Video: By Cessna 172 over Alaska II.

Video: By Cessna 172 over Alaska II.    Today´s Alaska 2017 Expedition flight video follows the flight from Cordova to Chitina, Talkeetna and Kodiak. 

Alaska 2017, Part 2 - Cordova, Chitina, Talkeetna, Kodiak. (c) Flying Revue 2018

It was raining heavily again the next day. Somewhat in despair I discussed the weather with a pilot-meteorologist at the airport of Cordova. He recommended me to fly through the Copper River valley to the East where the weather was improving. I changed my plan and decided to reach Denali if the weather would prove reasonable. My flight over Copper River took some two hours  including a brief landing at Chitina.

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Then I continued through the magnificent valley of Matanuska river admiring Matanuska glacier and the coloured rocks of the surrounding mountains. At about noon I made it to Talkeetna airport which was extremely busy because of a well attended Sunday fly-inn. After refuelling I had a quick sandwich and departed for Denali which was covered in clouds but I hoped I would find a gap from the other side through which to approach it.

 In detail, about the Alaska 2017 expedition, read this on-line special. 

After about an hour of flight the clouds started disappearing so I climbed and at about 10000 feet I managed to find a fantastic view of the mountain and its glaciers. The temperature was minus 18 degrees Celsius so with my hands holding the camera from an open window I did suffer a bit. However, it was worth it. 

It took me about an hour to fully enjoy the beauty of the Denali massif. From there I turned back to the west and flew towards Kodiak, the closest island of the Aleutian archipelago. On the way I overflew a couple of beautiful glaciers around Mount Redoubt volcano. The flight over the volcanic island of St. Augustine was like a fairy tale. However, the last part of the flight i.e. the leg between St. Augustine and Kodiak, proved to be somewhat difficult. The cloud base lowered to some 500 feet. As Kodiak is quite hilly I had to stay over the water and fly around the island to reach the airport. Fortunately, the horizontal visibility was fine so I landed without a problem after some 4,5 hours since my departure from Talkeetna.  

Jiri Prusa