Friday, May 05, 2006
Revenge of the Ground Squirrel
Well, this second phase of the trip... not much to say just crazy as the dickens. We got a new pilot who's been pretty entertaining. Learned his thoughts about the transgender helicopter pilot who's evidently flying around the state, the darkest worries of evergreen helicopters about brokeback helicopter, all kinds of other odds and ends. He's real talkative and I seem to have been designated ambassador so I'm the main one who chats it up with him. It's okay, as you might imagine he's a real crack-up. Anyway, spend a couple days verifying that lots of lakes are frozen to the bottom (the lakes people read a paper wrong and so instead of looking for lakes with water under the ice we went looking for all the shallow ones frozen solid). It would be funny if it weren't so sad (cue the melancholy trumpet). Yesterday's highlight included punching through two ground squirrel holes under the snow when doing the density measurements with the snow tube. That cracked me up. The tube was like the energizer bunny going into the ground. Well, plenty more I'm sure once we get back to Fairbanks this weekend...
Comments:
<< Home
Sounds like a step up from a hunk of firewood eh? I'm kinda suprised that they have you motoring around in a helo. Seems like a 185 on skis would be much more economical to operate. Whoops, didn't mean to sound like someone from the accounting office...
Well, really the helicopter is the right tool for the job. Well, helicopter or snowmachine. I'd take snowmachine myself but time constraints and permitting requirements from the state and federal governments pretty much mean flying to most of these sites. We could take a cessna to most on the coasts (and we talked about it) but for stuff in the foothills and the regular brooks range it's pretty much helicopters all the way. Plus with the low cloud ceilings and that flat light flying it would still be pretty dangerous on skis.
'S true, but as a pilot of fixed wing aircraft I have fundamental mistrust of anything that doesn't actually fly but rather beats the air into submission. Or is it they're so ugly and loud the earth rejects 'em. Have to talk with my helo pilot buddy. HEE! Hope you can make down here some time We can go motor around the Selway/Bitterroot and you can wear shorts instead of Mickey Mouse boots! P.S. we do get some very high density altitudes here, and when we're crossing a ridge and I say something like "hop out and grab the strut, and sorta walk us over..." I won't be kidding. Hope your mom didn't read that...
Yeah, sounds cool. I'm always up for that. Probably going to learn to fly fish this summer so I can school you on the fish catching.
Maybe next spring or something. Not like I'm booked up at the moment but presumably one of these months I'm going to pick up a house so I'm in the penny pinching phase of that endeavor (you can tell by the lack of stupid junk I've picked up lately.. such restraint in not buying the Dick Cheney shooter action figure among others). Of course, part two is I hate the idea of not traveling so you also might see me sooner than we realize.
Post a Comment
Maybe next spring or something. Not like I'm booked up at the moment but presumably one of these months I'm going to pick up a house so I'm in the penny pinching phase of that endeavor (you can tell by the lack of stupid junk I've picked up lately.. such restraint in not buying the Dick Cheney shooter action figure among others). Of course, part two is I hate the idea of not traveling so you also might see me sooner than we realize.
<< Home
