Flying

Hello blog readers.  It has been a busy week of Fourth of July preparations, so I haven't had the opportunity to tell you what I've been doing.  I'll rewind to the beginning of last week an catch you up on my Fourth of July experiences in a later blog.

I finally was able to use my B-3 aviation safety training last Tuesday, when I was able to go flying over the parks with our backcountry ranger.  Just so you know, I work at the headquarters for 4 different nationally-designated parklands, but we are not actually located within any of the parks.  The closest parkland is 10 miles away from Kotzebue, which sounds close but it is across the sound.  And I don't have a boat.  In fact, every thing is across the sound because I live on a peninsula.  So in the summertime the only way to get to the parks is bey boat or plane (in winter, you can use a snowmachine).  So this was my first opportunity to actually see the parks I'm teaching people about.

Flying in a two-seater bush plane is quite a different experience than flying in a jet.  I was required to where a fireproof flight onesie, a survival vest containing just about everything you'd find on Batman's utility belt, and an uncomfortable helmet.  The plane is made of a strong metal frame with this aircraft fabric stretched out over it and is light enough for one person to pull with a rope.  The 70-gallon gas tanks are located in the wings.  The tires are fat, rubber donuts pumped up to only 9-pounds of pressure and can roll over rocks the size of your head (yes, your head)! 

I sat directly behind the pilot and I was only able to talk to him via the headset install in the helmet.  The plane took of and as soon we were in the air I was reminded of how small Kotzebue is.  In minutes we were over the point I hiked to in my last blog post.  All this helped to give me a perspective of how large our parklands are (11.8 million acres).  On our 2 1/2 hour flight, we saw only a quarter of these park areas.

We started inland after crossing the sound, following winding, braided rivers between loping, treeless hills.  And speaking of trees, I finally saw some along these rivers.  Large, round rocks were completely visible beneath the crystalline blue, frigid water the wound its way across the land down below.  Sections of the tundra broke into sections of patterned polygons, shaped by the interactions of surface water with permafrost.  Caribou trails spread across the vast expanse below, creating a curious net that held the answer as to why caribou can walk across tundra with such ease as I trip over myself with every step.  Only land this wide can support hundreds of thousands of migrating caribou each year. Undeveloped.  Pristine.

The flight turned southwest, toward the coast.  The mountains we flew between became rolling hills we could fly over.  A creek brought us to the coast of Cape Krusenstern National Monument.  Of our four parklands, Krusenstern seemed to have the least scenic features, based on my reading.  I don't know why I thought so.  Though the land is relatively flat, it contains rows of beach ridges that contain evidence of 4,000 years of human use along the coast.  I was able to see ancient dwellings from the sky, along with the archeology camps there to study them.  Glass lagoons and pools dotted the coast, reflecting images of the light and clouds above.

Anytime I sit as a passenger among beautiful country as birds fly across my field of view, I begin to hum the Jurassic Park theme in my head (and often aloud).  There is nothing cooler than seeing ducks take off from the water when you are looking from above and the ripples they leave flaring behind them on the surfaces of the mirror-like lagoons.  Okay, maybe seeing a grizzly running from the coast and onto the tundra is a cooler sight.  Ask me to see a photo of this occurrence, because I have to zoom in a fifty times to see him, but even though he is just as blurry as Bigfoot at that distance.  We then proceeded to fly over a skiddish group of musk oxen and staring along the coast, I noticed a blue seal skirting beneath the surface of the calm ocean.  Wildlife!

As we crossed back over the sound towards Kotzebue, I pondered about how bad I wanted take my helmet off.  Once grounded and free of clothing that contained all I needed to survive a firebombing, I was fully able to reflect on the experience.  For two-and-a-half hours, I was free from dusty, isolated Kotzebue and able to experience the great vastness of the Arctic I'm educating others to protect.