Tuesday, July 17 (Day 4)

It was pretty cold overnight. In fact, for me the night was a misery. It probably go down to 35 degrees Fahrenheit. My old "Big Blue" sleeping bag just couldn't cope with that temperature. I vowed that this would be my last cold night (it was) and the next day I would buy some good horse blankets to add to my insulation. Victoria was perfectly warm.

Waiting for the fog to clear

We woke up surrounded by fog. It was bone chilling cold. We got up around six or seven (it had never really gotten dark) and made coffee. There didn't seem to be any great hurry since the weather looked pretty dismal. The three men in the Bonanza had not yet arisen. We sat around all bundled up and had our yellow plastic mug full of coffee, mine black and Victoria with her milk and sugar. We finished breakfast and pondered our next step.

Moring coffe after a frigid night. Waiting for the fog to lift for the flight to Whitehorse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Decide to file IFR

A trip over to the Flight Service Station promised better weather later on but nobody was sure when the fog would lift enough to permit a VFR departure. Emboldened by our IFR successes of the day before, I decided to file IFR and forego the Alaska highway once again. The route to Whitehorse was pretty simple, two hours via Telsin Lake with good VHF communications all the way. We filed for 10,000 feet and returned to the plane to continue our packing up.

The Bonanza crew was up and around and making a big racket. They were planning to depart VFR (what else) as soon as the weather permitted.

Watson Lake, Y.T.- Whitehorse, Y.T. (1.8 hours)

The flight was quite nice, about 30 percent in and out of cumulus clouds at our altitude and above. Some of them looked pretty active, dark and icy but they were sufficiently separated that we could always pick our way through to avoid the worse looking ones. By Telsin lake, conditions were mostly clear. The terrain below us was very rugged. There were occasional lakes but very little flat ground. I'm sure this would have been a bad area in which to put down.

On the way to Whitehorse from Watson Lake. IFR at 9.000 feet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we approached Whitehorse there was a lot of chatter on the frequency. The wind was pretty stiff in our face so we weren't making very good time. We were cleared for a straight in to runway 31L and landed without much ado.

The Yukon River is to the east of the airport. The city is between the airport and the river. The airport lies on a bluff perhaps 500 feet above the city so when one is within the airport boundaries, the town is completely hidden. On all sides there are mountains, particularly to the east.

We parked near the tower and queued up for gas. There were about five or six general aviation aircraft waiting for fuel. Most seemed to be families or couples like us on a summertime adventure. We talked to a few people and compared notes.

It turned that the "camping area" was simply the tie down area about a quarter mile south of the terminal building. We taxied over there and found a vacant spot. We were the only campers. Most of the planes looked like they lived there, beat up bush planes used to living outdoors. Although the parking area was quite barren, the wild flowers had run amok, particularly the blood red fire weed. We found out later that we were also located in a major chipmunk/prairie dog city.

An example of the Fireweed near our campsite at Whitehouse Airport.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We did not pitch camp but instead unpacked our wet towels and clothing and laid them out in the hot sun to dry. We took the precaution of weighing everything down with stones lest a stiff breeze spring up. With these preparations done, we had a quick lunch (the usual being whatever was in the ice chest placed between two slices of bread) and headed for town. We called a cab from the terminal building (near the tower) and were soon on our way into town.

Impressions of Whitehorse

Whitehorse is the capitol of the Yukon. It is built on the banks of the Yukon river and represents the most upriver point navigable by river boats. If I remember, it is nearly two thousand miles downstream to the mouth of the river in the Bering Sea. Whitehorse is about five blocks wide and about twenty blocks long with the long axis paralleling the river. The downtown area is composed of two and three story commercial buildings. The rest of the town is residential apartment buildings and single family houses. It all looks very modest and unpretentious. It was "small town" and had none of the depression of the inner city. One only had to look up and see the wilderness of the mountains that surround Whitehorse in all directions to realize one is close to nature.

Near the river is the state capital complex, a few better-than-average buildings that pass for monumental in the Yukon. Monterey, by comparison, is five time the size of Whitehorse.

