Ally's Adventures

Atka (Aleutains)

Atka! An island on the western side of the Aleutians. The village has about 30 people. Crazy! Everyone was super nice. We spent 3 days here installing a GPS monument. We had beautiful weather. Look at that blue! So rare.

“How does this thing work again?”

Here I am on the quad. I did a lot of shuttling on this thing lugging equipment and batteries. Fun stuff. I got to be fairly proficient!

A moment of Ally’s bizarre weirdness. I thought I would do a beautiful self portrait. Ha Ha!

Atka

Max and Steve working hard. Don’t worry, I’m working my butt off too.

Building our GPS monument, she’s a beauty!

Hanging out with the Epoxy gun

Steve and I flying from Dutch Harbor to Atka. Jammed into the plane with all our equipment.

The arrows show Dutch Harbor on the island of Unalaska, Akutan, and Nikolski on Umnak Island. Atka is off the map more to the west.

Akutan (Aleutians)

Here are some photos of Steve and I going over to Akutan to do some maintenance on our communications hut in town. Akutan is one island east of Unalaska. It is a little native village of about 50 people. The volcano on the island is also called Akutan and we have 9 GPS stations monitoring it.

Playing tug-a-war with this native dog. He carried the 2x6 around all day and he wouldn’t let you play fetch because he never dropped it.

The village is made up of all these little boardwalks.

He’s still got his 2x6.

The Goose landing. PenAir has 3 “Geese” and they are all from the 1940s. They don’t make them anymore. They just keep repairing them.

Akutan, the village, sits at the foot of this mountain on the bay.

Flying by the Orthodox Church.

We flew over on the Goose. It is amphibious so it can takeoff or land in the water or land.

Akutan, the VOLCANO!

Firearms Training

Here are photos from our 4-day firearms course. We shot 12-gauge shot guns, .45-70 rifles, and .44 magnum revolvers. I personally liked the .45-70 rifle the best. I felt like I could get the best shot off with it and the best aim. It was awesome!

Sara (my new roommate and other student field assistant) being awesome and shooting the .44 mag.

Ryan in action with the .44 magnum revolver.

Pulling out the .44.

Shooting the .45-70 rifle.

Oh yeah. Check out that bruise. It got a lot worse by the end of the day.

I’m dominant with my left eye, so I have to put by head across the butt of the shotgun to see the sights clearly. It kept hitting me in the mouth and I got a huge fat lip. I don’t like the shotgun because it hurt me, but the rifle was nice to me.