Paul's Prince William Sound Postings

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2009-12-31T14:44:00.000-09:00

The World's Largest National Park

2009-09-06T13:34:00.001-08:00

On Sunday the Omega Block, so named because the jet stream flowing high above forms the shape of the Greek letter omega thereby blocking bad weathers approach from the south for weeks at a time, that was dominating the weather pattern in the southern half of the state continued to hold fast. This clear and calm weather allowed us to launch up for a day trip into our world’s largest national park, Wrangell St Elias, at 13.5 million acres. The Canadians have the 7 million acre Kluane in their system of park's, which is contiguous with Wrangell St Elias, making for a total protected acreage of over 23 million.

It being Fall and cloudless, things took a bit of time to warm up. Janet napped as we zipped up over Marshall Pass, which follows the Tasnuna River and the Lowe River into the Copper River Valley. It allows one a view of some of the seldom seen glaciers to the north of Cordova. This one is the Schwann, which is on the north side of the Rude River.

The Copper River is Alaska’s third largest river. Because the river cuts directly through the Chugach Mountains, one of the state’s most rugged ranges, it forms a natural conduit to the Interior for people, birds, animals, and machinery. The Copper River and Northwestern Railway ran on the left side of the river until round about 1938.

Looking south down the Copper River, towards Cordova and the Gulf of Alaska, we could see warm wet winds whipping up the river from the ocean. There are also extensive sand dunes in this area - which would make for a sweet landing/lunch spot if only we had a bit more power at our disposal! Some day...

Out of view in the right side of this image, lie several glaciers which damned the river here during Pleistocene times when they flowed across its path, thereby creating a massive glacial lake known as Lake Atna. Lakes always seem such a solidly permanent feature of a landscape as you loiter on their shores. But the reality of their transitory nature burns through at times when you alter your perspective.

The Copper River also serves to delineate the western boundary for Wrangell St Elias National Park. In an airplane at 7500 feet there were no lines of cars and no entrance fees to negotiate and we slid smoothly into the parklands.

Just east of the Copper River we had to choose between two drainage's to fly through. Based on a friend’s recommendation, we turned to the north and entered the Tebay River Valley. The very head of the valley terminates in a glacier, the Little Bremner, that is obviously retreating rapidly from its former dominions into a high hold-fast. In hindsight, I should have soared over it on the way back as it has cut an obvious pass back into the Copper drainage.

The Tebay Lakes are in one of those valleys that would take more than a lifetime to explore and to get to know intimately; the time would be well spent. As we zipped over the lakes, Janet and I mused upon the future acquisition of a float plane so we could better access this country. But how to land on both water and sand dunes? Hmm. Maybe a heli?

Geologists say the Tebay Lakes are a prime example of a deranged drainage. Seeing no immediate or obvious signs of this instability or condition, I was a bit confused. It turns out that an understanding of this, like myriad other geologic concepts, forces you to imagine things outside the bounds of a human time scale. Normally, a river or stream drains downhill via the most direct route available to it. In a deranged valley such as this one, which, in the not so distant past, was inundated with slow moving rivers of ice glaciers, like the Little Bremner Glacier in the shot above, water cannot always flow in a direct path. These random blockages force lakes like the Tebay to drain in ways that ignore logical valley morphology.

In addition to deranged waters, sublime views, and ice glaciers, the Tebay Valley is home to rock glaciers. These rivers of rock slowly advance inexorably downward in a process similar to ice glaciers. The plutonic rock that makes up this mountain is thoroughly jointed and weathers into small fragments. Ice fills the cracks and as it expands and contracts during freeze/thaw cycles continues to fragment the rock and lubricate its downward flow.

Janet and I advanced slowly onward in our little 100hp rig and before too long the young jagged peaks of the Chugach Range began to flatten out and allowed for views of the older and massive volcanoes of the Wrangell Mountains, where we were headed.

Another 45nm of flying brought us to McCarthy and its huge airstrip, by AK standards. Apologies for the exposure, this one was not my handiwork.

These flying machines really take you to some amazing places, I for one am mighty pleased to live in a time when a person can avail themselves of this technology.

The McCarthy strip, PAMX, sits at the terminus of the Kennecott Glacier which seems to funnel the wind into a semi permanent quartering crosswind.

Of course, it was Sunday on Labor Day weekend, so there were a fair number of other pilots around.

The colors on Porphyry Mountain were just popping!

We saddled up and ambled through the Wrangell Mtns and the visceral fall colors on up to the Park’s visitor center. As an aside, I should add that if you drive here it takes a full day and a bit of skookum. For that reason, the Park’s main HQ and visitor center are 60 miles away in a far less energetic landscape, kinda akin to Denali’s HQ versus Eielson.

