Airports

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Messages 1 - 135 of total 135 in this topic

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Original Post - Aug 22, 2008 - 08:37am PT

BOS --> EWR --> CPH --> SFJ --> GOH

dirtineye

Trad climber

the south

Aug 22, 2008 - 11:34am PT

But do those airports have republican friendly restrooms?

tolman_paul

Trad climber

Anchorage, AK

Aug 22, 2008 - 12:25pm PT

dirt,

That was funny!

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2008 - 07:40pm PT

But do those airports have republican friendly restrooms?

I hadn't thought of it that way ... but no, after BOS and EWR, not so much.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2008 - 07:42pm PT

Does this mean you're going to Greenland?

Ja, staying at a friend's comfortable apartment in Nuuk tonight. Out the window right now,
glacier-carved gneiss and a twilight view of peaks across the fjord.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2008 - 07:43pm PT

Airports:

neebee

Social climber

calif/texas

Aug 22, 2008 - 08:34pm PT

hey there chiloe.. say, that "destination signs" pic is very interesting...

michaellane

climber

Spokane, WA

Aug 22, 2008 - 08:53pm PT

That sign picture is one of the coolest things I've seen.

Have a great trip!

ML

matisse

climber

Aug 22, 2008 - 09:50pm PT

me, somewhat closer to GOH than usual:
SAN->SFO->YYZ->YYT

snakefoot

climber

cali

Aug 23, 2008 - 01:42am PT

what the hell are you doing? -u better post adventure shots!

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2008 - 01:59pm PT

me, somewhat closer to GOH than usual:
SAN->SFO->YYZ->YYT

Just a hop across the Labrador Sea!

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2008 - 02:03pm PT

what the hell are you doing? -u better post adventure shots!

Tame indoors adventures on this trip. But I'll see what I can post later. It's pretty up here.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 24, 2008 - 07:20am PT

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 24, 2008 - 07:27am PT

The best airport story on the trip so far was the one we didn't land at. The flight from Kangerlussuaq was supposed to stop in Maniitsoq along the way to Nuuq. But Maniitsoq was socked in.

Four times, the Dash 7 dropped steeply into the soup, searching for an invisible landing strip. Now and then I got a nervous view of waves crashing against rocks about 50 meters below our plane. Most of the time, you could barely see the wings.

So the fog was too thick. Four times, the pilot would suddenly retract the landing gear again, climb steeply and bank into the clouds, presumably avoiding an unseen mountain.

After about an hour of this, the plane returned to Kangerlussuaq to refuel. As we landed there safely, the passengers applauded the pilot in thanks -- a fine Greenlandic tradition.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 24, 2008 - 07:29am PT

snakefoot

climber

cali

Aug 24, 2008 - 01:42pm PT

wildman, nice air shots.....glad you landed safely on earth.

cowpoke

climber

Aug 24, 2008 - 05:20pm PT

great stuff, Chiloe...that non-landing story gives me the willies. hope your talk was a hit.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 25, 2008 - 06:12am PT

Jim E

climber

Mountain Road

Aug 25, 2008 - 02:37pm PT

Ah yes, airports...

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 25, 2008 - 04:26pm PT

Ah yes, airports...

Umm, Sweden, not Stockholm, but where?

Jim E

climber

Mountain Road

Aug 25, 2008 - 05:12pm PT

Kiruna
I think it was about 1AM.

A whole lot nicer than this place.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 25, 2008 - 05:27pm PT

Hah, I remember that chair! Or maybe one just like it, somewhere else.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 26, 2008 - 05:58am PT

Around midnight last night, Rasmus and I walked home after a social evening in town.

This mountain (Sermitsiaq) stood out in silhouette across the fjord. An orange quarter-moon
was rising to its left, appearing at the same height as the summit. To the right a bright
curtain of northern lights rose from the water to cross the whole sky.

I sat out in the cold wind for a while, watching from a ledge on the cliff behind Per's house.
Quite the scene to take in.

GOclimb

Trad climber

Boston, MA

Aug 28, 2008 - 02:57pm PT

Cool. Sounds very beautiful and serene...

GO

east side underground

Trad climber

crowley ca

Aug 28, 2008 - 03:02pm PT

went to Greenland in 1986, worked a NSL research project on the ice flows @ 87 degrees north. A amazingly beautiful experince

drgonzo

Trad climber

east bay, CA

Aug 28, 2008 - 03:05pm PT

Wait another 20 years and there'll be a Club Med there...

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 28, 2008 - 07:14pm PT

Wait another 20 years and there'll be a Club Med there...

Stephen Schneider, lead author on several IPCC reports, gave a talk in Nuuk a few days ago.
He was a guest of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference. A translator worked mightly through
the hour and a half lecture, rendering phrases like "probability density function" into
Greenlandic. My friend said he was doing a good job.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 28, 2008 - 08:07pm PT

Urban Greenland:

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Aug 28, 2008 - 08:10pm PT

snakefoot

climber

cali

Aug 28, 2008 - 09:03pm PT

wow.... looks like gov housing, waiting for raydog to chirp in about 2 pac...

