I was aware of these kind of small airports but had never been to one. As we took off from Girdwood airport, we circled once over this small bright color (almost looking like a DHL brand) airplane getting ready to take off. Notice something about the runway? It does not have asphalt on the top. It is a dirt road runway. I had heard of these runways but saw it for the first time. (Also, it is a very short runway – only 2,100 feet).

Initially, they looked like small white specks on the mountain side. Till our pilot pointed out that they were mountain goats, I assumed they were rocks! How these completely docile looking animals scale the near vertical faces of the rocky mountains, I will never know!

All this week in Alaska, Sharmila lamented that she did not get to see a moose! Not any more! We spotted a bull moose way below in the valley. In the big picture, it is off center to the right. The inset has a magnified picture that I was able to capture with the zoom lens as the helicopter circled the moose…

Flew along the twenty mile valley. It is difficult to capture the perspective of height and expanse with my camera – but here we were skimming about three thousand feet above the river water level (lowest point in the valley).

Our pilot Jon found a nice and safe spot on top of the glacier. There was absolutely nothing other than pure white and blue colors of the glaciers all around. And the constant gurgling noise of water. Other than that it was eerily quiet. Not a single sign of life other than the five of us…

Fifteen years back, when Natasha was only three and Nikita was not there, the three of us landed on a glacier in a ski plane. Today, we decided to try a helicopter to land on a glacier. Off we go – Jon Elsass, our pilot, and the four of us on a brand new helicopter to attempt a landing on the Colony Glacier…