The visitor center is in the midst of the historic Kennecott Mill Town.

The Mill Town is the mill site for five of the biggest and most productive copper lodes known to humans around the turn of the last century. In its heyday, Kennecott was a self- contained company town, complete with a hospital, general store, schoolhouse, baseball field, skating rink, tennis court, and recreation hall and dairy. It was owned and financed by the Guggenheims and JP Morgan. The mining company, originally called the Alaska Syndicate, became the Kennecott Copper Corporation in 1915. The thousands of workers who labored in the mines and the mill and who lived here treated more than 400 million tons of ore and produced around ½ a million tons of copper ore and 100 tons of silver for shipment to Seattle over the CRNW railroad that was laboriously constructed solely for access to this mother of all copper lodes.

By 1938, the mill town reached its zenith and since then the buildings, which took an almost unimaginable amount of energy, hubris, and money to construct, populate, and maintain, began to succumb to entropy's inevitable advance.

In 1980 the area became a National Park and World Heritage site. Over the years since then, NPS has been steadily shoring up failing structures and slowly rebuilding and preserving the town.

This is the Concentration Mill where tramlines totaling over 16,000 feet in length descended from mine sites 4,000 feet above the mill town. Ores were crushed and sorted and stamped here. NPS put a new roof on this building a few years back and is actively stabilizing the structure.

Everything is easier with power. The power plant was recently stabilized by NPS and is an amazing building.

I don’t know much about these things, it appears that 4 boilers powered the town…

…by spinning these generators.

Some of the industrial detritus has been collected and arranged by NPS; here in the center you can see one of the spent dynamos from the generators.

The copper lodes in Kennecott are mostly to be found along the line of contact between the dark Triassic Nikolai Greenstone and the lighter colored Chitistone and Nizina Limestones, here making up the upper half of Donoho Peak.

Here in the center of this picture, again where the greenstone and limestone meet, 4,000 feet above the mill town, lies the Jumbo mine, one of the 5 that fed the town and the mill.

Here at the base of the Concentration Mill you can garner a solid impression of just how un solid the old buildings are.

The 500 or so year round denizens of the mill town had a stunning panorama to gaze upon as they labored. The town sits on the rock covered terminus of the Kennecott Glacier which has its beginnings…

… high upon the slopes of Mt Blackburn. Blackburn is the eroded remnant of a massive shield volcano that was active 3.5-4.5 million years ago. There are a series of lava flows more than 3,000 feet thick that emanate from it. These days, it seems icy cool, perhaps due to its place as the tallest of the Wrangell volcanoes at 16,390 feet.

The mill town’s position just to one side of the constantly moving Kennecott Glacier makes for some interesting instability in regards to the town’s buildings foundations.

One of NPS’s more recent projects is this bridge crossing National Creek.

When the mill was running, workers had to either hike up 4,000 feet over a 4 mile long trail or ride one of the tramlines in a bucket from this concentration mill. Think 3 mile long, 4,000 foot drop zipline!

We left the mill town and headed into downtown McCarthy to meet Janet’s friend Cynthia who lives in McCarthy during the summers as the owner of Currant Ridge Cabins.

As a rookie photographer I was drawn to the display of local giclee prints on display.

All too soon it was time to leave the superlative setting, people, and weather behind, and we made our way back to the airport.

It didn’t take long to preflight and pack and before long…

…we were treated to a completely different view of the area.

I always get a kick out of the perspective shift flying brings with it. We zipped along the lower reaches of the Kennecott Glacier towards Donoho Peak.

Along the way we flew over the Kennecott mill town.

Donoho Peak, Root Glacier and Regal Mountain.

Turning back towards the mill town and Porphyry Mountain. Curious word isn't it? Apparently the term is from Greek for purple, and is now used for igneous rocks that have large crystals, which this mountain does.

Jumbo Creek, three of the mines feeding the mill are up around the talus fields of the rock glacier in this shot.

An aerial view of the Kennecott Glacier near its terminus.

Another view of the mill town and the Kennecott Glacier.

45nm into the return flight we crested back into the Chugach Range. Here we have the Hanagita River valley, beckoning for some more exploration.

Summit Lake in the Hanagita Valley also looked particularly interesting.

But we had limited fuel on board, and consequently limited time, so we shot back through the Tebay Valley, looking again at its rock glaciers and…

…its ice glaciers.

We soon crossed the Copper River again, leaving the Park behind. With the sun in our eyes, and also in the lenses of my camera, things were marginal as far as photography goes. But I include the following shots simply as a record of the sublime scenery that slid beneath our wings and fed our hearts and minds as we surfed homeward on that magnificent afternoon.

The Schwann Glacier.

The Woodworth and Marshall Glaciers.

And with that, we were home!