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Oct 23, 2008 - 05:03pm PT

Yesterday something completely different,

BOS --> IAD --> PEK

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Oct 23, 2008 - 08:51pm PT

In 1949, I am told, Mao declared the founding of the People's Republic of China from
this Ming Dynasty gate (Tian'an Men, overlooking Tiananmen Square).

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Oct 24, 2008 - 12:56am PT

carrier? I'd have thought BOS -> ORD -> PEK, but I'd have to look at the "great circle" routes...

IAD seems like my front room somtimes... do they have the tram in yet?

Delhi Dog

Trad climber

Good Question...

Oct 24, 2008 - 06:45am PT

Ya, cool stuff!
I've flown over Greenland many times, and its such an amazing view from 30+K ft.
It's neat to see the up close shots.

I'm off to Ladakh, India tomorrow, will post a couple pics when I get back.

Cheers,
DD

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Oct 24, 2008 - 08:08am PT

Ed:
carrier? I'd have thought BOS -> ORD -> PEK, but I'd have to look at the "great circle" routes...

Nonstop on a UAL triple-7 from IAD, up over the Arctic Ocean ... a mere 14 hours (ugh) to PEK.

Gonna take a shorter hop on Air China this Sunday.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Oct 24, 2008 - 06:02pm PT

Delhi Dog, I like your photos, look forward to some showing what you see in Ladakh.
How does one get there there?

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Oct 24, 2008 - 06:40pm PT

Riley, answering your call-of-the-wild, here's another Greenland shot. This one's from Illulissat, a bit farther north.

The farthest north place that I've ever been was about 76 degrees. I bet Anders can guess where.

But this morning I'm a long way from Greenland.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Oct 25, 2008 - 07:53am PT

Windy but clear up at Badaling today. A few other folks on the trail.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Oct 26, 2008 - 05:40am PT

More airports today,
PEK --> DLC

Michael Hjorth

Trad climber

Copenhagen, Denmark

Oct 26, 2008 - 11:51am PT

Hi Chiloe,

Completely overlooked this Greenlandic tread!
Embarrasing, especially because we should have had a reunion with some Swedish rockclimbing upon your return from Greenland.

Unfortunately family obligations (and a 10 year wedding anniversary...!) prevented that.

But good to see Sermitsiaq again. There is a nice scramble on the ridge between the two summits (which I unfortunately haven't done).

Allow a slight treaddrift:
The Icefjord at Ilulissat (some 500 km further north) is VERY popular with al kinds of politicians coming to see the exact point where the Icecap is melting (sic!). So someone put up a webcam with 24 hours lapse. If not to watch the ice melting, but you can see the icebergs passing northwards (at least these days with strong southwesterly wind) past the town of Ilulissat.

http://sermitsiaq.gl/icecam/?lang=EN

Regards
Michael

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Oct 27, 2008 - 08:47am PT

Ja, Michael, sorry we couldn't connect this year. Maybe next time....

I'll check out that Illulissat webcam. Our news media have described that glacier as
"ground zero for global warming." It wasn't moving fast enough for an impatient observer
to see when I was there, but the historical maps and photos make the point.

survival

Big Wall climber

A Token of My Extreme

Oct 27, 2008 - 09:20am PT

Chiloe,

Awesome thread man.
Never been to Greenland, but I've seen the world destination sign in Barrow many times. (Greenland is much prettier.)

I've been to that gate in Bejing also.
You should do the great wall at Simitai if you're back there with a chance. It's further afield, but well worth the trip. More radical terrain, no radical crowds.....
Looks like you had a good trip.
Bruce

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Oct 27, 2008 - 09:30pm PT

Bruce, I'm still on the road trip but far from the Great Wall now -- up in Dalian for the week.

Somewhere in this city of 6 million people, there is supposed to exist the largest artificial
climbing wall in Asia: 36 meters tall and more than 100 meters wide. But no one I've asked
here has heard of it, it's like looking for yeti.

andy@climbingmoab

Big Wall climber

Denver, CO

Oct 27, 2008 - 10:05pm PT

This is only 69 degrees north and not as pretty as Greenland, but we may as well try to document every very far north airport in the world here.

Cambridge Bay airport in Nunavut Canada.

Standing on the runway in Cambridge Bay.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Oct 27, 2008 - 10:11pm PT

we may as well try to document every very far north airport in the world here.

Fine idea, Andy. I've been around the North some, but not yet to Nunavut. There's an outside
chance for Iqaluit next spring.

What were you doing way up in Cambridge Bay?

andy@climbingmoab

Big Wall climber

Denver, CO

Oct 27, 2008 - 10:16pm PT

I was working at a startup gold mine - just spent a few days there. Its pretty in a really stark way.

One of these days I really want to put together a river trip on the Coppermine River in Nunavut. You can put in just past Lac du Gras and then take out at Kugluktuk up on the ocean. It has loads of class III rapids and one big drop with a portage trail. I flew right over the whole thing on a flight from Kugluktuk to Yellowknife and it looks beautiful.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Nov 1, 2008 - 05:25am PT

Along the coast of the Yellow Sea today,

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Nov 1, 2008 - 08:51pm PT

From yesterday, an arch called "Dinosaur drinks the sea":

Today, a long journey through two sunsets:

DLC --> PEK --> ORD --> BOS

survival

Big Wall climber

A Token of My Extreme

Nov 2, 2008 - 10:16am PT

Chiloe,
You really get around!

