across Pavlof bay.
Ash blowing in the wind at the base of Pavlof volcano.
A thin ash cloud kicked up by the prop wash off Mike’s cub on the Sapsuck River.
Old N7580Y headed for friendly skies, with Mike Meekin.
A few legends who would probably rather not be named on a silly flying blog :o)
Departing Black Hills airstrip.
Looking down into Surprise Lake in the Aniakchak crater.
Surprise Lake, Aniakchak crater.
Port Moller.
Ernie departing Port Moller.
Mike Meekin departing Port Moller.
The gang.
Topping off in Port Moller on a beautiful afternoon.
Landing at Port Moller. 
If you look close near the bottom of the picture you can see Mike’s cub over the water headed for Deer Island. This is the crossing at Port Moller looking North East.
Leaving Deer Island for the mud flats during the Port Moller crossing. We landed down there once just for grins. It’s good solid ground. This crossing is totally comfortable, legal, and safe … if the weather is good.
A beautiful morning in Cold Bay with Frosty Peak in the background.
Refueling at Frosty’s in Cold Bay.
This is Cold Bay from the air. Bering Sea on the horizon and the Pacific ocean on the right.
Leaving Black Hills airstrip.
I had to post a picture of my new seats. They were built by Sport Aircraft Seats and installed one day before this job. Fair price, beautiful workmanship, extremely comfortable, and ZERO DOWN TIME! Oh ya, and in the back ground is Becharof Lake and the mouth of the Kejulik River…it was blowing 55mph down there.
That feeling you get when you reach the West end of Lake Iliamna and you realize the pass is going to be rough…
…And then you get to the East end of Lake Clark, near Current Creek, and see the dust rolling off the sand bar. Then you suck down your seat belt and slouch in your seat a little to give your head more clearance to the ceiling, proceed with caution.
The End. It was a great trip. New adventures with good friends.
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