From the logbook...Volcanoes

Being that I am flight coordinating this week, I haven't flown much. But, I was able to make a once in a lifetime flight today. These are the kind of out of the ordinary flights that as a pilot you try to store away so that you always remember them. You may have read some of my posts describing our volcano flying. There are a group of vulcanologists that like to fly with us to take thermal pictures of the active volcanoes in Ecuador. They asked for a flight and I was able to do it. Lets just say it was AWESOME! As you will see below the scenery was nothing short of spectacular. Several times during my flight I had to remind myself that this was my job. How cool!Here is the tallest point on planet Earth. This is Chimborazo volcano. The funny cloud that is seen midway up the summit is an ash cloud from nearby Tungurahua.

Here is Sangay. It is active right now as well and after seeing the top we discovered there are 3 craters right now that are active in the cone. To top Sangay we climbed to 20,000 feet. Yes, the window of the airplane is fully open, and yes it was cold. But, it was worth the view.

Here is El Altar in all of her gleaming majesty. The pure white color of El Altar was stunning. As I have written before, experts think that this may have been the tallest mountain in the world, dwarfing even Everest, before it blew it's top a long time ago. Now the only thing in it is a gorgeous lake.

Here we are circling overhead Tungurahua volcano at 18,500 feet. It has been very active lately, and during our flight it was belching smoke and ash like an old wood stove on steroids. Very cool!

This is Cotopaxi on the left and Antisana on the right. At the moment these are both dormant volcanoes, but they make for great photos. We were en route to Tungurahua when I took this pic.

This volcano was the whole reason for the flight. It was the lowest of all the volcanoes we saw today at around 11,500 feet. Reventador is HIGHLY active right now and even has some flowing lava streams running down it. I was flying under a cloud deck when we were at Reventador so I had to be careful with the whole terrain/weather combo.

Here you can get a glimpse of the scope of the volcanoes in Ecuador. Their base may start in the jungle and climb right up through several climactic zones until the summit. This is another perspective of Antisana. Beautiful!