Well we made it back to Fairbanks at 12:30 this morning.
We took off out of Nome and heading for Kotsobue, which is just north of the Artic Circle, it was amazing as we flew across into the Artic Circle there was actualy a current change in the water that you could see and pack ice floating under us.Myself and Bob flew most of the flight just above the deck and saw a couple Musox, although we did not see any polar bears, we did see tracks through the snow, yes snow it is astounishing how much snow is still on the ground.
Kotsobue is at 11′ above sea level and there is still snow on the ground, I’m not talking full coverage, but spotty, there was even ice still on one of the ponds.
Kotsobue is a smaller village that could be walked in less than 1/2 hour.
We checked the prices of food $7.19 for a gallon of milk
Nome was only $5.49.
100LL for the planes was the highest at $4.50 per gallon.
After having lucnh we headed for Fairbanks via Galena, we stopped and fueled up and headed for the final leg towards Fairbanks, about 10 miles out we ran into the smoke from the wild fires in northern Alaska, pretty much from there out we flew IFRS (I Follow Rivers through heavy Smoke).
Hopefully I will be able to get my VOR/ILS antenna fixed today at the local avionics shop, they are waiting for it to arrive via UPS.
It was fine up until the Bald Eagle landed on it.
So we should be heading towards home tomorrow. So far I have flown 67 hours since leaving Maine less than two weeks ago.
I would recommend this trip to everyone, even though we have not done all of the touristy things, we have seen things that very few have from the sky above the view is fantastic.
Parts of this trip we have covered at 200 AGL. What a trip.
Well I will talk to you all soon.
Brian Foote
Lost in Alaska