Alaska road trip day 12

Friday, 29 August

176 miles (plus a bunch in the air!)

My first excursion to actually get off the ground! Henry took great care of us in this Cessna floatplane
Felt very official with my headset on. The sound was deafening in there so it’s a good thing we had them!
Taking off!
Flying out of Homer
Ninilchik Bay
St Augustine, super cool volcanic island

McNeil River State Game Refuge

I wish I could have gotten a picture of this but rainbows when you’re flying are complete rings!!

Katmai National Park

Coming in for a landing
Parked at the beach
Graduated from bear school. 🐻 I’m so smart 😁
Brooks Falls from a distance, complete with rainbow.

I walked out to the river viewing area, waiting to be called for my turn at the falls. Ended up walking and talking with Susan, the other single person on my flight.

Got called! Spent the next 30 minutes totally enraptured. I will now add my vast (but pared down) collection of photos and videos (I had 300 of them before I started narrowing it down!)

I really can’t even put into words how incredibly cool this whole experience was
You could only eat food inside this fenced in area or inside the building. All food and anything with smells have to be walked in a room before you went out anywhere beyond the gates and fences.
The entire beach was strewn with pumice!!
BOB Bear on Beach
Goodbye Katmai!
Battle Lake
Hello Lake Clark!
This is the lake that we would have landed on but it was just too windy to safely land. Super bummed!
Cool waterfalls! And just check out the color of that water
Abort! Abort!
My selfie with Lake Clark National park as we were flying away
Landing back in Homer
Thanks Henry! Sad that we couldn’t land, but thanks for keeping us safe
My new flying buddies… Wanda, art, Susan, and me
And with our pilot, Henry
My campsite for the night in Seward
Quite a pretty spot