Day 286, 10/13/2011

10/13/2011

Today I was very fortunate to be able to help out my old Park Service buddies and fly northeast of Fairbanks to the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. Our mission was to locate as many wolf packs as possible via radio tracking. A couple of wolves in each pack are wearing collars with radio transmitters that send signals to a receiver that we carried in the plane. I used the receiver to scan for signals and then the pilot and I would try to locate where the signal was coming from by eliminating areas of land until the signal was strong enough that we could spot them from the plane.

We were successful in locating the wolves, however, with them and the plane both moving fast in different directions, I was never successful in getting a good photo of the animals, but here were a couple things that stayed still enough for me to get a good shot.

Here’s the back of Curtis’ (the pilot) head.

Here’s the area coming into the Preserve.

Here’s the runway at Cold Creek Camp, where we stopped to refuel and use the outhouse.

Here’s the (starting to get icy) Salcha River, which we followed back to Fairbanks since the way we came out this morning was closed due to snow and fog that had moved in on us.

Here’s me in my headset.

Here’s downtown North Pole.