The idea of a flying trip to Alaska probably had its first genesis with my New York friend Peter Williams. About 10 years ago, Peter flew his Cessna 182 to Alaska (almost) and talked about the trip on many occasions. He had some hard luck when his plane caught fire while starting up in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and was totally destroyed.
Peter and I have, for the last five years, flown our respective planes to Oshkosh Wisconsin for four or five days at the EAA convention. At the convention we have camped "under the wing", looked at airplanes until we could throw up, and enjoyed the camaraderie "around the campfire". We learned to camp in comfort.
Having become somewhat bored with Oshkosh, I was looking for a vacation alternative. Peter, himself, mentioned a trip to Alaska after the convention. With some trepidations, I began to explore the idea.
First I mentioned it to Victoria who, except for one year, has been my companion during each odyssey to Oshkosh. She is as much a part of the Oshkosh experience as the plane. She was enthusiastic and immediately began to do some research on her own.
Finally, there was another influence. Our local Mooney Aircraft owner's group, West Coast MAPA, has periodic fly-in get togethers. One member from Los Angeles, John Kaminsky, had become the guru of flying to Alaska within this group. He gave several talks about his five or six trips. He characterized these trips as extraordinary and wonderful. It sounded interesting but somewhat hazardous. It seemed far away and foreign.
As the idea formulated, I read James Mitchner's novel Alaska and John McPhee's book Coming into the Country. These two books gave me further insights into the wonderful richness of life in the North country.
There is limited literature on flying to Alaska. The best source of information and the only book in print, is Dan Downie's book, Your Alaska Flight Plan. In addition, there have been several magazine articles and the official literature from the Canadian and Alaskan governments. This material, coupled with Peter's comments gave me my preconceived notions of the trip.
First, it was my impression (from the books) that the standard way to fly in Alaska (at least for the tourist) is contact flying. One followed roads or rivers at all costs. In the process, the inevitable poor weather was sure to occasion some creative scud-running, but that was to be expected. If things got uncomfortable, the best rule was to stay on the ground.
Second, the trip would be over absolute wilderness. There would be nary a sign of human habitation for hours on end. This notion was confirmed by the survival kit that was required to be on board including firearms.
Third, the weather would be terrible most of the time, especially near the coast.
Fourth, the mosquitos could carry you away.
Many of these impressions proved to be totally wrong or greatly exaggerated.
Flying to Alaska provided an excuse for excessive planning. Planning can be a lot of fun in its own right. To the extent possible, I fell right into excessive planning mode (and had a very good time at it).
I was somewhat handicapped by having to be in Australia nearly the whole month of June. I returned to the US on July 7th and we planned to leave on the 14th. So I had less than a week for the final preparations.
Fortunately, I was not making this trip alone. Victoria has grown up with "Camping with Dad" and now, being a full-fledged adult, could assume full responsibility for aspects of the preparations. I asked her to do all planning for itinerary, food and diet, and survival equipment (a major part of the problem) while I would assemble the camping equipment, manage the plane, and do the flight planning.
The amount of reference material we acquired was astounding. We took it all with us (about 25 pounds of paper) and used nearly every piece of it at one time or another.
Tory bought Arthur Fromer's guide to Alaska which defined many of the points of interest but was lacking information about the Canadian portion of our trip. We actually spent as much time in Canada as we did in Alaska. Downie's book offered information flying routes and likely conditions. I bought over one hundred dollars worth of aeronautical charts for Alaska, Canada, and the U.S. Northwest for both visual and instrument flying.
The most valuable purchase was the Jeppesen Trip Kit for Alaska. This $60.00 purchase weighed 12 pounds and contained all the instrument charts and approach plates that made the instrument portion of our trip possible.
AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilot's Association) was a rich source of useful information. Their Alaska trip kit weighed ten pounds and contained maps, customs brochures, regulation pamphlets, survival tips, reprints on Alaskan flying, and miscellaneous gems of wisdom unavailable except through personal experience. This stuff filled my flight bag which was our heaviest gear item at 26 pounds. This was stowed in the back seat within our easy reach.
