The weather was pretty grim up in Hatcher’s Pass over the 4th of July, when Hezekiah died. I was camping the next valley over from him, and have some pictures online at http://benheavner.com/reed_lakes/reed_lakes.html

Also, hello to Phillip – I knew you only slightly, as I started at aD as a sysadmin in it’s dying days. Welcome to Alaska!

Bears are not the number one hazard in Alaska.
I passed by a cemetery while I was visiting in Anchorage. I asked my friend who lives there what are the half buried metal projections by some of the grave stones. He said those are buried airplane props from bush pilot crashes. He said that is how they honor bush pilots that died in service.
You realize it’s still the frontier region and not the lower 48 when you see something like that.
http://www.well.com/~wolfy/Cemetery/page21.html

Bears are not just in Alaska. We had to deal with some rather aggressive bears in nearby northern NJ while searching for a downed plane. Fortunately, all ground search teams had at least one armed member.

Too bad for the Huffmans. They had the right idea, but probably never had the time to draw their weapon. It would have been a different situation if either or both of them had kept one of these puppies in a holster.

http://www.capitolarms.com/JsPoster034LG.jpg

an Alaskan summer wouldn’t be complete w/o a bear mauling .