[Jetset]

(02-27-2019 06:10 AM)frozen-ace Wrote:  

There are a lot of pilot jobs, and there is constant turnover. I think the people that do it are kind of crazy. I've had a few close calls just as a passenger. It will happen in an instant, and you will get this surge of adrenaline and your heart will start racing, and once it is over and you land on the ground you kind of have a new lease on life. Being a pilot up here is a dangerous job. It's kind of a numbers thing, and the more you fly, the more likely you are to crash. The weather is so unpredictable and can turn on you in an instant.

I don't have anything nearly as cool to add as you have, this thread is amazing, but I've seen just enough of the visitor-friendly parts of Alaska during the winter to be able to imagine what the rest of it can be like year-round. You can be minding your own business on a pair of nordic skis damn near sea level, and go from a beautiful sunny day to cloud cover so close you feel like you could reach up and touch it in a matter of minutes. The mountains disappear, some sleety snow starts falling horizontally, then you get hit by a 60 mph gust of wind and you start thinking you've maybe made a mistake going out today, so you follow your own tracks back as best you can.

...and it does that regularly. It's not the cold that'll get you up there, it's the surprises. In a bush plane, those would be some dark moments.