After experiencing a fair amount of Alaska over the years, I have to say that the country we sampled over the course of this day trip was some of the most superlative the state has to offer. Few places in the state combine such a fascinating mix of geology, volcanism, and human historical drama in such a tight package.

Perhaps the sublime weather and company over the last two days combined to color my view, but this Labor Day weekend was near ideal!

I Got My Wings Back for Labor Day Weekend!

2009-09-05T14:31:00.005-08:00

Labor Day Weekend this year brought hands down the prettiest and most sublime concurrence of weather and autumnal color I’ve seen in a while. Additionally, I got my wings back!

I got word from my mechanic on Friday afternoon that he had finished the annual inspection on 53J and I could pick the plane up at my leisure. 14 hours later I was on board a Dash 8 headed for PANC. I grabbed my plane, fueled it up, and launched into the air. After 2 weeks of ground pounding I was amped to be airborne again!

I set course for Portage Pass, but by the time I reached that geographic line between the windward and lee side of the Kenai Peninsula, I was high enough to flit about the mountains and pick my way through the peaks.

As always, it was a pleasure to cogitate on the myriad ways that the ice and rock interplay.

I also found it interesting to see ash fall from Mt Redoubt’s March eruptions still very much in evidence.

Directly across from Whittier, you can see the Billings Glacier exposing a granite pluton. Whenever I hike I always appreciate granite for its integrity as a foothold, and its aesthetics. Scattered about PWS, you’ll find numerous plutons of granite, formerly molten bubbles of igneous rock that have cooled ever so slowly underneath the Earth’s mantle.

The Billings Glacier, like many others, is carving away (maybe rasping is more apropos) the softer sedimentary Cretaceous turbidites that make up most all of the mountainsides you see here, revealing the harder grey granite pluton in the center that is unyielding to the pressure of even that much ice rasping across it. Think Yosemite thousands of years ago. It’s enjoyable to watch those processes in action, especially from the armchair of your airplane.

Parts of the Sound had some low level Advection Fog that was pretty much burnt off by the time I crossed in. This is Culross Passage.

Bad shot, but the pass pictured here is one I need to shoot, takes ya from Harriman Fiord into the Matsu valley. Another possible way out of PWS if the weather turns sour.

College Fiord. Popular place for the cruise ships, which are strangely absent today. Not many people come up here at this time of year, which is their loss, and a net gain for those of us who like it quiet.

Davis Lake and Cap Glacier; you can see very clearly how the valley was scooped out by Cap Glacier many years ago.

Jonah Bay and Unakwik Inlet. This is the place, the place where the biggest seismic temblor to roil through the North American continent during the 20th century was birthed. Interesting that such a beautiful spot can mask such dangerous energy. What lies beneath.

Looking back towards College Fiord from Jonah Bay, easy to see why the Fiord attracts so many people. Look at all those tidewater glaciers!

Speaking of tidewater glaciers, the Columbia is the granddaddy of them all, at least in PWS. While this shot hardly does it justice, I like the juxtaposition of color and texture between the ice and the granite of the Cedar Bay pluton.

A lot of ice coming off the glacier at this time of year; again, cruise ships oddly absent.

When aviating above this icy cold ocean water with icebergs ½ a mile across, my mind always turns to my engine and its ongoing maintenance. Wish I had the money for a twin.

The First Branch of the Columbia.

The East Branch of the Columbia. Close enough to home to glide back now.

Coming into Valdez on Saturday during (1) Labor Day weekend and (2) the peak of the Silver Salmon run. Look at all the activity!

For whatever reason, this year the best Silver fishing was in the boat harbor. There were stories of Silvers jumping onto the boat dock piers! (Silver’s jump a lot when spawning, some say it is to loosen eggs, some say it is to knock sea lice off, I dunno, maybe it’s just the energy of life’s climax.) Look at all the cars! This is a really busy weekend for this town.

After flying to Anchorage and back, it was nice to see the airport and home.
On the other hand, it was hardly noon on a sublime day and I had wings again…I didn’t stay grounded for long.

Before the Advent of Concrete and Combustion

2009-09-05T09:39:00.003-08:00

After the flight to and from Anchorage I landed and fueled up 53J, as well as myself, and then I launched back into the air for another flight.

My buddy Gary came along this time. Gary is an avid outdoorsman and partakes of some pretty extreme snowmachining during the winter. Gary also has a few hours worth of flight training under his belt and is at ease in a small plane. He wanted to scope out two of the passes through the Chugach into the Interior that he has run over.

The first pass we shot over was the 4,800 foot pass at the head of Valdez Glacier, which I call Klutina Pass. Gary told me the trip over the pass in a snowmachine, if conditions are ideal, can take 12 hours. We surmounted it in 20 minutes in my plane. This easy access to the Interior set my mind wandering back to the routes origins.

