“Socked In”

Socked In. Two words that many who are not fa­mil­iar with the fick­le na­ture of Alaskan weath­er may not know. Yet to those of us who live at Kat­mai Wilderness Lodge, they are not only fa­mil­iar but com­mon. Socked in means to be closed off from fly­ing, where the weath­er will not al­low for air traf­fic. The ex­pres­sion comes from 1959, when a lit­er­al sock, raised in the air like a flag, was some­times used in rur­al airstrips to de­ter­mine wind con­di­tions. Only when the sock be­came in­vis­i­ble in the sky did the planes stop fly­ing. So, you were socked in.

Weath­er is one of the big­gest con­tin­gen­cies and un­knowns at re­mote lodges like this one, where trans­port to and from the lodge is de­pen­dent upon bush planes and rel­a­tive­ly clear skies in which to fly them. We al­ways tell our guests how im­por­tant it is to plan for weath­er de­lays when com­ing to stay with us, but what does a weath­er delay ac­tu­al­ly look like at KWL?

This past week we had a group set to leave on the 12:30 pm flight back to Ko­di­ak. We wake up to fog so thick that you can’t see Fox Is­land right across our lit­tle bay. We know what it will in­evitably mean, but we still have a few hours to go be­fore the planes are due and ex­treme weath­er changes have been known to hap­pen in much less time than that. So every­one goes about the day as nor­mal, suit­cas­es are packed, cab­ins are emp­tied, and the guests join our ex­pe­ri­enced guides for a morn­ing trip around the Bay, to see all the wildlife that the pro­tec­tive weath­er has brought out.

The air ser­vice that we use lets us know that we are socked in, but on stand­by. They will take off if and when a good win­dow ap­pears. The day drags on, and noth­ing changes. Late evening comes and the air ser­vice makes the call that there will be no flights that day. Those wait­ing at the air­port head back to their ho­tels, and we re­distrib­ute bags and cab­ins to those who re­main with us.

By now, un­less guests had a weath­er buf­fer, plans must change and new arrangements must be made. It can seem like a frus­trat­ing and daunt­ing situation, but like every­thing in an ad­ven­tur­ous life, there is al­ways a sil­ver lin­ing!

Af­ter be­ing socked in for a full day, it was evening and our last group was stuck. Not sure where to go or what plans to make. The lodge was qui­et as every­one sat around look­ing at phones and last minute trav­el de­ci­sions. Sud­den­ly, a pierc­ing ray of sun­light shone in the great room. Heads looked up and peo­ple stirred, look­ing out the large win­dows. It was al­most like watch­ing a fa­mous Alaskan tide, how quick­ly the fog lift­ed and re­vealed a cloud­less blue sky. Out on the tide flats, there were not two, but three coastal brown bears dig­ging in the mud for clams, and a large moose had even wan­dered out of the brush in what had been the safe­ty of the now rapid­ly retreat­ing fog.

For that amaz­ing mo­ment, the in­cred­i­ble an­i­mals that use the weath­er to their advan­tage and the hu­mans who had been stuck due to it, were to­geth­er rev­el­ing in the sun­light. Our guests got some of their best pho­tos that evening, and the weath­er held through the night and was just as clear and beau­ti­ful the next morn­ing for their flights to Ko­di­ak.

Some­times, be­ing socked in isn’t such a bad thing af­ter all.