Inebriated Indians

The cliche of the drunken Indian is sadly true in the Yukon Territories. As we walked around downtown Whitehorse, there was an idle Indian on each street corner. Many seemed to be drunk. They were generally friendly but the impression was one of non direction, hopelessness, and boredom. It was a strong impression and perhaps the only negative one we encountered during our entire trip.

The Yukon Museum

We visited the Yukon Museum housed in a small complex near the river. It was exceedingly interesting with exhibits on the animals and history of the region. There was a photographic display of Whitehorse scenes during the gold rush days (1895-1905). Outside were artifacts of the era including a small cabin reputed to have belonged to Sam Mcgee.

The Klondike River Boat

The high point of Whitehorse was undoubtedly the river boat Klondike II. This river boat, now a museum on dry land, was the largest boat built for the Yukon. They ran an excellent interesting tour preceded by a film on the history of the region, the river, and the boat. The boat was carefully restored. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour.

A Walk Across Town

After the river boat it was getting late (5:00) so we decided that we should be getting back to the airport. But we needed to buy my blanket and get some provisions first. I recalled seeing a shopping complex on the other side of town, so we walked from one end of town to the other (a mile maybe). We found the shopping center and entered a Montgomery Ward's just as they were closing. In the near darkness of the store (they had turned off the lights) I found a garish cheap quilt that looked like it would do the job. It embarrassed Tory who thought I should have bought something more utilitarian. Anyway, this enormous mound of padding cost about 12 dollars US.

We finished our shopping by buying some food in the supermarket next door and called a taxi. As we waited, the heavens opened again and sheets of rain fell amid thunder and lightning. It is evidently a common afternoon phenomenon in the Yukon in summer. We arrived back at the airport and had to wait another half an hour in the FSS before the rains quit enough to venture out to the plane.

Whitehorse Campsite

We returned to our campsite and wrung out our towels and wet clothing that we had left out to dry. We had a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains. The most dramatic aspect of the campsite was the profusion of wild flowers, mostly "fire weed" a dramatic red flower. The sizable population of ground squirrels forms the principal protein source for all the local predators.

Our tentsite on the Whitehorse Airport. I was cooking dinner at about 8:00pm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had dinner, settled down for some serious diary writing and reading, and after the ritual hot chocolate, went to bed. I was luxuriously warm in my garish polka dot quilt.

 

Bedtime at Whitehorse. It was probably after 11pm (note the light).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday July 18 (Day 5)

We woke up, as usual, with the sky obscured by fog. We could just see across the runway. But the day did hold promise for an early clearing. We checked with the Flight Service Station. The forecast was for perfectly clear conditions until 50 miles east of Northway when we would encounter smoke from the massive forest fires in the Tok area. We filed a VFR flight plan via the Alaska highway and asked for U.S. Customs in Northway. By the time we returned to the plane and had breakfast, the sky was clear. We packed up with anticipation since we were almost to our "destination".

 

 

Early morning fog at Whitehorse. The town is just over the Estern edge of the airport where the fog can be seen. It soon lifted and we were on our way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whitehorse, Y.T.- Northway, Alaska (2.3 hours)

Our intention was to take off and fly low over the Alaska Highway until Northway where we would stop for fuel and customs. I shall always remember the first few minutes of this flight since it was our first (and only, it turned out) opportunity to fly low and in real contact with the ground. We took off from Whitehorse to the north and then hung a left turn to follow the highway out of the Yukon River valley. We flew the entire distance to Northway at about a thousand feet above the ground or about 3500 feet MSL descending to about 3000 feet near Northway.

Tory was looking intently for wildlife, especially moose which we had been told could be easily seen from the air. Alas, we saw no living creatures from the air. The only sign of life was the lumbering Winnebagos on the highway below.

 

Low over the Alaska Highway (about 500 feet up) shortly after takeoff from Whitehorse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The terrain was quite green, relatively flat around the highway, but mountainous in all directions especially to the south and later to the west as we approached the St Elias Range. We flew to the left of the road (the better for me to keep the road in sight). One could see that the road had evolved since 1942 (when it was first built). Curved sections had been abandoned in favor of straighter and wider sections. So far as we could tell it was all paved. There were occasional homesteads below set off some distance from the highway. They looked relatively poor (although it was hard to really tell) with a lot of trailers and old cars.