Tory planned a five day menu . It was our intention to recycle this menu twice with local variations. It was an adaptation of our Oshkosh menu which provides tasty food requiring only one small ice chest for refrigeration. Several innovations came from Tory's jungle diet from Cameroon, West Africa. One could characterized the menu as plush. This was not back packer's C-rations and we never suffered from an uninteresting diet. Dinner, in particular, was a cooked sit-down meal missing only the candles for atmosphere (since it never got dark, this was not a problem).
I printed out my Oshkosh check list. It is on the computer. It grows and adapts with each year's experience. The checklist contains the following sections:
Getting all the gear together took weeks on both our parts. The final purchase of food supplies was accomplished on the day of our departure with a trip to the local supermarket.
The weight of gear in an airplane was a major concern. The plane has a specific maximum gross weight and the payload must also be evenly distributed so as not to cause an out of balance condition. We did a rough weight calculation which showed we were over gross weight but not dangerously so.
I borrowed a hunting rifle from Don, Gayle's brother. It is a required item in the survival kit. I don't have much experience with firearms, and this "thirty-aught-six" cannon was much bigger than the 22's I had previously shot in boy scout camp. I went behind our house and set up a milk carton on a stump. I paced off about fifteen feet and took sight, squeezed the trigger, and missed. The explosion (and that the best way to describe it) caused every dog in the neighborhood to start barking. I distinctly heard someone say on the other side of the canyon "George, that was a gun....". I slunk back to the house, put the rifle back in the case and it never came out again during the entire trip.
As if the preparations weren't enough to worry about, the plane itself, our trusty Mooney, 9208M, was having some problems. It had just come out of it's annual inspection. I had taken the plane to a new shop which was an authorized Mooney dealer, Del Monte Aviation in Monterey. They couldn't get anything right. The annual took six weeks (it should take 3 days, maybe), and most everything they fixed wasn't.
The major problem (it seemed) was a leaky right gas tank. They had tried three times to seal the small leak that caused the cabin to smell gassy after being filled up overnight. After three tries, the leak was much worse. It looked like the trip would have to be canceled. I called up Paul Loewen (a local California Mooney guru) who suggested that the leak was not life threatening and the plane could be flown safely, especially if I didn't keep the tanks full overnight. So we decided to ignore the problem. It would have been major anguish to call off the trip the day before we were set to leave.
Del Monte had also done a repair on the oil filler access door. This work looked awful and I very annoyed. Being that the problem was cosmetic, I figured we could deal with that later.
Finally, during the annual, an oil line was replaced in accordance with a Lycoming service bulletin. That work, at least, appeared to have been done correctly (or so I thought).
Our vacation actually kicked off on Friday afternoon when I flew down to Burbank, north of Los Angles in the San Fernando Valley, to pick up Tory. We agreed to meet at 6:30 and she was right on time. The trip down was beautiful and sunny with a slight tail wind. I flew the direct route over the Fellows VOR which always makes me respectful of the rugged and wild mountains that guard Los Angeles to the north.
We loaded Tory's personal gear, a big duffel, backpack, a camera case, foodstuffs (non perishable) and the survival gear and took off after the usual Burbank ground delays. The flight was uneventful except that it was getting late and the slight head wind delayed our arrival in Salinas.
As we approached Salinas at about 8:30 the sun set behind the coastal mountains and the Salinas weather conditions were deteriorating with a low fog layer. I requested and received a clearance for an ILS (Instrument Landing System) approach from the south. We were in the clear for most of the approach but the airport was hidden under the fog layer which was reported to be hovering 400 feet above the field (200 feet is the minimum). This approach was strictly a no sweat affair except for the fact that I rarely fly at night and had never done an ILS procedure after dark.
As we descended on the ILS to about 2000 feet and started entering the stratus (fog) layer, a small hole appeared in the fog which revealed the runway and approach lights. These lights were icy blue and seemed to float in space above us rather than below us. It was a striking scene as we came down like an orbiting body in space disconnected from any other solid ground. Tory commented on the total lack of reality. I concentrated on keeping the needles centered but the beauty of the scene was not lost on me.
