chasingfire.com – A Blog…

No real updates, just some photos and descriptions…

Helicopter landed on Moore Mountain repeater site

I was up in Juneau and Sitka for a week or so May flying some radio techs around fixing repeaters and prepping one site for a new building. All of the sites were on mountaintops, which means around 2500 feet up here. Got to see some neat places, and got some good pictures.

Annahootz Mountain

North Kruzof Reapeater site

Seal Mountain

Seal Mountain repeater

False Island

415 Landing at False Island

Muskeg LZ

Logging road LZ

Beach LZ

Home away from home - a barge on Prince of Wales island

That will do for now… more to come as the year progresses…

Once again I’ve failed to do a decent job of updating the blog, so here goes….

Things are going well in southeast. The weather has been nice by local standards, but still way cloudier than I’m used to. I’m liking the job so far, and I’m getting a lot of great experience that will carry over into the fire side of things when I make the leap back. I’m finding every day that I do miss the fire side of aviation, and will eventually get back to a fire job.

In the meantime I am very glad I’m getting to see and do things that I can only do here in SE AK. This past month I’ve travelled from one end of the panhandle to the other, seen whales, brown bears, black bears, deer swimming in the ocean, and flown over some places that 99% of Americans will never see. While I’m pretty sure I won’t stay here for very long (just not my type of living), I will undoubtedly look back on this adventure as one of the most fun and interesting things I’ll have ever done. While it’s fun to have an adventure every now and then, making a life out of one is something I’m not up for.

Anyway, more to follow later, including photos… I’ve once again been lucky and got few good photos this month that I’ll hopefully post this weekend.

Cheers.

So yeah, apparently I’m pretty bad at keeping this updated like I should. Here’s the lowdown on the last month or so:

Getting settled in Ketchikan, AK. I’m slowly getting to know the area and the town, not to mention getting to know my new boss and coworkers. I’ve had a few projects to work on with the helicopters, and have been keeping fairly busy with getting set up in my new office. Ketchikan is an interesting little town… not a whole lot going in some regards, but a lot in others. It seems like there’s a lot more of the Pacific NW vibe going on than in mainland AK, and of course a whole lot more of that feeling than in central CA.

I’m having a bit of a time adjusting to life in AK… but it’s all coming together pretty well. The thing that has me shocked the most is the outrageous cost of housing here. There isn’t a whole lot of rentals to choose from, and what is around is very expensive by lower 48 standards. The one bedroom I’m renting is in a semi-sketchy neighborhood, and while the apartment itself is nice, it’s not something I would pay anywhere near what I am for it if I was in the lower 48.

It seems like the job here is going to be way worth the trouble of moving. Here are some pics from the few helicopter missions I’ve done so far – these are from a trip up to a local repeater site for some radio work.

On the pad at High Mtn

Looking south from High Mtn

High Mtn again

Looking down at Ketchikan from High Mtn

Hey all,

In the months since the last update I’ve been pretty busy. I was offered and accepted a GS-8/9 Helicopter Manager position with the Tongass National Forest in Ketchikan, Alaska in the middle of Feb. Since then I’ve been running around like a chicken with my head cut off getting readyt o move, and actually moving. The last week has been spent moving from Sonora to Ketchikan. As I type this I’m in a motel room overlooking the waterfront in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. In the past 7 days I’ve driven about 1900 miles, with a few-day stop in Puyallup to visit family. Tomorrow should find me getting on a ferry to Ketchikan, and arriving there in the late afternoon. After that I’ll be looking for an apartment and will hopefully be set up in a place by the weekend. While I’d like to say that I’ll be back on the internet by the weekend, it’s more likely that I’ll be getting back online early next week.

So much for a quick update… I’ll be posting pictures and a more detailed update when I’m settled in abit more.

Cheers!

Well, I have made it a month here in Sonora, CA. The job is going well, mainly just wading through the mountains of paperwork and computer-work that are part of getting and keeping a Forest Service job anymore. The folks I work with are all pretty cool, and the location of the base is hard to beat. The commute to work is a bit longer than I would like, but it’s still not bad at 20 miles.

The thing that is taking the most to get used to is the elevation difference between Sonora, where I live, and Bald Mountain, where I work. Sonora sits at about 1800 feet above sea level… Bald Mountain sits at about 5700 feet. Quite a difference, especially since Sonora is usually right below the snow line. It’s a little strange to leave for work in the morning in the “spring” and be into winter by the time I’m halfway to work. There’s no snow at Sonora, but by the time you get to Bald Mtn. there’s around 2 feet of it. On most days it’s t-shirt weather in Sonora, and coat/jacket weather at the helibase. Makes for great fun in getting dressed in the AM.

And some images from the past few weeks… Bald Mtn. and Yosemite NP.

Yosemite Valley

Half Dome

Sunrise at Bald Mountain.