 

 

 

Pine Lake near haines Junction, 2000 AGL following the Alaska Highway. The St. Elias Mountains can be see ahead. The road turns sharply north (right) after the lake.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After 45 minutes we came to the south end of Kluane Lake which is about thirty miles long and five miles wide. The highway is blasted out of the steep western shore. The most dramatic characteristic of this area was the abundant glaciers coming down the St. Elias range. With the good visibility, blue sky, and dramatic mountains, it was quite impressive.

After Kluane Lake we entered a rocky barren valley with a number of braided rivers flowing in and out of the connecting valleys. Gradually the terrain flattened out except for the numerous little rugged hills and, of course, the ever present St Elias range to our left.

 

 

St Elias Mountains at the South West corner of the Yukon Territory, on our way to Northway Alaska.

About 20 miles after Kluane Lake, we started seeing smoke and visibility dropped progressively as we approached Northway. By the time we arrived, visibility was not better than 2 to 3 miles.

We noted our crossing of the US-Canadian border about twenty miles out of Northway and felt that we were once again "home". Actually, Canada had become quite familiar and comforting and Alaska represented the unknown and further adventure.

 

 

 

U.S. Customs

We followed the VOR and ADF signals into Northway and landed without incident on their long smoke enshrouded runway. As we taxied in, we were greeted by a dour bald headed pot bellied man perhaps in his late fifties. He turned out to be Clarence Boehm, the feared autocratic customs agent of the north.

He motioned us out of the airplane and asked us pointed questions, obviously designed to reveal any latent subversion. He then asked for all the paper work that normally accompanies an airplane. This was clearly bureaucratic harassment since an airworthy certificate has little to do with customs. But is was clear that this little man would take great delight in finding some flaw in the red tape that would occasion a fine or denial of entry. After unpacking the entire baggage compartment (aka Rubic's Cube) we unearthed the necessary paperwork which he glanced at with a disappointed grunt.

The final insult of our repatriation was a request to pay the 25 dollar customs fee. The fee, although large, was not unexpected. What was irritating was that he refused to make change for us and required us to go inside to the airport restaurant to get the necessary denominations. It was quite irritating and gave the impression "Boy, we really don't like your kind around these here parts".

We repacked the airplane, ordered fuel, and constructed our usual lunch of sandwich of "whatever was in the ice chest", usually cold cuts, lettuce, tomatoes, and mayo. We sat outside the restaurant under a pleasant tree and had a nice quiet meal.

Northway, Alaska- Anchorage, Alaska (2.3 hours)

After lunch we hiked about a half mile to the flight service station at the other end of the airport to get the forecast. The news was not good. Although the weather was magnificent, the forest fire situation was not. Our proposed route followed the Alaska highway west to Tok Junction where we connected with the Glenn Highway which would take through us the mountains to Anchorage. This route was completely closed by an area of restricted airspace set aside to permit the fire fighter tankers to operate. Clearly our day of contact flying was over.

The only practical way to get to Anchorage was to fly direct to the Glenn Highway over the mountains to the south west of Northway. The map showed this to be about 50 miles of flying over an area of rugged inhospitable mountains, miles from any habitation, roads or airports. The peaks were about seven thousand feet tall and arranged in about four or five rows before we got to Duffy's Tavern on the Glenn Highway. We filed our flight plan and looked forward to the reported good weather once we were clear of the smoke.

We took off and groped our way out of Northway in the smoke. As we climbed, the visibility improved but the view straight down was very limited. We climbed to 9,500 feet on a 230 degrees heading and watched the mountains build up below us. It was actually very pleasant at altitude and we put out of our minds the hazards of ground below. Sure enough, after about thirty minutes (it seemed longer), the smoke dissipated, the mountains shrank, and we could see the highway to our right converging with our course.

After Northway we flew over the mountains to rejoin the Glen Highway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our right we could see the magnificent summit of 16,000 foot Mt. Stanford. Otherwise the valley below us was fairly flat, wide, and mundane. It was also a great deal further down than our flight of the morning. About an hour out of Northway, the valley started to narrow and become pinched between two large mountains ranges. To the south, especially, the mountains were large. We were to the north side of the coastal range of mountains that surrounds Valdez and Prince William Sound. We passed two stupendous glaciers that came right down to the highway below. These were classic looking glaciers, with marked stripes of ice and stones.