We taxied in the dark to the hanger and decided to defer any packing until the following morning. A dinner of pasta and pesto was our reward.
Departure day was beautiful. There is nothing like the excitement of getting ready to leave on a long awaited vacation. But we had a lot to do.
All of our food plus a number of miscellaneous items still had to be purchased. Our gear was piled up in the living room and in the hanger. We were organized but we were not ready to leave.
We went to the local Lucky's supermarket with shopping list in hand and spent an hour and one hundred dollars. A quick trip to Payless Drugs next door provided some hardware items. Then we drove to the airport.
A partial view of our luggage. There
was no back seat. The baggage compartment began immediately aft
of the front seats and the luggage rose to the roof. We were
about 100 pounds over gross weight on every takeoff, but the
airplane flew well in spite of the overload.
All our gear was unloaded from the pickup truck. It made a formidable pile. I had decided, based on our Oshkosh experience, that the loose items needed to be organized and segregated. Therefore, we had five plastic milk crates for all the smaller items. These could stack in the back seat and each would be available as a unit. By segregating similar items into a milk crate, it would be easier to find a particular item.
We had the following crates:
Packing the plane is a science. Without five years experience, we couldn't have done it. The process it like a Rubic's cube. Each step must go in sequence. For example, the folding table must be the first item loaded. It fits in only one place, the front of the baggage compartment. If any other object else in the airplane, the table won't fit. The table must do a pirouette with a twist and must end up with the rounded edges up. And so on for each item.
The objective is to get the lightest items in the aft of the airplane and the heavier items forward. Thus the tool kit and survival equipment (both unusually heavy items) were placed near the front seats. The pillows and sleeping bags were stuffed in the aft hat rack.
As we loaded the gear we weighed it and it became evident that we were going to be about 100 pounds over gross weight at takeoff. Further, we were almost at the most aft C.G. (center of gravity) loading permitted. This was safe but we wouldn't have any room for the acquisition of souvenirs during the trip. As it was, we deliberately were leaving some heavier items home such as the oxygen system and the portable bicycle.
There was a last minute glitch in the
oil access door. It wouldn't open!
I noticed that there was an oil leak from the engine. This would account, I figured, for the moderately high oil consumption I had observed since the annual inspection. Oil leaks are not uncommon. There was nothing that I could do for now.
When I tried to check the oil, I discovered that the new oil door wouldn't open. The new fastener was stuck somewhere. Del Monte Aviation's incompetence was being felt already. Fortunately, the resident of the hanger next to mine, a young man named Chris is a mechanic. He was working on his own airplane, a Grummen Tiger, and he helped me remove the cowling and release the stuck fastener. But the door now had an unattached fastener that could get lost if one wasn't careful when the door was opened. This was why the door was replaced by Del Monte Aviation in the first place. This maneuver took over an hour and further delayed our departure. I was getting quite edgy by now and was very eager to be off.
Ready at last to takeoff at 2pm.
At 2:30 we started the engine and taxied out for our first loaded takeoff. We requested a full length takeoff (somewhat unusual for the Mooney) just to have the maximum runway ahead of us if there were any surprises. Not unlike earlier Oshkosh trips, the plane seemed heavy and sluggish after takeoff. This is an illusion due to the different feel of the plane after flying lightly loaded (its normal condition). Although we took off many times at the same weight during the trip, I never again experienced this uncomfortable heavy feeling.
We planned to fly to Sunriver Oregon (where we have a vacation home) and camp at the Sunriver airport. The house is rented so we couldn't stay in our house. We would fly to the east of San Francisco bay over the Livermore Valley, up Interstate 5 to Red Bluff, then passing to the east of Mount Shasta direct to Klamath Falls, and finally follow Route 97 to Sunriver.