The route we were flying from Valdez to Klutina, before the advent of concrete and combustion, was the only route to the Sound from the Interior. The Ahtna people living in the Interior’s Copper river valley pioneered and used this route to trade with the Alutiiq people of Prince William Sound.

The trip from the Interior to the coast began at the head of Klutina Lake.

The Ahtna would launch bidarra into the river and follow its many braids upstream.

It is about a 10 mile upstream run to the foot of the pass. Along the way the route takes you through some exemplary valleys within the Chugach.

Once the high country was attained, the bidarras were stashed and the rest of the traverse took place on foot.

Even now, during Labor Day weekend, the snow and ice remains formidable at the apex of the pass.

Once a top the pass, the view down Valdez glacier into Valdez remains one of my favorites in the area. The trip to the ocean is a straight 10 mile downhill run down the glacier from here. (Imagine that on a snowmachine going 70 to 80 mph!) The Alutiiq people had a small village at the foot of the glacier where the Ahtna were charged a toll, paid in furs, for use of the pass.

During the summer of 1884 the US military dispatched a Lt. Abercrombie on a mission to find an access route into the Copper River Valley. After spending June through September in failed attempts to find a route via the Copper River, Abercrombie was told of the Klutina Pass route by natives from Nuchek. In September he set out to reconnoiter the route. Keeping in the spirit of explorations of the time, by all accounts but his own he never found the pass, but, like Dr. Cook who was exploring to the north, he claimed in his writings that he did, and included a fanciful map, posted above, and travelogue that would cause trouble for thousands of people a decade later.

In 1898 and 1899 thousands of people came north seeking easy gold. Around 3,000 to 6,000 landed in Port Valdez and armed with Abercrombie’s map, sought to access the fabled gold fields of the Interior using this route. On average, each prospector brought with them 2,000 pounds of gear that had to be hauled up this glacier one step at a time. It took an average of 5 to 6 weeks to achieve the apex of the pass. The glacier had to be climbed and descended around 7 times by each prospector in order to get all their gear to the summit. That's 70 miles of glacier walking!

The 10 mile long glacier surface is riddled with crevasses and rotten ice making the journey all the more treacherous. The ice flow naturally forms 7 level benches as it ascends up to the pass. During the summers of 1898 and 1899 each one of the benches supported tent camps that served as way stations. Additionally, with each bench being below an icefall, systems of ropes, pulleys, and windlasses were situated at each bench camp to assist in the ascent to the next level.

In the very top and center of this shot, you can see the final icefall which had to be surmounted in order to attain the pass.

Once a prospector reached the top of the route, Klutina Lake and the Copper River Valley beckoned in the distance. All that remained was to split the load into four or so 500lb loads and drag them by hand 2,500 feet down to the Klutina River. At that point most folks built rafts out of the White Spruce in the area and loaded their gear onto them. Unfortunately, an estimated 2/3’s of the rafts were wrecked in the rapids of the Klutina River below, spilling the supplies that had been backbreakingly carried up the pass. Those with the skookum to finally reach the Copper River, to their dismay, found little or no gold. As winter set into the Copper River, most all of the prospectors who came into the country that summer, reversed course and clambered over the pass once again and spent the winter shivering in Valdez.

These days, we can drive to the Copper River via another route in one hour and 45 minutes, but that’s a story for another day.

Having reconnoitered Klutina Pass, Gary and I climbed higher for a look-see at another pass that he snowmachines over.

We had to pop up to 8,500msl for a look at this pass. This is the top of the Columbia Glacier, probably the glacier I have the most photographs of in this blog. Here at altitude, the Columbia merges with the Tazlina Glacier, a glacier of equally stunning beauty and magnitude that flows into the Copper River Valley. This pass doesn’t have a name or much of a history, most likely because it is so darn high and so close to Klutina Pass that it was simply passed by in favor of an easier route. Gary and I named it Brontosaurus Pass after the peak to the left. At any rate, if conditions allow, one can snowmachine from Valdez, up Valdez Glacier, through this pass, and then down the 20 mile long Tazlina over to Sheep Mountain and Tahneta Pass. I’m game.

After a couple of hours in the air, Gary and I headed back to Valdez. We had to lose a fair bit of altitude so we used Shoup Glacier and the valley it lays in as a conduit to slide back down to sea level and into the Sound.

It’s always good to see the green again after a trip into the ice. This is Robe Lake, alongside which both Gary and I live.

All in all, Labor Day weekend was starting out pretty well. Janet and I spent the evening flight planning a trip in our nation’s largest national park for the following day.

