Adak, Alaska 2000 -- Page 7

• Commsta barracks.
• Inside the Commsta barracks.
• Outside theCommsta barracks. The concrete vestibule protects the doors against extremely high winds and flying rocks. Sometimes the wind blows so hard that it picks up rocks about 1/2 inch in diameter and throws them against the second deck windows.
• A cabin west of the Commsta, in the grassy saddle between Mount Adagdak and Mount Andrew (I think it is called). Just on the other side of the ridge is the very cold and nasty Bering Sea. Along the base of the ridge, on the near side, runs a road to the US Coast Guard LORAN station at the northern tip of Adak.
• Another cabin. This photograph was taken from a flat piece of land that held a steel-plate runway called Mitchell Field in World War II. It is on the way to Lake Andrew (Lake Andy) from the Commsta. This flat ground later held the Wullen-Webber direction finding antenna (the "Dinosaur Cage"), warehouses and an electric generating station.

• Bob Reeve High School
• The downhill-only (one-way) drive from Bering Hill. The women's barracks are at the left in this view. The view is to the northwest.
• The new chapel at the most-uphill end of Bering Hill (west-southwest). It is a clever design that not only looks somewhat like a chapel, it cuts the wind very nicely. Only problem being, it is not aimed in the optimum direction. Of course, since storms are always cyclonic, the wind can come from any direction, but it really screams when it turns into a Williwaw focused between Mount Moffett to the north and Mount Reed to the south.
• Looking northeast along the back (north) street of Bering Hill. Old barracks on the right, which include the galley.
• This looks a lot like the entertainment, sports and physical fitness building but it is on the north side, whereas the swimming pool, gymnasium, movie theaters, Tundra Tavern and (for a time) Baskin Robbins Ice Cream was in a similar looking building on the south side.

Photography copyright 2000 by Paul Roberts