Anchored at 61° N: Been there. Done that..

Flown circles around a volcano that is expected to erupt "any time?" Been there. Done that. Yep... that is right. Last Thursday, I was offered the chance to tag along with a group of geologists from the Alaska Volcano Observatory on a gas measurement flight to Mount Redoubt. The AVO crew has been flying as often as twice per week (weather permitting) to Mount Redoubt to measure its emission levels of sulfur dioxide and other gases since last November, when the volcano first showed signs that it was "waking up".

Such a trip requires winds to be above 10 knots, but preferably less than 25 knots between about 6,000 ft AGL and 12,000 ft AGL. The entire steam/ash plume must also be below the cloud deck... therefore clouds below 12,000 ft typically make a gas measurement flight nearly impossible. Because of these specific weather requirements, the AVO geologists call my office regularly to ask about the weather expected at Redoubt - often wanting wind and ceiling forecasts days in advance. Since gas measurement flights are not exactly cheap, it is a bit intimidating to tell them that the weather looks good enough for them to fly... I sure don't want to be wrong!

I typically talk to the same geologist when they AVO is making their flight plans... and he originally invited me to fly along the day that Luke and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. I declined the invitation... mainly because I knew that the winds were going to exceed 40 knots and that meant a turbulent flight. (I was the kid that used to get motion sickness from playground swings.) I didn't want to ruin my anniversary dinner with a lingering case of motion sickness. I later told my dad that I declined the invitation; I think he would have kicked me through the phone if it was actually possible! He told me I'd regret not going. I did. Luckily, I was offered another flight on a day with calmer winds!

Calm winds doesn't at all mean that the flight was east on the stomach! I took two Bonine... a non-drowsy motion sickness medicine and bought wrist bands that are supposed to put pressure on a point just below the wrist and prevent one from getting sick enough to vomit. I made it through the flight without needed a barf bag... but I sure did feel pretty sickly through most of the trip! I'm glad I went... but I won't be going again if the chance is presented! We did lots of "steep wing tips" so that the crew could see down in to Redoubt's lava dome. Steep wing tip is really just another way of saying that they rocked the plane quickly to one side, then quickly to the other such that we were actually flying on our side!

Even though I felt pretty bad through 3 of the 4 hours we were in the air, I managed to take several pictures. Below are 15 that I'd like to share.

The plane... a Piper PA-31 Navajo. PA-31's normally seat 9 passengers and a pilot. To make room for the equipment needed to take all of the measurements, three seats were removed from the plane. 5 of us went on the trip along with a pilot that sure did like to talk. The AVO charters all their flights... and the pilot that flew our plane has been flying geologists around volcanoes for almost 20 years!

The view of downtown Anchorage as we took off from Ted Steven's Anchorage International Airport. I love that things are green around the city again!

Another shot or Anchorage... after take-off. LOTS of the snow has melted off the Chugach mountains. It is amazing to compare pictures that we have taken this spring to those that we took last May, when we first moved here. There was considerably more snow on the mountains last year at this time - and nothing was green yet!

Approaching Redoubt! The trip from Anchorage to Mount Redoubt was about 35 minutes... a distance of about 100 miles.

Map from the Alaska Volcano Observatory's website... showing the location of Mount Redoubt and other active volcanoes in the Cook Inlet region... there are 6 volcanoes near enough to Anchorage to immediately effect the city with ash, depending on wind direction. Mount Spurr last erupted in 1992. Augustine erupted in 2006.

Mount Redoubt and the neighboring Drift River. Oil terminals located along the Drift River were evacuated after the eruptions of March and April because of significant flooding related to Redoubt's eruptions. The river is still very full of ash!

Still about 10 miles away.

Another shot of the Drift River.

This picture best captured shows the ash that covered EVERYTHING in the vicinity of Redoubt.

Flying by at about 10,000ft... nearly even with the peak.

Redoubt's steam plume... it was cool to see it spread out an dissipate as it moved downwind from the mountain. It is certainly possible that the plume contained small amounts of very fine ash, but the geologists on the flight all concurred that the plume was likely all just steam.

Many volcanoes steam regularly. Iliamna Volcano (shown on the map above) steams almost all the time. We could see it steaming while on our visit to Redoubt. According to the AVO, it hasn't actually erupted in the last 200 years!