Flying - Knick Glacier

One of the best places to take people on a short flightseeing tour is the Knick Glacier - only a few minutes of flying time outside the Anchorage area, but one gets to see a huge glacier, a large braided river, and a glacial lake. There are plenty of opportunities for off-airport landings, and it is past the range of 4-wheelers - so it remains pretty much just open to pilots.
When dad and his friend Troy were visiting, we (Troy & I) were headed up to the glacier for a quick trip. It turns out another 'quick trip' was turning not so quick up on the top of the glacier. We received word that a plane had crashed up there and headed up to see what we could do. The weather was too poor to see the crash site, but we established communications, passed word back to the rescue controllers, and made the initial coordination with the rescue forces. As we left the area, it seemed like everything was under control - but it was not. The newspaper story recounts the next few days: http://www.adn.com/2010/08/11/1405574/guard-launches-new-attempt-to.html

Troy's photos here

A few weeks later the pilot of the crashed Piper Cherokee held a celebratory BBQ at his house and invited everyone involved. It was pretty cool to sit around and tell hear the stories - especially by the rescue PJs who hiked up the glacier for 20+ hours. And we discovered that there were 4 USAFA grads involved in that '91, '93, '95, and '98.