how 25000 frequent flyer miles bought me an adventure

adak, ak

cstone@pobox.com

in august 2006 my friend tprophet and i went to adak island, alaska. this place is located in the western aleutian islands, and it's so remote that google maps can't find it: ask it for adak and it shows you something completely wrong (http://local.live.com gets it right, though.). here is a link to the right place, if you're looking for a map -- but there isn't much to see.

until 1997, this 280-square-mile island used to house a full us navy airbase (NAF Adak), supporting around 5000 people at one point. in addition to the airport, there were also facilities dedicated to ocean signal processing. (more history here.) housing wasn't just standard barracks, either: they also built hundreds of houses in large, suburban-style subdivisions; schools; rec centers; even a mcdonald's.

and then the navy left, abandoning most of the buildings, cars, and one of the largest airports in the aleutians. now, around a hundred people live there, and the town is located on land now owned entirely by an alaska regional native corporation named the aleut corporation. recently, it's been designated as the location for the $1 billion SBX-1 radar platform, part of the DoD's ballistic missile defense system. in fact, the SBX itself was supposed to be off the coast of adak by the time we were there; but it's apparently still in hawaii.

needless to say, the exploration opportunities presented were numerous.

even though it's in alaska, adak is pretty far south, so the weather is mild. when we were there, it was around 45-55F 24 hours a day. however, one weather feature is fairly notable: the wind. during the winter, it's not uncommon for adak to see winds in excess of 110 mph; when we were there, there was almost always a steady to strong breeze. it's also quite wet and foggy.

getting on or off of adak is not easy. it's a three-hour flight from anchorage; alaska airlines flies there twice a week, half-filled with cargo. (incidentally, this means everything there is incredibly expensive: we spent $32 for an 18 pack of rainier beer.) on "plane days", it's normal for over half of the current population of the island to be at the airport -- working at the airport/airline, waiting for cargo, meeting people, or getting on or off the plane. on days when the plane can't land due to weather, it fucks up everyone's life. we had the opportunity to experience this firsthand: our first plane out got cancelled, and we were stuck there for an extra two days.

so here are the photos. warning: there are many.