Michael Hjorth

Trad climber

Copenhagen, Denmark

Nov 2, 2008 - 12:18pm PT

Lets go back to Greenlandic airport!

I took my small girls on a trip up the Westcoast. Still a lot of the towns and settlements has only helicopter connections.

Fx. the very nice town of UMD at 70.40':

From the harbor toward Storø (Big Island):

View from the chopper towards town and the "Heart Mountain" 1.172 m:

Michael

Michael Hjorth

Trad climber

Copenhagen, Denmark

Nov 2, 2008 - 02:03pm PT

Further on Greenlandic airports...

Mestersvig, East Greenland, 1992 (72,14'N; forgot the 3-letter code).

We were heading north for some gold prospecting, and had our own small chopper stowed into the trunk of a C-130:

Before we could take off though, we had to repair the gravel airstrip from the erosion of the C-130 Hercules. We hand showeled the full 2 km and one of the two(!) airport guards/employees, steamrolled it afterwards:

Airborne with me on the back seat. It was HOT inside; East Greenland is the banana coast of Greenland...:

Michael

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Nov 5, 2008 - 09:55pm PT

radical:
My instinct tells me to go with "Spitsbergen?"

Yer instinct's dead right on that one, radical. Farthest north I've ever been (not counting
overflights) was Longyearbyen on Svalbard.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Nov 5, 2008 - 09:59pm PT

survival:
You really get around!

I'm a travelin' fool, sometimes. No airports involved but I'm "on the road" in Woods Hole
today. Here's the view towards the Vineyard, somehow fits with Svalbard above:

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Nov 5, 2008 - 10:02pm PT

Michael, I wish I'd seen half as much of Greenland as you have.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2009 - 10:24am PT

andy@climbingmoab.com:
but we may as well try to document every very far north airport in the world here.

Heading for the office, not traveling, today. But I found some boxes of old slides over
the weekend. This one's from Noorvik, Alaska:

pip the dog

Mountain climber

the outer bitterroots

Feb 16, 2009 - 12:15pm PT

brother Chiloe,

i want your job. well, perhaps not (i have no idea what it is, but am very interested in what you do to take you to all those 'there's). while we're on the covetessness front (i'll save my other 6 deadly sins for another day), i want your excellent photography skills. i know good when i see it, i just (to date) can't do it.

~~~
the airport that pops in my memory is Lukla -- BITD before it got all paved and crowded. i had been given good advice for my first trip to khumbu and flew into paphlu and walked from there. good aclimitization, good chance to hang with bho tiya off the well beaten tourist track. once i saw (the then) Lukla Intergalactic Aereoport, i realized i would have surely have had a heart attack on landing there.

it was a short, steep dirt strip. with the wreckage of two pilutus (pilati?) crumpled nearby. if memory serves, hillary's wife and daughter had died in one of them. no one had volunteered to carry them out.

i did fly out of lukla at the end of the trip. also on that flight was the, then, second highest ranking ringpoche in nepal. he was like twenty, charming and hammered. my sherpa pals, many of whom had come that day to see said ringpoche off, all assured me this was a good thing.

so we get on the plane, me now as hammered as said young ringpoche. and they gun the engines and pull the chocks and we roar down that then _way_ short strip (_W_STOL?). we quick get to the end of it and then effectively fall off the cliff in a (controlled...?) plummit into the dudh khosi.

me, i'm staring at the dudh khosi through the pilots' windshield (in clear view) and wetting myself as i hear the engines roar. eventually, of course, the pilots level the plane out and off we go. i wanted to ask the 'stewardess' for 25 gin and tonics, quick! but she just sat there strapped in and clearly horrified.

my best guess is that her parents were well enough connected to get her what is 'there' a primo gig. as i'm told by a retired eastern pilot pal, all commercial flights of the size (there were maybe 8 of us) require a cabin crew of at least one. surely took years off of her lifespan. the most she could do was eventually get it together enough to hand out a little basket of hard candies minutes before we landed at KTM.

never got those 25 G&T's -- but found a functional equivelent soon enough.

well, enough already. try as i may, my people simply can't do 'terse'. wish we could.

^,,^ (or dogboy, or pip, or michael, or 'hey moron' -- i answer to all of them)

Jaybro

Social climber

wuz real!

Feb 16, 2009 - 12:24pm PT

Well put, Pip!

What is the secret of Chiloe's life of international intrigue?

In 1973, I flew out of a Helsinki airport on an Aeroflot plane bound for Leningrad. They made sure we were well supplied with shots of Stolichnaya and sour balls (I was 16) then the plane revved, heavily, and the pilot popped the clutch and shot along the short runway and then pulled the wheelie from hell. Prolly what you gotta do, there. It helped make me forevermore take nothing for granted.

Karen

Trad climber

So Cal Hell

Feb 16, 2009 - 12:30pm PT

Moose Creek, Idaho....

Before landing you have to do a low fly-by to shoo the deer off the grass strip...!!! Great place.

WBraun

climber

Feb 16, 2009 - 01:17pm PT

I love these kind of airports where there's none.

Deep in the Amazon jungle we land in the mud. To take off you barely get over the tree top canopy on those short mud runways.

I've had to be lowered out of the helicopter (no rope, nothing) just hanging by my arms on the sked onto the tree tops to cut down the tree tops so we could land.

There were no airport security there .....

pip the dog

Mountain climber

the outer bitterroots

Feb 16, 2009 - 01:24pm PT

sister Karen's photos of moose creek bring to mind sandy valley, nv

remember that retired eastern airlines pilot pal (an excellent soul) i mentioned in a post just above? well, he and his sweety now live (mostly) in sandy valley and i often go to visit them there.

they're great. the rest of the local population gives me the heebies. an interesting mix of meth labs, conspiracy theorists, skinhead seperatists, and actual cowboys (fwiw: don't ever call one of the few remaining real cowboys a "cowboy" -- for you'll get smacked. try "wrangler").

for reasons unique to all of the above groups (save the wranglers), having your own small plane is considerd essential. and yet there is no airport in sandy valley.

so what do they do, well, they push their old piper cub or overworked cessna 150 out of their garage, then fire it up and roar down the local paved road.

hell of a sight to be just driving in to visit friends THEN SUDDENLY SEE A PLANE COMING STRAIGHT AT YOU ON THE ROAD. sheesh. the locals don't sweat this, they just stop and assume their neighbor will be able to pull up and fly over them. this has to date mostly worked.

me, i still wet myself at the sight of a piper coming at me at full tilt. (bladder control problems seem to be becoming a recurrent theme for me. ah, i yam what i yam).

well, fwiw...

^,,^

Ghost

climber

A long way from where I started

Feb 16, 2009 - 01:49pm PT

The airport in this shot turned out to be one skid on a rock, about 3,000 ft above the valley floor.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2009 - 03:27pm PT

pip, nice imagery -- I can picture the equally terrified attendant. The pilot prolly
was too, but had learned how to hide it.

it was a short, steep dirt strip. with the wreckage of two pilutus (pilati?) crumpled nearby

Reminds me of flying into the gravel/ice runway at Selawik, and seeing the defunct DC-6 just
past the landing strip's end. "Fool pilot thought he could land anywhere," someone told me.
Bush pilots got to have high confidence.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2009 - 03:31pm PT

Jaybro:
In 1973, I flew out of a Helsinki airport on an Aeroflot plane bound for Leningrad.

With an intro like that, we're ready for adventure!

(In 1998, I flew out of Tromsø on an Aeroflot plane bound for Murmansk.)

