Awesome Adventures in Alaska: To Yentna On a Float Plane!

Another first for me... flying on a float plane! I've been on several small planes, but until this day had only seen float planes from afar. I've been intrigued, so this was a great experience that is not necessarily unique to Alaska, but a common mode of transportation in Alaska.

This was a trip for work, so we had some equipment to load and stuff. Here's our plane...

The Chugach Mountains looked pretty as we were taxiing out to the "runway".

I got to sit up front with the pilot (It doesn't take much to convince me to take that seat!). We had a great, entertaining pilot, who was nice enough to take a photo of me as we were taxiing.

Taking off from Lake Hood/Lake Spenard...

We had some beautiful views along the way, that's for sure!

A shower off in the distance...

A rainbow!

That's where we're going... the buildings just to the right of the plane engine in the photo.

Coming in for a landing!!

And here we are... with several of the guys from the lodge helping to unload the gear.

The view from the lodge. Not bad!

Is it a lake? A creek? A lodge? All three!

Our plane took a few lodge visitors back to Anchorage after we were dropped off.

Bluebells. :)

The lodge from across the river.

When we got done with our work, there was some extra time before the plane returned to bring us home. Might as well get a fishing lesson! It was neat to hang out with some of the other guests there in the afternoon.

While I was sitting on the dock enjoying the scenery, a couple birds flew in and landed on the water near me. I figured out that they're Red-throated Loons... a first sighting for me! It wasn't the best lighting for photos and I didn't bring my zoom lens with me, but I tried to get some neat shots anyway.

There's the red throat that confirmed my identification!

On takeoff...

Caught a fish!

This display occurred a few times... they were showing off for us! I was clearly the only person taken with these guys... nobody else seemed to care at all.