Rapidly Maturing Colors

2009-09-03T13:32:00.001-08:00

September’s arrival brought a pretty sustained shot of rain, and things didn’t really start clearing out until the evening of the third. After dinner Janet and I hopped out for a quick walk up into this year’s rapidly maturing colors in the Chugach alpine.

We ambled for a time along a ridge line that afforded opportunities to see for miles, we all spent a fair bit of time looking out.

Plump, Juicy and Everywhere!

2009-08-30T15:57:00.003-08:00

It had been 10 days since I had taken our airplane into town for its annual. I tend to get jittery if I am grounded that long. Turns out, it was an ideal time to focus in closely on the ground.

Blueberry season was in full swing!

Janet and I loaded the dogs up and hit the slopes. (Janet in a freshly knitted sweater!)

We used the pipeline right of way to access some good berry picking turf. Boggles the mind to think of 20% of our nation’s domestic supply of crude coursing through a pipeline running a few feet under the ground, especially this alpine ground. If you felt the need to, I guess you could follow this route all the way up to the slope, providing Alyeska gave you permission.

The dogs were pretty amped to be mountaineering once again.

Every time I go up a mountainside with a dog it always amuses me to watch them run up ahead, and then back down again to make sure we are still coming. They must climb each ridge four times to our one.

I had scoped out a small ridge that lead to a hanging glacier and we followed it slowly upward through the morning light.

About halfway up, Miles decided to ascend via a stream rather than sticking to the ridge line with the rest of us; that dog is always in his own world, I reckon it is a Husky thing.

Murie, the Lab, on the other hand stayed closer to us the higher we got.

On high, the slate showed ample signs of being smoothed over by ice during bygone times.

There was also some mysterious funky green moss that the dogs, and my eyes, liked.

After a few hours of going up, we topped out and chilled out.

Murie worked the perimeter as we napped.

Miles kept an eye on things for us too.

After sitting a while. we soon started getting that "can we go?" look, from the Lab at least.

We made time for a family portrait before heading down, can never get those dogs to cooperate.

As we descended, the rocks proved to be visually stimulating. I went a little nuts with the camera. Maybe it was the coffee.

Sometimes just the sheer shape of rock formations provide visual satisfaction.

I also find compelling the fashion in which this metamorphosed slate cleaves apart so cleanly in such a linear fashion. (Gold in there…but that’s a story for another day.)

Late in the summer the color of the alpine vegetation is always so visceral.

We followed the river down that Miles had used on the way up.

It’s always such an affirmation of life to wake up and grab views like this just a few minutes from your doorstep in Alaska.

Again, the arrival of the early Fall colors and the sumptuous shapes of the Chugach conspired to make me take far too many photographs.

Afternoon arrived with some serious heat. Miles found some cool water.

We found a nice camp spot and filed it away for future use.

Back down low, it was time to pick blueberries.

Every year, obviously the berry crop is different. Some years they are small and tart, some years fecund, some seasons hard to find. This year they were perfect! Plump, juicy and everywhere! Once you get down and start eating them, you are quickly ensnared within the reproductive net of the plant and it pretty tough to get out.

The picking is pretty addictive.

Best part is eating them.

Turns out being grounded wasn't so bad after all.

Skimming into Anchorage

2009-08-20T14:42:00.004-08:00

The planet made another turn around the sun and once again I found it was time to fly 53J into Anchorage for its annual inspection. The 20th of August brought a brief period of ridging to south central and 24 hours of relatively benign weather. There was an AIRMET out for occasional moderate turbulence below 6000 feet, but in looking at the winds aloft I saw things calming down above that altitude, so I decided to make a run for it from on high.

As I expected, the climb out from Valdez was choppy, full of bounce as some like to say, but once I was over 7000 feet MSL things were flat calm. We had just had some pretty steady rain, and the water exposed the volcanic ash from this years eruption of Mt Redoubt on some of the glaciers.

With only 100 naturally aspirated horses under my control, I usually fly through passes, not over them, so it was quite enjoyable to look down on Portage Pass and the town of Whittier from 8500 feet.

There were some nice looking orographic clouds in the Chugach.

I was particularly appreciative of the late summer light on Turnagain Arm and the visual clarity. On the distant horizon here, you can see 115 nautical miles to the west. In my opinion, that clear air is one of Alaska’s great boon’s.

On the other hand, Alaska does have periods of intense atmospheric disturbance; this is Mt Redoubt, the source of a fair bit of atmospheric murkiness over the last few months.

I always enjoy skimming into Anchorage above the traffic and enjoying views of the Alaska Range a hundred miles to the north. The visual approaches that you are compelled to fly under part 93 bring you in at 1200 feet, so you can see some pretty small details down in the city below. It is also gratifying to navigate some congested airspace; things get a bit stale in flying in Class E and G most all of the time.