Reilly

Mountain climber

Monrovia, CA

Feb 16, 2009 - 03:32pm PT

Friends don't let friends fly Aeroflot.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2009 - 05:24pm PT

Friends don't let friends fly Aeroflot.

STOP! Don't get on that plane! Let's all just hitchhike instead!

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2009 - 05:26pm PT

But then another time, I flew out of Anchorage on a 737 bound for Kotzebue. Denali in the distance.

tolman_paul

Trad climber

Anchorage, AK

Feb 16, 2009 - 05:57pm PT

Here's another shot of McKinley, on the milk run from ANC to SCC

travel for work sounds fun, but gets old fast. I still need to dig up my pics from my travels to Kazakhstan, dunno where the disks are and I thought I'd pulled them off of the old puters hard drive.

For some reason I never took any pics of airports.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Feb 16, 2009 - 06:11pm PT

For some reason I never took any pics of airports.

For no good reason, I do it often. Maybe because I liked them as a kid.

tolman_paul

Trad climber

Anchorage, AK

Feb 16, 2009 - 06:21pm PT

It had just never crossed my mind. That on work trips I seem to be shlepping someone elses gear.

Thanks for sharing your pics, it points out that one can find interesting objects to photograph everywere.

Reilly

Mountain climber

Monrovia, CA

Feb 16, 2009 - 08:25pm PT

" I still need to dig up my pics from my travels to Kazakhstan"

When I was in Kazakhstan you sure as heck didn't want to get caught taking pictures of airports! I'm going to look for mine now.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - May 27, 2009 - 03:49pm PT

MHT --> PHL --> PHX --> ANC --> FAI

tolman_paul

Trad climber

Anchorage, AK

May 27, 2009 - 05:13pm PT

I think I found the disks with my pictures from the trip to Kazakhstan, but I don't have a working computer that will read floppy discs.

I don't recall having taken any pics at the airport. We were flying on a chartered plane and helicopters and didn't go through the normal section of the airport in Atyrau. I did take some neat pics on the drilling rig 40 miles offshore in the Caspian sea. Pretty amazing to be that far off shore, and in 15 feet of water.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - May 30, 2009 - 10:17pm PT

FAI --> ANC --> JNU --> ANC

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 21, 2009 - 11:57am PT

Here's some welcome news for flyers:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Transportation Department, responding to tarmac horror stories, orders airlines on Monday to let passengers stuck in stranded airplanes to deplane after three hours.

With its new regulations, the Obama administration is sending an unequivocal message to airlines that it won't tolerate the delays experienced by some passengers, such as an overnight ordeal in Rochester, Minn., last summer.

Under the new regulations, airlines operating domestic flights will be able only to keep passengers on board for three hours before they must be allowed to disembark a delayed flight. The regulation provides exceptions only for safety or security or if air traffic control advises the pilot in command that returning to the terminal would disrupt airport operations.

U.S. carriers operating international flights departing from or arriving in the United States must specify, in advance, their own time limits for deplaning passengers.

andy@climbingmoab

Big Wall climber

Denver, CO

Dec 21, 2009 - 12:15pm PT

I thought I was going to get shot trying to take a photo of the airport and crappy antonov propjet i flew to get from Tashkent -> Navoi -> Zarafshan in Uzbekistan. Here are a few photos of Uzbekistan where nobody wanted to shoot me.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 21, 2009 - 11:10pm PT

What were you doing in Uzbekistan, once you got there?

andy@climbingmoab

Big Wall climber

Denver, CO

Dec 22, 2009 - 11:04am PT

I was working at a gold mine. It was a weird place. Started out as a gulag in the Stalin era, and a bad one at that. Summers are 120+ degrees, winters are freezing, and the wind is always blowing sand around from the Kyzul Kum desert. The ore was too low grade for the Soviets to process it, but they just made the prisoners keep digging it up anyway. A company I was consulting for had a joint venture with the Uzbek government to process all that ore laying around. It was definitely blood money in the truest sense. The workers from Zarafshan still used the old prison railroad to get to the mine, and the guard towers were still up around the property. I wasn't allowed to take pictures of that stuff.

Six months after I left Uzbekistan for the last time the army was sent in to seize the mine and all the gringos had to flee. We drilled for that a lot when I was over there, but it was still a surprise when it happened.

It was a good experience being over there though. I wish I would have gotten a chance to go to Samarkhand, Bukhara, and Khiva. One of the guards at the mine let me shoot his AK-47 though. I got a kick out of thinking back to my elementary school days when we used to have nuclear attack drills in school(I grew up in Grand Forks near the air base), and trying to imagine what I would have thought if you had told me that someday a Russian guard would let me fire his AK into the desert in a remote corner of Uzbekistan.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 22, 2009 - 11:14am PT

That's a story. You took lots of pictures?

I've visited some former Gulag sites in NW Russia, also a grim climate to imagine under Stalin-era conditions. The towns and mines are still running, now with a brighter aspect but still that awful shadow of history like you sensed. The environmental wreckage lives on too.

andy@climbingmoab

Big Wall climber

Denver, CO

Dec 22, 2009 - 11:59am PT

Which ones? Vorkuta or Norilsk maybe? I have some friends who spent a few months working up at Norilsk, and that place sounds like hell on earth. I was really torn between wanting and dreading that job, but I didn't end up getting it.