 

 

 

Matanuska Glacier about an hour before we got to Alchorage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two hours into the flight, the narrow valley we were following widened and fell away to a tundra plain of lakes and swamps. The river in the valley also widened to form an estuary, miles wide, that must have been no more than 6 inches deep since it had thick grasses growing in it. On the map it was called the Palmer Hay Flats Sanctuary. We were approaching Anchorage and the radio started getting downright busy.

Merril Field

The transition from wilderness to civilization was abrupt. One moment we were alone in the skies, the next we seemed to be in the vortex of a massive whirlpool which was trying to suck in every airplane (it seemed) in southern Alaska. We had been warned by the FAA publications about flying in the Anchorage area. There are three major airports within five miles of each other: Anchorage International, Elmendorf Air Force Base, and Merril Field, our destination. Each has its allotted airspace and specified routes for departure and arrival. Deviate from your assigned route and bye bye pilot's license.

Our route called for an approach from the north and a crossing of the bay, called the Knik Arm (don't know how it's pronounced), at an altitude either above 2,000 feet or below 600 feet. The altitude in the middle is reserved for landing traffic at Elmendorf. Since the Mooney would be going 200 mph after a descent from 2000 feet on short final, I elected to cross the Knik Arm at the lower altitude, 500 feet. As we reached mid channel, two fighters in close formation passed five hundred feet above us.

Unfortunately, at 500 feet I was too low to see the airport (remember that next time) and we had to ask for assistance from the controllers. They told me to follows a Cessna on floats (amphibious, I presumed) approaching from our left. We couldn't see anything that looked like an airport, just apartment buildings and houses and many airplanes buzzing around like bees around the hive. It was getting pretty frantic, the Cessna was getting closer and lower and still no airport. In fact it reminded me a great deal of opening day at Oshkosh except that at Oshkosh, one is expecting chaos. Anyway, we continued our approach, getting lower and closer to the Cessna when, Voila !, just as advertised, the buildings parted and there was a runway a quarter mile ahead and to our left. I banked and made a near perfect landing behind our guardian angel Cessna. We taxied through a forest of parked airplanes to a transient area near the tower and shut down the engine.

Finding an Hotel

We set about looking for a place to stay. This was to be our only night of the trip where we weren't camping out. We looked up in the AOPA guide for nearby hotels and noted that the Arctic Tern was fairly close and quite cheap. So we called them up and got a reservation for the night. The cab got us there in about ten minutes (after getting somewhat lost). It was not our idea of an appropriate place to stay. First, it was miles from downtown. It looked really tacky, like a three story flop house with a lobby ten feet square.

So we said to the driver, take us some place else, bigger, better, downtown. Well, that wasn't so easy in Anchorage on July 18th, the absolute apex of the tourist season. We went to one hotel after another (about eight in all) with the taxi meter getting bigger every minute. "Hello, do you have room tonight. Ha ha ha." Finally, somebody mentioned the Holiday Inn, so we drove over there an sure enough, they had a room. The reason was the highest room rate in town.

The Laundry Episode

We settled into our room. Tory called her aunt, Hillary, who said they would pick us up at six at our hotel. It seemed like a good time to do our laundry so I took all our clothes and ten dollars in quarters and went to the laundromat in the hotel. Well, I was washing away watching CNN (three loads wash and dry) and finally sauntered back to the room. Halfway back, I ran into Tory dressed in a bed sheet (remember, I had all the clothes). She had fallen into a drugged sleep for two hours, awakened in a start not knowing where she was, where her clothes were, and thinking she was late for dinner at her aunt's. Panic. I calmed her down, assured her that I had all her clothes, and that Hillary wasn't due for 45 minutes. Such relief.

Dinner at Hillary's

We were picked up by Hillary and her husband Donald. It was really strange to meet again somebody you last knew as a ten year old. Hilary was truly all grown up, thirty years old, mother of two, and very dominant (like her mother, my former mother-in-law), but sweet at the same time (unlike my former mother-in-law). I imagine Tory was unsure of our reception since the last time she had spoken to Hillary was when she (Tory) was a last minute canceler at Hillary's wedding.