After leaving 53J in the hands of my mechanic over on Lake Hood, I hit the road back to Valdez. After flying to town in an hour, the 6 hour drive back was something I wasn’t really looking forward to, but once out of town and up on Tahneta Pass, the mature summer colors proved rewarding.

Sheep Mountain can be a particularly engrossing massif.

Nine hours after setting out, I crested over Thompson Pass and slid through Keystone Canyon to find a double rainbow over the Lowe River. After 400 miles, I was pretty tired, but what photographer could drive by this visual apparition?

All in all, a pretty fine daytrip!

Hoping For a Fish

2009-08-14T15:33:00.002-08:00

My buddy Steve and I went up to Chitna to dip net for Reds on the Copper River. We took off from Valdez round about 5.30 in the morning and ascended through dense clouds and rain enshrouding Thompson Pass. Once on the lee side of the mountains, things dried out a bit and by the time we made it to the Copper River things were looking pretty fair. The trail head was full of satisfied looking anglers and the beaches of the Copper were loaded with rotting Reds being picked over by all manner of birds and animals. After spending a few moments loading up the ATV, we hit the trail.

The trail alongside the Copper River follows the old Copper River and Northwestern Railroad. Near the turn of the last century, there were many tantalizing mineral prizes singing irresistible siren songs to myriad investors. In 1902 the Alaska Syndicate, owned by J.P. Morgan and the Guggenheim family, started construction of a railroad hoping to capitalize on the riches of the region. Eventually, they ended up buying the rights to this railroad, which had been constructed by Michael Heney, the man who had previously constructed the White Pass and Yukon route. Heney and his crews, in one of the epic railroading feats of all time, finished construction of the route in 1911. They laid track year round, in temperatures of 50 below with ripping winds, struggled with blasting through one of North America’s biggest mountain ranges, laying track on shifting gravel beds, and forging crossings of huge glacial streams that continually brushed their progress aside.

When finished, the railroad connected the fecund copper fields of Kennecott with the Port of Cordova. The railroad’s heyday was during World War 1 when it served to supply most all of the copper used in the Allies shell casings and various other war materials. Before the war, the federal government had withdrawn Alaskan coal fields from development thereby forcing the railroad to run its locomotives with coal shipped up from Outside at great cost. After the war, it was only a matter of time before economics caught up with the endeavor and in 1938 the last rail cars ran over the railroad.

The route up the Copper River retains a few monuments serving as reminders of the incredible feat of engineering carried out with aplomb and considerable skookum one hundred years ago.

I, for one, was glad to not have to brush whack 8 miles down the Copper to the canyon we were going to fish. The limit for Reds is 30 fish per household, and it isn’t often that a guy can’t land that many fish, so I was also thanking that bygone generation for helping me out with my goal of resource extraction. Cheers to them for opening this route for us!

We made our way to Wood Canyon on the Copper and descended the 75 feet or so down to the water and set about dip netting. As far as fishing techniques go, dip netting is pretty easy, and largely an act of faith. You cling to the cliff side with your net dangling in the opaque silty water and wait/hope for a Salmonid to swim into your net. You feel the fish hit, at which point you raise the net up and lock it in. Once the fish is landed, you bash its head in, and pop a gill in order to bleed it. Pretty simple stuff. When the salmon are running, you can land three in a single net and hit your limit of 30 fish in an hour.

Unfortunately for us, we had missed the last of the Red run by a few hours. Literally, and when the run is over, it’s over. We fished for 8 and half hours. I caught one Red. One. Frustrating.

Steve grew up in Valdez and has been fishing this spot since the 70’s. This was the single worst skunking he ever had. On the other hand, the guys who were in the same spot just 12 hours prior were going home with full coolers.

Sometimes this kind of thing goes down this way and it is what it is. Years from now, I’ll still remember that grey day spent on the Copper thinking about the labors of a bygone generation and hoping for a fish to leap into my net from the silty stream roiling by my feet.

Chances are I won’t have a clue what I watched on TV that night after returning home.

An Aerial Excursion and Appraisal of Valdez

2009-08-10T13:13:00.002-08:00

Janet headed off to Homer for a week leaving me with some solo time on my hands. Monday dawned warm and sunny, so I settled on flying Murie out to Tatitlek for a walk around his old hood.

We launched up into the sunshine and as soon as we crested over Jack’s Notch it became apparent that ~ big surprise ~ Tatitlek was pretty well socked in. This is a very common pattern in the Sound at this time of year. With temperature and dew point spreads of a half degree this advection fog forms with remarkable suddenness and sticks around tenaciously. Tatitlek is a darn hard place to get in and out of.

You can clearly see Copper Mtn., Ellemar Mtn., and Walker Pass, but the village is shrouded in the mist. I knew the sun was shining elsewhere, so I did a 180.

