Moose Surveys III

I'm finally getting to the story I wanted to write about when I started writing about moose surveys -- one particular moose survey.  We had set off from our Anchorage home base for a moose survey west of Knik Arm.  Anyone familiar with Knik Arm knows that near it's northeastern headwaters, Cook Inlet splits into two arms -- Knik and Turnagain with Anchorage located at that that junction.  Turnagain Arm has the largest tidal range (up to 40 feet) in the United States and ranks fifth worldwide.  Knik Arm certainly can't be far behind.  Currents roar through glacier fed, silt laden Turnagain and Knik Arms with immersion in the water being virtually unsurvivable.

All went well that day until we ran into a large concentration of moose near the foot of a glacier "flowing" out of the Alaska Range.  With every circle over a group of moose, more moose seemed to pop up until finally, with fuel running low, we had to turn for home.  That's when we flew straight into unexpectedly strong head winds.  Progressing at an agonizingly slow rate I anxiously watched the bulbs on the fuel gages on either side of the cockpit slowly descend towards nada.  Soon the engine sputtered as the right gage registered zero with Anchorage nowhere in sight.  The pilot quickly switched to the dangerously low left tank until it, too, registered zero.

By then we had come to within sight of Anchorage with one remaining obstacle -- besides the miles that separated us -- the terrifying Knik Arm.  Reaching the shores of the waterway, with one tank totally empty and the other reading the same, the pilot announced we were going to head across to Anchorage.  I said NO and at that moment he spotted an abandoned airstrip.  We landed.  Now the prudent thing would have been to radio to someone at the Anchorage Airport that we needed help.  However, this pilot spotted a rusty abandoned Caterpillar Tractor at the end of the strip.  Nosing around he discovered there was still liquid in the gas tank, three gallons of which he was able to siphon into an empty Blazo fuel can.  

I have no idea what that tank really contained, but now we had something that smelled like fuel instead of Avgas in the plane.  With the fuel gage still registering zero and with great trepidation I agreed to join him as we headed across Knik Arm.  Need I say I was incredibly relieved when we safely landed in Anchorage marveling that we did not run out of gas as we taxied off the Anchorage International Airport runway?

By then I questioned the wisdom of that pilot and decided to scratch him from my list of potential transporters.  Six months later he and all his passengers perished in a plane crash.

Again, lacking digital images from those years, I'm attaching some recent photos Kären has taken far removed from Knik Arm, but rather on our Southeast Alaska Island.

The snowline doesn't even reach saltwater in mid-January this year.

But it sure is awe inspiring at higher elevations.

Agree?  See the alpenglow on the top.

No snow in the muskeg in early January.

Although some clear days have been pretty frosty.

There must be trumpeter swans somewhere around here.

Surely there must be some.

Aha.

No, you are not a swan or a moose!