Today was an aerial tour called Fire and Ice. The idea was to fly out to Redoubt Volcano and have a good look at it then fly around the valleys and look at lots of glaciers of all sorts of sizes. The first part was only partly successful because of cloud cover on the volcano. BTW, Redoubt last erupted in 2009. Our guide told us that volcanos are erupting all along the Alaskan Peninsula but they don't make the news unless there is a disruption to air traffic.

It is very cool flying through the passes with mountains and glaciers on the side and beautiful braided rivers below. I was using my ForeFlight navigation app all along because I like to stay oriented to where we were geographically. Our pilot, Ned, knows the territory. As I watched the map he threaded his way along valleys and over passes making an interesting visual trip.

Our plan was to go back out of the mountains to a lake for a nice picnic lunch. The first one we chose was Turquoise Lake which looked pretty good, but it turned out to be very windy. Ned had a hard time securing the airplane in the wind because it wanted to weather vane into the wind (that what airplanes are designed to do). Being no fools we walked around a bit in the high winds then flew on to Two Lakes which was a lot better. We had a pleasant lunch on the beach and had a great chat with Ned.

When we were airborne again we went critter spotting and found a moose and some caribou. They are hard to see, but Ned picked them out. He is a hunting guide in the off season, so he can spot critters very well. The intention was to land at another lake near home base but the wind had really come up and there were white caps on the intended lake so we headed home.

Today's photo is of a glacier near Redoubt volcano. You can tell it is receding because there is no terminal moraine, but you knew that.