I hadn’t flown up the Shoup Glacier in a while, so I had a look see.

Check out that grinding action!

I found this view of Valdez novel, as well as the slumping action around this high lake.

It was pretty hot down low, so I figured I’d get up high above the freezing level, which was way up there at 8,000 feet. This is Thompson Pass from 8,000msl. No sign of fire smoke anywhere!

I used the altitude to reconnoiter this little pass…

…I think as a mountain pilot I’ll live a bit longer if I don’t blindly fly up these valleys without a high altitude survey first. This one is gonna be a fun surf and I now know there is a wide basin for a 180 up top.

From 8,000 feet the Chugach Range looks a bit different.

The top of the Worthington Glacier which is not visible from the Hwy.

I was going to fly straight over the spine of the range, but things got poppy in the atmosphere. Too poppy for me.

This is the Thompson Pass airstrip, AK55.

Marshall Pass beckoning towards the Copper River, perhaps next on my exploration agenda.

Murie and I turned back towards Valdez for a tour of it's neighborhoods from altitude.

Solomon Lake and its dams provide the town with a good percentage of its power. It’s probably powering my computer as I type this. The mountain to the left is Sugarloaf, one of the peaks emblematic of Valdez. From the air it is just a small lil ‘ol knob.

This is the central town of Valdez. The harbor, school, civic center, seat of government, stores, etc all have foundations in place here.

5 miles to the NE you’ll find the airport and two trailer parks where around 40% of the populous resides.

A mile east lies the Valdez Glacier Creek. This is the outflow from that fantastic river of ice called the Valdez Glacier you saw one post back in this blog. The silt in this river is the rock dust created by the motion of the glacial ice on the mountainsides. Like sawdust, sandpaper, and wood. This is the area of town that gets the full pummeling blows of cold air from that glacial funnel.

This is also notable as the first location of the town of Valdez. The town sat just on the edge of the sea here, but was wiped clean by the seismic events of 1964. Folk wisely relocated.

Another 5 miles to the east, 11 miles out of town, is the Robe River neighborhood, where we are currently renting.

Our place is in the center.

10 more miles to the east, 21 miles from town, lies the oddly named 10 mile subdivision. My guess is that it is 10 miles from the pipeline, where many folk work. Recently, folks have been calling it the Alpine Neighborhood. Either way, same place. This is a tempting place to buy land because it is quieter than being in close to town. We like quiet. But the proximity of the Lowe River and the inevitable flooding that just has to occur at some indeterminate point in the future leads me to question building a house here. From above, you can see a swath the river cut a few years back outside its normal channels.

I like this overview of the Port. The pipeline terminal is on the left. 20% of our nation's domestic oil spews forth from there.

I turned 53J to the north …

… and decided to head up the Valdez Glacier for a shot through the potential pass that had caught my eye during my last flight.

This sinuous bend in the glacier below Abercrombie Mtn. is one I am looking forward to working when the low winter light arrives.

Tonsina Glacier, series of two. I like ‘em both.

Heading into the potential Pass which I am arbitrarily calling Tonsina Pass, although Potential Pass has a more mellifluous ring to it.

Sure enough, the pass allows access to the Tsaina Glacier and valley. It was a great little flight, and I reckon there is a first time for most everything; I found myself with a full memory card, so no pics.

Grounded again, I used my recent aerial survey intelligence to bring the pack to this spot on the Lowe which would have taken me years to stumble across pre-airplane.

Rex Creek Tooth Fire

2009-08-06T12:54:00.002-08:00

I had to drive to Fairbanks to get a tooth crowned, exciting, I know.

I left Valdez in the clear sun and embarked upon the 10 hour drive north. By Copper Center the fire smoke from McCarthy was around. It was at that time that I received a flurry of cell phone calls from frantic folks describing a new fire that had erupted near our place and had caused an evacuation of our neighborhood up there.

Alaska is in the midst of the driest summer ever recorded in the Interior. Driest ever. There have been fires all summer, see my previous posts in June and July for some pics. Currently there are around 2.2 million acres burning, which is nowhere near the 6.6 million that burned during the summer of 2004, but we’ve got a ways to go and things are really ramping up. Fire service is stretched thin, they have every asset in state brought to bear, (including a 747 tanker!) and are trying to pull resources from Outside. That is proving tough as Fairbanks Intl airport has closed from the smoke for a few days. People are losing property pretty much every day now as these fires mature and our human infrastructure reaches its max fire fighting capabilities. We saw the same pattern in 2004…fire service can only do so much.

The calls I was getting concerned a new fire that had started over on Rex Dome On August 3rd, about 10 miles from our Windy Hills house. The second day it grew in size from 2,500 acres to 24,000 acres and made a 7 ½ mile run to the north in one hour! As of the third day it was at 68,000 acres and growing.

