The shuttle picked us up at 11:45AM and took us to the airport. Finally about 1:25PM we boarded our plane, one of two flying to Coldfoot:
Our pilot Dave kept us informed on what we were seeing. The couple seated in front of us is the sister of Lou, an RVer we have had chance meetings with of a couple minutes multiple times over the years, the last time being as he dropped his sister and brother-in-law off for the flight. Bill had briefly met the brother-in-law in Fort Myers, FL last winter.
Here is other plane about to take off, the pilot of that plane is named "Bill".
We had good visibility on the flight north:
A gold dredge:
The local ski area, they use buses instead of chair lifts:
The red is fireweed:
The Alaska Pipeline, showing how it is designed crooked for temperature expansion:
A working mine:
The Yukon River:
You can see the winter route in the picture below (dogsled and snowmobile):
Wet and hard to negotiate land in summer:
We crossed the Arctic Circle. Here is Coldfoot in the distance:
On the ground at Coldfoot, that is George and Robyn from Sidney, Australia behind Diane. George and Robyn were also supposed to be on the flight to Barrow in the morning.
Terry, our tour guide. Terry has lived for eight years in Coldfoot all year and is originally from Santa Fe, NM. In the winter he cooks for the Coldfoot Camp Cafe. He has lunches for George and Robyn from the cafe that were faxed in. George and Robyn said the sandwiches were quite good, they were impressed.
