Anchorage, AK - Float Planes and Bears

Finally, we ended up at Lake Hood Sea Plane Base, the largest and busiest sea plane airport in the world is here. Of course, they are the cars and trucks of Alaska. There are very few roads here and float planes carry the goods of commerce and the people to remote areas.

It started as 2 lakes but the state began dredging a canal between the two in the 1970’s to create this seaplane base. There is a trail all the way around it although sometimes we were walking in the street bike lane. But the traffic was not too heavy so it was ok.

Here’s a picture from Apple Maps to show the layout of the base and how the planes are organized around it. Actually, there are two ‘airports’ here, a regular land airport on a gravel runway and a seaplane base. None-the-less, there are nearly 1000 floatplanes stored here with an average of 200 flights daily. Now. add that to the other airports in the area: the Ted Stevens International Airport, Merrill Field for small planes, the gravel airstrip next to this seaplane base and the army base airports and you’ve got a lot of traffic in the sky. No wonder there's a constant buzzing from above.

At eye-level it looks like this.



Funny - not only are there lots of planes taking off from the seaplane base, there are used to be lots of birds taking off also, creating havoc with the planes. So - the base put 3 farm pigs, Curly, Larry and Moe, on the island to destroy the nests and eat as many of the eggs as they could. Solved the problem.

We were intrigued by these trucks. I’ll have to tell my brother to get one of these - must be cheaper than an ordinary truck since it doesn’t have any back wheels. I’d feel strange sitting in the cab knowing there were no wheels in back.



But, as you can guess, they are used to move planes.

In case you didn’t know, owning a plane is not cheap. Along with the cost of the plane itself, the mooring spot, and the insurance there is the annual FAA annual inspection which can cost anywhere from $500 to $5000. Then there’s the gas. Most single engine planes burn anywhere from 8 to 20 gallons and hour. Multiply that by the cost of aviation fuel and you can get from $40 to $120 an hour. And, you thought RV’s were expensive to run.

Here’s a spot where planes have the right of way. They can cross the street any time and you’d better be out of the way. Planes have the right of way. This sign tells us all.

Here’s a float plane without a mooring that’s heading to its place in the parking lot.


Here are just some other things we’ve noticed about Anchorage.

Lots of flowers. Short growing season but a long growing day makes for some beautiful floral displays throughout the city.

Interesting things on the streets.

And, interesting ruts in the roads. Makes it a bit hard to drive and keep in the ruts.




Bears are ubiquitous in Alaska. Lots of them and dangerous.

We visited a US Forestry Service Visitor Center in downtown Anchorage and saw this message scratched on the board.

Oh my, this is just exactly where we hiked when we hiked in Denali. Two hikers rounded a corner, saw a bear, put their backpacks down to distract it and then moved away. The bear was distracted but the Rangers closed the trails. Meanwhile they tried to discourage this teen-age grizzly from this area by shooting bean bags at it. They hadn’t spotted the bear for 5 days, reopened the trail and immediately several hikers were spotted by the bear. The bear actually scratched and bit one of them before another hiker tossed some rocks to scare the bear away. And, now, July 4 (yes, I am a bit behind in writing), the trail is closed again.

We are always so surprised when we see hikers without bear spray hiking in known bear-inhabited areas. The signs are up, there are warnings everywhere. Bear spray is sold in every park. You can even borrow some. But, hikers ignore the warnings, thinking that it couldn’t happen to them, that there are so many hikers on this particular trail that no bear would ever be around that they needn’t carry spray. Gary and I both think that we need the bear spray but that we must look like dweebs around everyone else who doesn’t have spray. Call me a dweeb but bear spray is not just useful but absolutely necessary.