They lived about 15 minutes from downtown Anchorage in a lovely neighborhood of attached condo-like apartments. Hilary's own mother-in-law had whipped us up a sumptuous meal and we had a truly pleasant evening. Their two boys aged five and three were neat kids. We had a good time. It could have been quite awkward, but it wasn't at all. At about 10:00 with the sun just sort of settling on the horizon, we drove back to the Holiday Inn where it was my turn to catch up on my sleep. It did not seem possible that just this morning we had left Whitehorse.

Tory and her Aunt Hilary and her family in Anchorage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday, July 19 (Day 6)

The day was beautiful, just like the day before. We had a leisurely restaurant breakfast (the only one on the trip), packed, and returned back to Merril field. The forecast was favorable, including a little tail wind, until Windy Pass when we should start getting into smoke.

Anchorage, Alaska- Fairbanks, Alaska (2.3 hours)

We took off from Merril and retraced our steps across the Knik Arm at 500 feet and headed north climbing to 8,500 feet. Our route followed the Fairbanks highway and railway north. The visibility was about fifty miles in a bit of a haze. The ground below us was a wide flat valley, bleak looking (for the most part) but rich with summer vegetation.

Mount McKinley (Denali)

After about 30 minutes, the Alaska range appeared on our left paralleling our course. This is the range that contains Mount McKinley. Mt. McKinley, or Denali (the high one in Alut language) really dominates the range although there are other beautiful peaks that are not nearly so tall. However, the really dominate feature of the vista were the glaciers that unrolled from the middle heights of these mountains and pushed themselves down into the valley over which we were flying. We edged over to the west to fly over the bottom of the glaciers. I knew that on the other side of this range was Denali Park, where we hoped to camp for several days. The wind was fairly calm since there was no turbulence in spite of being in the shadow of the highest mountains in North America. The peak was 12,000 feet above us.

Mount McKinley and the Ruth Glacier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another view of Mt. McKinley (Danali).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we left McKinley behind, we came to Windy Pass whose features I recognized from the flying guide book to Alaska. We started into the pass and at the same time the visibility dropped to a few miles in the smoke. There was enough visibility to keep in the pass without trouble, but I was glad we had decided not to land at Denali airport (within the park boundaries) since the maneuvering room down there was tight and the visibility even worse. We passed over the park entrance and continued northwards. The road made navigation easy in spite of the decreasing visibility.

Zapped by the DEW Station

There was one hazard indicated on the map which I wanted to avoid. Near Nananna there is a DEW station (Distant Early Warning) radar station that is so powerful it can roast sea gulls that fly too close. The maps cautioned about possible radio damage. Maybe it was the gamma rays but our navigation seemed to get all screwed up and we couldn't figure how close we were to the DEW station. The Fairbanks DME signal was picked up and it indicated that we were probably right on top of the station. With that news we left the road and headed overland direct toward Fairbanks.

We were really IFR in the smoke. The ground wasn't visible straight down and there was nothing to see horizontally. We contacted approach control and groped our way toward Fairbanks using half VFR and half IFR procedures. They had us on radar after awhile and gave us useful vectors. Shortly runway 1-Left appeared out of the gloom and we landed.

Fairbanks has, in effect three main runways: 1-left and 1-Right and between them a big water runway for float planes. It is pretty amazing.

Rent-a-Wreck

We parked and immediately made lunch. Then we called our car rental company, Rent-a- Wreck. Assuming that rental vehicles were in short supply in July, I had reserved this car a month earlier and had reconfirmed several times thereafter. Within 30 minutes the car arrived, a nondescript red 4-door sedan with large plastic company logos on each door. I took the driver back to his office on the other side of Fairbanks. It turned out that his father had just crashed a Cessna 210 (a big single engine airplane) the previous month and was still in the hospital. The son was also a pilot but didn't fly much.

It should be noted that in Alaska every fourth person has a pilot's licence.

We unloaded the airplane into the car and headed off to Safeway for foodstuff replenishment. We also picked up some hardware items (more propane, etc) at the adjoining drug supply store. It took over an hour and $100 to restock but we got most everything we needed.

Continued

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