I've got a few other good photos of Uzbekistan, though mostly I was just out at the mine. I'll dig around and post them up.

One evening we decide to drive up to Uchquduq from Zarafshan because we heard a rumor of a brewery being there. The drive was like something out of the Road Warrior. Big piles of slag with radioactivity signs on the side of the highway. I think there was a lot of Uranium mining there, but no one really seemed to know or be willing to talk about it. We found the brewery, but it was awful. I wonder if that beer would glow in the dark from the bad water.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Dec 22, 2009 - 01:35pm PT

Haven't been to Norilsk, though I'd like to (briefly).

I've traveled through the Murmansk region a couple of times, though, down past Apatity, Kirovsk and Monchegorsk. The name "Monchegorsk" derives from a Saami word for "beautiful," I'm told, which the landscape no doubt was when they herded reindeer here. But now the vegetation for tens of kilometers around Monchegorsk has been burned down by acid rain from the Norilsk Nickel smelter.

Elsewhere in the region I heard stories of mines blasted out with atom bombs, then the miners were told to march in. Our shoes made a geiger counter click, after walking through the smelter.

ontheedgeandscaredtodeath

Trad climber

San Francisco, Ca

Dec 22, 2009 - 04:52pm PT

End of the runway, jungle in Ecuador:

smokejumpers loading up:

Down at the office of my favorite airline:

ontheedgeandscaredtodeath

Trad climber

San Francisco, Ca

Dec 22, 2009 - 04:59pm PT

Just to keep it climbing related- getting the rig ready for the trip home after a fire jump on the Bridger-Teton NF:

After the airport:

Places to land are where you find them!

Jaybro

Social climber

Wolf City, Wyoming

Dec 27, 2009 - 10:57am PT

Cheers Pate, many of us have shared those moments. One daughter airport adventure when young Natalie was 12; I took her in to DIA for her return to Reno. They decided she was the most threatening passenger and took her in for special treatment, analized her Sportiva flip flops and everything

Today she is twice your daughter's age and asleep upstairs. She's with me into the new year. Today we have an exciting day of clutch driving, learning, to do.

the adventures never stop....

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 28, 2010 - 05:41pm PT

Pip, you're right, some days (not necessarily today) my job has been a good one.

I was reminded as I scanned some old slides and found this one, from an airport that not
even Michael Hjorth has landed at. (I'm guessing!)

My friend Eyjólfur flew us there in a borrowed Piper Tomahawk one fine day.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 28, 2010 - 05:44pm PT

Reilly

Mountain climber

Monrovia, CA

Mar 28, 2010 - 07:04pm PT

The 'airport' at Dzhirgatal, Tadzhikistan.
Special high density altitude T/O procedure for overloaded Mil-8 bound for Pamirs.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 29, 2010 - 10:22am PT

Reilly, so they taxi before takeoff?

Unrelated odd-takeoff note ... also in Iceland I spent a pleasant hour watching folks launch
manned gliders using a truck, instead of the usual drop plane.

Reilly

Mountain climber

Monrovia, CA

Mar 29, 2010 - 11:22am PT

They have to taxi to find less rutted areas to perform their
patented T/O. The place is so high and warm and they're
so overloaded they can't lift off directly. They start by
rolling forward at about 20 mph, then they pull the collective,
which gets the rear wheels off, then they pitch forward to
generate more forward speed, then they start bouncing on
the front wheel until they can bounce high enough to continue flying!
They build 'em tough at the Mil plant!

I'll scan some slides of fixed wing ops there; almost as exciting.

kinnikinik

Trad climber

B.C.

Mar 29, 2010 - 11:32am PT

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 29, 2010 - 11:46am PT

Kinnikinik, were you down there climbing Vinson?

Michael Hjorth

Trad climber

Copenhagen, Denmark

Mar 30, 2010 - 06:50pm PT

You're right, Chiloe, never been to Eyjólfur. Nice photos.

Getting back to Pip's story from Lukla, Nepal, I have these shots:

Flying into Lukla, April 1990:

And while waiting to get out in 1988, frustrated tourists queuing up for the army Puma:

I didn't get on it and had to wait a few more days...:

Michael Hjorth

Trad climber

Copenhagen, Denmark

Mar 30, 2010 - 07:03pm PT

Some more from Nepal...

Flying in to Taplejung, Kangchenjunga area in 1992 there was a thick cloud cover. Doing figures of eights for 15-20 minutes the pilot suddenly saw the grass airstrip though a hole and dived for it! Passengers were screaming when he banged it to the ground, but we were told that we were lucky as it was a buddhist pilot. Had it been a hindu he would most certainly have gone straight back to the Biratnaghar in the lowlands without even trying...

Getting picked up 1996 in Juphal at Dolpa Airstrip in Western Nepal the incoming Pilatus Porter exploded it's nosewheel on landing. So we had to wait for this former Sovjet helicopter:

These tibetan traders wanted to come as well, but didn't have the cash...

Michael

Mighty Hiker

climber

Vancouver, B.C.

Mar 30, 2010 - 07:03pm PT

Running for the plane in Vancouver:

Some of the competitors in the winter Olympics:

An intriguing place for someone like me, combining work and play:
(Actually, I'm not the sort of lawyer who goes to court.)

Sunrise over the east coast of Baffin Island, from 11,000 m somewhere north of Clyde River:
(Sunrise there goes on for several months.)

Michael Hjorth

Trad climber

Copenhagen, Denmark

Mar 30, 2010 - 07:12pm PT

Some silly "heliports" in Greenland:

Getting picked up on a snow ridge after looking for gold in South Greenland. Pilot was somewhat nervous for the up- and down draft rolling over the edge:

Loading mineral samples while the chopper is on one ski:

Michael

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Mar 30, 2010 - 07:26pm PT

By the way Michael, it's looking like I might see CPH again early June. You around or off somewhere?

