Philip Greenspun’s Weblog

For friends and family…  here’s my schedule for returning from Alaska:

• July 16: Merrill Field 75th anniversary party


• July 17: Anchorage to Whitehorse


• July 18: Whitehorse to Ft. St. John or somewhere else down the Alaska Highway


• July 19-22: Jackson, Wyoming; Julian flies in to join us for the trip home


• July 23: Minneapolis


• July 24 or 25: return to Boston with stop in Chicago for lunch with Marcia

That’s the plan anyway.  If there is a freak high-pressure system guaranteeing clear weather over the coast it is possible that I’ll fly Anchorage-Juneau-Vancouver (this is actually completely out of the way compared to a Great Circle route from Anchorage).  Any bad weather over the interior might close off the mountain passes and force some extra days on the ground at various points.

Today’s Anchorage Daily News is typical for the summer tourism season.  The top story on the front page is headlined “As things went wrong, hike became a deadly adventure” and recounts the death of 20-year-old Hezekiah Kelley, who lived in the Anchorage exurb of Wasilla.  Mr. Kelley and his cousin Richard went off on a quick hike on Saturday afternoon and got lost.  It was cloudy and rainy enough to induce hypothermia.  Hezekiah died on Monday morning.  Shortly afterwards a ranger in a helicopter spotted Richard.

The front page of the Alaska section starts off with “3 bodies are found in Cessna”, a story about three very experienced pilots from South Carolina who rented a 1973 Cessna 207 in Anchorage and disappeared after departing the Homer airport on Friday afternoon.  The weather was reasonably good so it is unclear how they ended up crashing into “a steep mountainside of a tiny island near the mouth of the Cook Inlet.”  The Alaska section also has continued coverage of “Bear that killed 2 was healthy male”, noting that “The Huffmans’ campsite was clean, with food in bear-proof containers and an unused firearm in the tent.  The [Anchorage] couple had been on a rafting trip and was in the tent when the attack occurred.”  The Huffmans were in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge that has been the subject of controversy over whether to permit oil extraction.