Bison while on the go . . . an odd sight

It has been busy here with work and travel as the construction season ramps up.  I had written these next couple of posts while I was out in the bush last week but did not have internet in the villages I was in so I’m going to try to catch up now over the next couple of days.

Monday 5/26/10

I’m on another trip for work so leaving the office around noon on Monday seemed kinda weird not being there all day long.  Getting the items done and heading off to the airport midday was not something I had done before.  The weather was deteriorating as I arrived for the Alaska Airlines flight down to Kodiak.  I had a late afternoon meeting and would overnight in Kodiak and head out early Tuesday morning once my superintendent arrived from Anchorage.

The flight down is short in just under an hour flight time.  There is no time for coffee, snacks or in flight movie.  We quickly climbed out to altitude which was 33,000 feet and leveled off briefly before starting our decent into Kodiak. 

As we descended back into the clouds the pilot alerted us we may be making our approach but the weather is bad and we may have to shoot a missed approach but we had plenty of fuel to make several approaches before going somewhere to land.  We made it into Kodiak with the rain coming down and the wind blowing sideways.

We landed with a big bounce and a quick engine reverse to bring the aircraft to a halt.  The short taxi to the terminal was non-eventful but this aircraft was a 737-400 Combi which means the front half of the aircraft if filled with cargo and the passengers walk up the rear steps.  It was raining hard in Kodiak blowing strong sideways.  There were four of us from my company on the flight and everyone was glad we made it in on the first attempt.  Later on we found out that the last two flights of the day could not land after several attempts, one even going back to Homer for an hour to wait and see if there were any improvements in the weather.  Both of those flights returned to Anchorage with the people onboard trying again Tuesday morning.

Our group checked into the Best Western and everyone later on came together to go over to a place to eat which seafood was the specialty but once we arrived in the driving rain discovered it was closed.  We then went to Henry’s for dinner.  It is an Alaskan mom & pop establishment who have several locations within Alaska. 

Once back at the motel I opened my window to cool it off and to listen to the raindrops falling outside.  It was a nice sleep.  The next morning we headed out to the airport to see if our other people had arrived on the morning flight and took all of our gear to the charter companies who would be flying us to the different project sites.

Tuesday 5/27/10

The surveyors had chartered their own plane big enough to carry all of their gear and instruments while Brian and I went on the scheduled flight into Old Harbor which left about thirty minutes later.  The ceiling was low this morning so flying through the two mountain passes was out of the question so once we took off we stayed low flying out over the water around the island until we broke out of the scud clouds hanging around.  As we flew south the cloud ceiling was higher so we climbed up slightly until we arrived to our destination.

Going around this side of the island was a new experience and brought with it several surprises.  Here, in a windswept corner of Alaska we crested and flew over a hill and sauntering along was a small herd of bison.  There were several herds along our route and I wondered if this was Alaska or Montana? We flew above the rolling hills and several sightings of deer roaming the hillsides. 

My geographic confusion wasn't over.  Quickly shrugging off the sight of buffalo in bear country, I readjusted my eyes to the landscape ahead.  The sun behind me was reflecting off the waters beyond Narrow Cape.  What was that giant 170-foot tower shimmering above the cliffs?  It looked like a launch pad for rocket ships.

And, in fact, it was.

Alaska chose Narrow Cape to build Kodiak Launch Complex, the nation's first remote commercial rocket range.  This is a Far North version of Cape Canaveral.  Private rockets are launched here carrying satellites and there were several test launches of the missile defense system “aggressor” rockets.

As we made our way pass several large bays heading into the interior of the island we turned down one to cross over to a pass that would get us into Old Harbor.  During this portion of the flight it reminded me of how many pilots and airplanes there are in Alaska.  For many it is just another form of transportation much like a second car or truck.  Going across this one last area we sighted over 15 planes going or coming at different altitudes so it was nice that Nick our pilot was on the radio talking to everyone and both of us pointing out each plane to the other.

As we flew over the town and made our turn for the final approach I could see that our housing unit was sitting at the boat landing and had not been moved over to the jobsite.  We landed and there were many people and vehicles waiting to pick up supplies we carried on the aircraft.  I could see that our survey crew had no problem finding the company red pickup truck I had shipped down earlier as they were driving up to the airport as we landed.

Brian and I spent our day getting things done to set up our work camp with moving the trailer, preparing the location by the existing water treatment plant to back the rig in to set up the camp.  We were able to obtain power from inside the plant with Simon’s help and looked for ways to connect the sewer piping into a main line cleanout.  We leveled everything and discovered that the barge company did not fill the propane tanks so we were without all of the tasks completed but we accomplished more than anticipated. 

Paul and Susan, our surveyors had remained back at the lodge while we ran through our tasks where they could spend time loading all of the coordinates into the GPS system to locate the easements, road routing, and other benchmarks for placing the water storage tank up on the side of the mountain.  By the time they had gotten all of their date entered and we picked them up for the jobsite it was after five in the afternoon.

We set up their ground base GPS and located a few known reference points so they could calibrate the instruments and we were off to the project site where they headed out to set op the easements.  We saw them heading up the mountain towards the road as we walked down to the infiltration gallery for a look.  We did our items with the trailer and waited for them to come back down off the mountain.  Brian and I joked that they would probably stay until either they ran out of stakes or finished marking out the water storage tank since it was the highest point in elevation.

They returned around 8:30 to 8:45 when we returned to the base station and retrieved the instruments for the night.  Back at our lodge, the Ocean View everyone made their own dinner whether it was snacks, a cup of soup, and TV dinner or for me I stopped off in Kodiak in the morning and bought a Subway foot look that I could eat off of for several days.  I also had some snacks I keep in my back pack for those occasions I need a little something.

It did not take long for everyone to fall out and head to their bedroom leaving a missed chance to see an evening sunset along Three Saints Bay in Old Harbor.

More tomorrow on the fickle weather of Alaska in springtime.

Ice