June 25 - Trip to Barrow - Part 1

Joined: 23 Mar 2004 Posts: 74 Location: Barrow, AK

Bellingham to Seattle to Anchorage:
Left Bellingham on the 9:05 am flight. Got to Seattle no problem – had about an hour to wait, which turned into 1 ½ hours since we had to wait for a medical patient to be set up on board. The flight to Anchorage was packed. The flight was just over 3 hours. The people on the plane were very interesting – it appeared that there are many who knew one another – perhaps they were going on a cruise together.

It was beautiful as we left Seattle. There was a blanket of cumulo-stratus clouds at about 8-10,000 feet – judging by the mountains poking through. We flew south and then banked west and north. I could see Mt. Baker, Glacier Peak and the Olympics all rising above the clouds. Mt. Rainier was too far behind us. As we rose higher there were many tall cumulus clouds to the east, rising above the Cascades. They were up and down the entire length that I could see. We flew directly over the eastern edge of the Olympics – the peaks looking like islands jutting up from a white ocean.

While we were over the Puget Sound, there were some clear spots through the clouds where you could see the water. There was a fascinating swirling of a light green algae bloom on the water. It had shifted into ribbons and curlicues as the boats and water currents played with it. It was not all over the water, only in certain spots, and I wondered what caused it to be where it was – maybe some kind of difference of temperature or nutrients?

We flew past Mt. Baker and north toward the Canadian part of the Cascades. The clouds beneath us became more stratus like, but there were still high cumulus clouds to the east. There tops reached at least 30,000 feet into the air.

About an hour into the flight (I guessed), we got our meal – a hot chicken sandwich with pepper jack cheese. Not exactly gourmet. There was also a white chocolate coconut cookie. Hideous! Sad

The clouds finally cleared a bit and I could see more mountains. There was water in between the mountains so I guessed that we were over the southern part of Alaska.

A bit later I saw a very cool volcanic cone. I think it was Mt. Edgecumbe near Sitka. The travel magazine on the plane said it is “often likened to Mt. Fuji.” It was a near perfect cone shape, much like Fuji, so I felt safe in my assumption.

Next we passed Mt. Fairweather, near Glacier Bay and Mt. St. Elias near Yakutat. St. Elias is the second tallest mountain in Alaska and the range is the tallest coastal range in the world. There some very amazing glaciers that spilled out into the water there. Along all of the glaciers you can see the “lines” of flow as they snake down to the water and then at the edge they start to break off and appear all “chunky”. They look like a river of ice.