Shortly after we took off, Monterey Approach Control inquired if we had heard SIGMET (significant weather report) Julliet for thunderstorms over northern California. We hadn't so they read it to us. It predicted severe thunderstorms on a line from Red Bluff to Reno. The controller acted like he expected us to turn around immediately and return to Salinas. That thought didn't occur to me since the area as described could be circumnavigated to the west and it wouldn't hurt to "take a look". As it turned out, we saw some isolated buildups to our east near Red Bluff but there was never any problem on our route of flight. It goes to show that a forecaster or controller on the ground cannot make decisions for the pilot in the air. Ground personnel are (rightfully so) very conservative. It was the slightly disapproving tone in the controllers voice that was inappropriate in this case. Tory was somewhat alarmed by the report, I think.
At about 4:15 we flew over Red Bluff. I was reminded that Gayle (my wife) was there visiting her parents after a week in Sunriver with our niece Stacy and friend Robin Flannery and her children. Robin figures into our story later on. I wanted to yell down to the house to say hello but we were at 8,500 feet.
Crater Lank, Oregon.
Mount Shasta at 14,000 feet was as dramatic as ever but with very little snow after another drought year. As we flew over the lava fields (only about two thousand feet below us), I suggested to Tory that we divert to fly over Crater Lake. She was interested. Approaching Crater Lake at 8,500 feet is deceiving. The top of the cone is at about 7000 feet and the lake is hidden until one swoops over the edge. Then it is very breathtaking. Actually, its a little intimidating from a low flying airplane since there is absolutely no place to land should there be an engine problem. We did two full circles for photographs and then resumed our northern course for Sunriver.
Approaching Sunriver the visibility dropped and we smelled smoke. A call to flight service confirmed forest fires in the area. This was our first exposure to smoke. We would see a lot of smoke in Alaska.
We called Sunriver Unicom to inquire about camping facilities. They were very discouraging, in fact downright unhelpful. So we considered our options. It was fairly late (almost 6:00 pm) and it was clear that this was to be our last (and only) flight of the day. I selected Prineville Oregon, 10 miles west of Bend, for our destination since I saw they had fuel and there would probably be little opposition to our camping there. We arrived over Prineville and circled twice. Tory said "Stop circling before I throw up". So we landed.
Prineville really is in the high desert and the airport had that lean and thirsty look. There wasn't a soul about at 6:30 on a Saturday night. The gas shack was closed up tight. A nearby road was busy though. We parked across from a big hanger that proved to be empty. Then we ran into a small problem. We couldn't find any water. It took a half hour thorough search of the airport before Tory found a hose bib hidden in some bushes.
With water in hand, we set up our first campsite and had our first happy hour. Although the airport was pretty ugly, we concluded that we brought our own atmosphere with us and the only thing that mattered was not being disturbed by airport officials, weather (wind or rain), or animals. We were feeling quite content.
After dinner, the sun set over the Cascade Mountains to the west and we could see a string of beautiful volcanos. It was very quiet. I think we were very happy and looking forward to the adventure ahead.
As we tied down for the night, I noticed more oil drops on the ramp.
The night at Prineville was punctuated by the sounds of scurrying rabbits or prairie dogs on whose homes we had pitched our tent. This did not add to the restful qualities of our sleep in spite of comfortable cots and fluffy sleeping bags.
Our first campsite at Prineville
Oregon. We were pretty confortable with our tables chairs and
tent.
Our camp looked pretty much the same at each stop we made. We usually pitched the tent close to the right side of the airplane, usually behind the right wing and near the door of the plane. We had a large 10 foot by 10 foot nylon dome tent with a flexible internal frame. Packed up it weighed 17 pounds and was spacious enough for our two aluminum and canvas cots, all our gear, and (in a pinch if it is raining) our 6 foot long table. Normally the table was set up outside the tent with our propane stove and two folding aluminum and canvas chairs. All this gear was carefully selected to both be light weight and small enough to fit into the skimpy interior of the Mooney.
Water was stored in a plastic bag which we hung from the propeller of the plane. As required, the plastic milk crates containing the supplies were removed from the plane and used.
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