Scenic flight from Anchorage

I was in Anchorage Sunday-Thursday for a work meeting. It was cold - about 8-12 degrees most days - but clear skies for the most part so the surrounding mountains were beautiful...not that I was outside much during daylight hours to see them.

Taxiing as the sun comes up.

The best part was the flight home since my plane took off right about sunrise (10 am!). The few clouds were lit up in pinks and oranges and the snow on the mountains was also turning pink and orange. A friend from Juneau was also unexpectedly on my flight, and was sitting in the seat behind mine! It was fun to catch up and since he's been in Alaska a really long time and is a tour guide, he was pointing out all the mountain, glacier, and town names as we flew over them.

Sea ice and a pink sky just as we're taking off.

Now heading southeast and over the Kenai Peninsula.

I've never flown over this part of the coast before (without clouds). In the lower left is Kruzof Island with Mt. Edgecumbe - a dormant volcano - and another collapsed cone next to it. You can sort of see the town of Sitka in the upper right, straight below the tip of the plane wing part. Sitka sits on Baranof Island. Behind Sitka on the other side of the mountains is a flat bank of clouds sitting over Chatham Strait, then beyond that is Admiralty Island, which you can see from Juneau!

The worst part of the flight was landing in Seattle. It was really windy and stormy so there was a decent amount of turbulence...and someone a few rows up barfed all over as we were landing. We had to stop on an offshoot of the tarmac while the flight attendants delivered things to clean up. Yuck, and a huge bummer for the rest of the people in the row.