Reilly

Mountain climber

Monrovia, CA

Mar 30, 2010 - 07:31pm PT

Michael,
Too bad your Twin Otter pilot didn't train under my brother-in-law.
He could have taught him the Ultimate Twin Otter Approach. Nose it
over into a vertical dive and put the props in 'Beta'(reverse thrust)
then 'hover' to a landing. Then you would have really heard some screaming!

Michael Hjorth

Trad climber

Copenhagen, Denmark

Mar 31, 2010 - 03:46am PT

Reilly: He-he, sounds like good fun! But I would not like a Nepalese pilot to do that trick. Somehow I do not trust them too much. Heard a lecture once by a young Danish pilot, who by want of flight hours took a job as 2nd pilot at a Nepalese air company. His conclusion after two years was that Nepal is THE most dangerous place to travel by air. His stories of bad maintainence and lousy pilothandwork were fascinating.

The best "bush" pilots I have met are the Islandic. I am sure they know that trick. Once we were landing in a Twin Otter in East Greenland. Soft gravel landing, first time in, no airstrip. Pilot tuched down softly, took off immidiately, went back down to observe the impact tracks and from that knowledge landed us safely.

Chiloe: June? Sure, I am going nowhere! A reunion of our peripheral ST fireside is on! Send me a note and I'll arrange.

Reilly

Mountain climber

Monrovia, CA

Mar 31, 2010 - 08:30pm PT

So here's the 'ramp' at Dzhirgatal International!
It lies about 130 miles east of Dushanbe, Tadzhikistan.
This beauty is the justly famed Antonov-2; the most produced
commercial aircraft in history! Want to fly through brick walls?
This is your rig. It seats 15 lucky pax and anything and everything
they want to bring aboard. Max T/O weight - whatever fits.
Lose an engine? No probs - with the wing loading of a griffon
vulture you could float this baby down anywhere you want.

The young gent in the foreground was one of my buddies and he is
proudly sporting his new US Ski Association "I Ski" window decal.
I can guarantee you that was cherished for a long time!

Here's the 'ramp crew'. I'm not sure what they're guarding but you
wouldn't get far stealing anything here; there's sort of a road in
here (open a few months per year) and everybody knows everybody's business.

Oh, they also offer rampside haircuts there! How cool is that?
Carlos Buhler enjoying such:

Now if you harbor dreams of seeing the boondocks of Russia you're
going to go in an AN-2 at some point so I should point out it does
have a few limitations. While weight and balance is generally not an
issue we did discover it can be. On our last flight out of here all
15 seats were filled, the baggage area in back was stacked to the
rafters, and the aisle was full of packs too. It wasn't like we were
worried about no stinkin' beverage cart! So I ensconce myself in the
front middle seat. The cockpit door's latch was busted so I propped it
open so I could keep an eye on Igor and Valerii. Despite a downhill T/O
roll I could see we were running out of the 'improved' portion of
Dzhirgatal International's 'back 40'. Just before we ran into the weeds
it looked to me like both Igor and Valerii had to heave on their respective
yokes to haul her off the ground. We're doing maybe 75 kts and the
stall horn is sounding like a New York City traffic jam; we're 'hanging
on the prop', as the saying goes, and pedaling for all we're worth. I
look at the boys and it is obvious this is Standard Operating Procedure.
I mean they haven't lit up a Pamir or anything but they don't look
concerned. Luckily, the terrain contiues to fall away beneath our wheels
as Dzhirgatal lies on a plateau high above the mighty Vakhsh River, one of
the biggest in Central Asia. Valerii leans back and yells, "Start passing
the heaviest packs forward!" I stuff a couple in the cockpit and then
pile as many more as high as possible in the aisle. After about 5 minutes
the horn goes off and the boys relax enough to light up their fags; a job well done.

Fritz

Trad climber

Hagerman, ID

Mar 31, 2010 - 10:22pm PT

Thank you all, for the travel show. Amazing photos. I've done a lot of flying out of dirt strips, but of course have not digitalized those photos.

Reilly: I am most amazed at your photo of "Antonov-2; the most produced
commercial aircraft in history!"

Looks like a flying boxcar.

Here is my illegal photo from the end of the Lukla, Nepal airport in 2005. I took it through the razor wire with the automatic-weapon toting guard studiously looking the other way.

bmacd

Trad climber

Beautiful, BC

Mar 31, 2010 - 11:06pm PT

Reilly

Mountain climber

Monrovia, CA

Mar 31, 2010 - 11:06pm PT

Fritz,
Lukla is paved now? Mon dieu, what is the world
coming to?
"A frightening place to land."
Not so much I'm afraid what with paving and turboprops-
pretty casual IMHO.

I didn't see that BMAC slipped one in there. Now that
looks like a fun strip, especially with a non-reverse
thrust Cessna or such!

bmacd

Trad climber

Beautiful, BC

Apr 7, 2010 - 01:05pm PT

Ihateplastic

Trad climber

It ain't El Cap, Oregon

Apr 7, 2010 - 01:23pm PT

They just closed Berlin's main airport because they discovered an unexploded ordnance from WWII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Jun 26, 2011 - 05:43pm PT

AEY --> RKV today.

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Jun 26, 2011 - 06:15pm PT

Chiloe, you dog, a hop in a DC-3 would be soooo SWEET!

On final to Iguazu. Everything seemed good. Then the drivers poured on the
coal and retracted the flaps from 45 to 25. WTF?????? This isn't
something you do on an IFR approach when you're 1500' above the ground.
That is unless you're bouncing a flight attendant on your lap. At least I
hope that was their excuse for going so far below the glide slope they had
to take such extraordinary measures. BUSH!!!!

wildone

climber

Troy, MT

Jun 26, 2011 - 09:36pm PT

Man, I have got to post the photos I took of Baffin when I flew from Paris to Seattle a couple months ago. Gotta find them...

Jan

Mountain climber

Okinawa, Japan

Jun 26, 2011 - 09:58pm PT

