Adventures come in all shapes and sizes. One day late this summer as I was working a low tip producing section of the restaurant, a group of friendly folks trickled in to my large table. This turned out to be a good thing; we hit it off from the start and I discovered one of the couples included a pilot for a major airline. It turns out his route for the next month included the weekly flight to Adak Island and back. And he had an open seat for next Thursday and by the way, what was I doing next Thursday? And would I like to come along? Oh boy, would I!!
This is a view of Mt. Illiamna from the plane. Go look up Adak Island on the map. Then trace the route from Anchorage to Adak. We had a sunny flight for only the first part of the trip and lost sight of the islands far before we reached Dutch Harbor.
Adak is the farthest island along the Aleutian chain you can reach via commercial airlines. It was cold, windy, and rainy during my short visit. I understand this to be the normal weather here. We had a couple guys from my other job working on a project here and they had some weather stories to tell. It is also lush and green and gorgeous. The islands appear to shoot straight up out of the ocean; most of them are very rocky with velvety green caps of vegetation. And no, I didn't see the caribou, they were on the other side of the island.
Why is there even an airport of commercial airline size in this place, you might ask. Well, because the entire 'town' used to be a military base. Complete with McDonald's. Most of this has since been mothballed. I took some other cool pictures to ask Alex's dad if he recognized anything from his days here. I'm looking forward to another trip someday after this glimpse. But probably not by sailboat.
Adak is the farthest island along the Aleutian chain you can reach via commercial airlines. It was cold, windy, and rainy during my short visit. I understand this to be the normal weather here. We had a couple guys from my other job working on a project here and they had some weather stories to tell. It is also lush and green and gorgeous. The islands appear to shoot straight up out of the ocean; most of them are very rocky with velvety green caps of vegetation. And no, I didn't see the caribou, they were on the other side of the island.
Why is there even an airport of commercial airline size in this place, you might ask. Well, because the entire 'town' used to be a military base. Complete with McDonald's. Most of this has since been mothballed. I took some other cool pictures to ask Alex's dad if he recognized anything from his days here. I'm looking forward to another trip someday after this glimpse. But probably not by sailboat. 
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