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Endless peaks lift their majestic faces
And the sky was ice-clear
My fascination with Alaska began when I flew over this great state for the USAF. Let me tell you about a typical flight in a KC-135 and what I saw.
Outside my cockpit window, “endless peaks lifted their majestic faces toward an ice-clear sky,” wrote Debbie Miller, “Midnight Wilderness”.
We had completed our refueling of four F-4s and now turned to the four-hour navigation leg of our mission. At the high latitudes, navigation was not an easy task. Our magnetic compasses were confused. True North was very different than the Magnetic North. There were few if any navigation aids. We relied on celestial navigation, “shooting the sun.”
But during this portion of the flight, I had the opportunity to look out upon the panorama of snowy peaks. Peaks upon peaks, stretching eastward across Alaska from the Ayugatak Lagoon to the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve butting up against the Canadian border.
Finishing the Nav run, we turned west to Fairbanks, checked our fuel status, and headed home.