Thanks Reilly! That description makes my flights in Nepal look mild in comparison.

Vegasclimber

Trad climber

Las Vegas, NV.

Jun 27, 2011 - 12:00am PT

Awesome shot of the AN-2 "Colt".

We used to have a few at one of the FBO's I used to work at. Those things are tanks with wings. Slow and tough, land anywhere. Kinda like a giant Piper Cub.

I especially liked trying to get them started...bad enough it's a cranky ass Eastern Bloc radial anyways, but the ones we had were equipped with these inertia reel starters....you had to wind em up, slam in the handle to engage the starter, then try to get the engine to catch while pumping the hell outta the mix. Couple revolutions of the prop and you had to start all over again.

I shudder to think of trying to restart the thing in an emergency.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Jun 27, 2011 - 09:43am PT

Reilly, unfortunately that vintage DC-3 was someone else's ride, all I got was a Fokker.

I wish either one was coming for me today, I'm stranded at an airport with plans in a mess. Travel happens.

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Jun 27, 2011 - 11:04am PT

Chiloe, bummer. What's the past tense of Fokker?

mojede

Trad climber

Butte, America

Jun 27, 2011 - 11:50am PT

Answer...

Fokked

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Jun 28, 2011 - 05:00pm PT

At KEF earlier today,

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Jun 28, 2011 - 08:59pm PT

With a schedule like this, no wonder they need a jet.
http://www.ironmaiden.com/index.php?categoryid=15

But why is it in Iceland this week?

Gene

climber

Jun 28, 2011 - 09:10pm PT

I was looking for a ticket to get Catherine from the Bay Area to New York City. American Airline came up with this itinerary.

San Francisco -> Portland -> Dallas/Fort Worth -> Los Angeles -> New York City. We purchased a direct flight for about 20% of what AA wanted to charge.

g

cowpoke

climber

Jun 29, 2011 - 12:08pm PT

Chiloe, crossing paths with that Iron Maiden tour plane is wild -- so cool!

dirtbag

climber

Jun 29, 2011 - 12:21pm PT

Very cool Chiloe.

There is an Iron Maiden thread around here somewhere.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2011 - 04:12pm PT

On the road again,

BOS --> YYZ --> YYC --> YZF

Vegasclimber

Trad climber

Las Vegas, NV.

Sep 19, 2011 - 09:06pm PT

ZZZZzzzzz....

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 20, 2011 - 11:59am PT

VC, I know that feeling well.

Instead of sleeping last night, I was out doing this:

Vegasclimber

Trad climber

Las Vegas, NV.

Sep 20, 2011 - 02:06pm PT

WOW! Those are AWESOME shots. Thanks for sharing!

Toker Villain

Big Wall climber

Toquerville, Utah

Sep 20, 2011 - 02:54pm PT

Don't let Cragman see the photo of that bear giving the seal one in the ass.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 20, 2011 - 05:27pm PT

Yeah, if Air Canada strikes at midnight I'm in for a bad journey home. The latest news is they might not, however. Good luck on your journey to Shanghai.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2011 - 10:40pm PT

So I had to get up at 4 this morning to make the long journey through four airports back home. But I was up until 2:30 last night, just to take a few more pictures.

cowpoke

climber

Sep 22, 2011 - 06:49am PT

Safe travels, Chiloe. See you back in rainy New England.

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Sep 22, 2011 - 11:31am PT

MIA - Beam me up!

Flaps 40, gear down and locked!

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 22, 2011 - 12:11pm PT

Flaps 40, gear down and locked!

One adventure on this past trip was a landing in Calgary where our A320's flaps did not deploy. So the pilot did figure-8s around the airport for a while to burn fuel, then came in steep and fast. That was exciting. They'd scrambled the emergency trucks onto an adjacent runway, lights flashing just to make us feel welcome.

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Sep 22, 2011 - 12:29pm PT

Well at least you were landing someplace with plenty of concrete instead of
one of your usual haunts like Ammassalik.

"Sh#t, I hope this island is paved!"

Two beers to the winner...and an extra for the POS aircraft type!

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 22, 2011 - 12:32pm PT

Greenlanders have a tradition of applauding the pilot after each safe landing. After the fast Calgary landing, some of us did.

rectorsquid

climber

Lake Tahoe

Sep 22, 2011 - 12:50pm PT

One adventure on this past trip was a landing in Calgary where our A320's flaps did not deploy. So the pilot did figure-8s around the airport for a while to burn fuel, then came in steep and fast. That was exciting. They'd scrambled the emergency trucks onto an adjacent runway, lights flashing just to make us feel welcome.

I had to do a night landing with no landing light and on another trip did a touch-and-go and had the flaps stuck all the way down for the "go" part of it. That sort of stuff doesn't require emergency equipment if your flying a two-seater. I'd be worried dealing with those "small" things in a big plane.

Dave

Reilly

Mountain climber

The Other Monrovia- CA

Sep 22, 2011 - 01:50pm PT

Rector,
As you know flaps on a Cessna are just nice to have. On a jet they're
more than a luxury.
The reason they rolled the fire trucks is because instead of touching down at
130-140 kts they probably touched down at 170-180 and at that speed the chance
of a blowout goes up dramatically and the consequences can be ugly. Besides
the chance of a blowout on touchdown you could also suffer a blowout from
standing on the brakes to avoid an overrun.

Chiloe

Trad climber

Lee, NH

Topic Author's Reply - Sep 22, 2011 - 02:45pm PT

Yes, I was impressed by how our A320 landed without flaps. The pilots brought it down on a much steeper path, instead of the usual float-to-a-stall. They also kept the plane in a sharply nose-up attitude. We touched down with a *bang* and no bounce.

I was watching the groundspeed indicator in the cabin as we came in, and the last speed before it switched off was above 170mph.