The western flank of the fire is 7 miles from our house; a distance that the fire has already demonstrated it can cover in an hour. Because it was moving so fast, Fire Service issued an evacuation order for the subdivision. Thankfully, it rained most of yesterday, so things are slowing, but the weather is forecast to get hot again. Problem is, this fire is 7 miles away to the east, and the ½ million acre Railbelt Fire has burned to within 14 miles to our west and northwest. At some point one of them is going to come close to the subdivision, if not through it.

As far as our place goes, Fire Service said they are going to defend all the structures that they can. If the fires move towards the subdivision they’ll force evacuation so I would be in the way of their efforts if I stayed to try to fight. Anyway, fighting a fire without running water at the cabin and with most of our belongings now in Valdez is kind of a stupid idea anyway, so we resolved to see how this one plays out from a smoke free vantage point in Valdez.

As I was already on my way up, Janet and I worked out a list of irreplaceable things to nab while I was up there. Photographs and the like.

It now turns out that Alaska Division of Forestry personnel investigated a suspicious looking burn pattern on the Rex Creek Fire. This investigation revealed that the Rex Creek Fire was not caused by lightning as previously thought nor was it a human caused fire.... it was determined that the Rex Creek Fire was caused by a burning underground coal seam. This fire could burn for decades...

The smoke got so thick that it was 30mph going on the Parks and the Troops put out a travel advisory. I resolved to drive back to Valdez after the dental work. Smoke that thick is death.

By the time I crested over the Alaska Range at Isabel Pass, the smoke was gone!

The fireweed was out!

The rest of the drive was low key, but as always, visually and geologically stimulating. That's Mt. Billy Mitchell above.

Los Glaciares de Valdeza

2009-08-03T11:53:00.003-08:00

The sunny weather held for another day in Prince William Sound. Temperatures reached levels that encouraged even our Husky, a breed not normally renowned for it’s swimming prowess or love of water, sought relief.

We took the dogs swimming in Robe Lake, in our backyard. The lake serves a myriad of roles in the local community, one of which is as a seaplane dock. This is a Zenith STOL 801 that Bill Wilcox built. If I remember correctly it took him 3 years. This plane is designed with one goal in mind, and that is slow speed control and short field capabilities. Last night as I talked with him he told me you can slow this airplane down to 28mph and still be flying! There is always a catch though. With the throttle fire-walled, you can only go around 80mph. I prefer speed, although the safety net of being able to land virtually anywhere you want to in a state like Alaska is certainly a strong argument for a plane of this kind.

I spent most of the sunny day washing my airplane and snugging it down into its new home in Valdez. A bit later in the day, Steve and I took a spin around for a few hours. He wanted to show me a pass or two.

This is the Valdez Glacier. During the last few years of flying to Valdez I had never flown it. I just never had the time, nor the fuel, and it really isn’t on the way to anything. Upon turning the corner I was astonished to see it’s total size.

Steve wanted to show me this pass, which doesn’t have a name. How about Klutina Pass, maybe that’ll stick. Klutina Pass requires a climb up the length of the Valdez Glacier to a height of 6,500 feet from sea level. At gross it took my little 150 about 25 minutes to haul all 1600lbs up this high. Once I had the altitude, I wasn’t about to loose it, so most everything was shot from up high from here on in.

Klutina Pass leads to Klutina Lake. This is a pretty popular valley with Alaskans. There is a road/trail of sorts to the lake from the Richardson that requires a lot of skookum to get to on foot, or if tramping ain't your thing, the appropriate kinda rig for access. It’s one of those places that Outsiders haven’t found…yet.

The light was better to the west, so we followed it up this unnamed valley, ringed with unnamed peaks, to view this little unnamed glacier.

Steve shot quite a few too. I don't think he puts anything online, but I'll pop a link up if I find he does.

Crossing the unnamed ridge into another unnamed valley. The unnamed lake in the center looks to me to be a great spot to hike to and to camp at.

This unnamed pass leads to the Greyling Creek valley. The walking looks fine here, especially with those precipitous peaks and nice lakes. I'd like to backpack here someday.

The head of Greyling Valley holds Greyling Lake. As I gazed upon this valley I had flashbacks to the Wind River Range’s Titcomb Basin. The access to this lake filled, mountain ringed valley would be tough on foot, but doable for an experienced backpacking group with enough skookum, tenacity and a level of comfort with discomfort. Any takers? I'd go.

We turned around and as we crossed back over Sharp Peak this ridge caught my eye. Notice the deep quartz veins that brought so many miners into the region. The receding glacier and it’s obvious mark on the valley is also of note.

Coming back up into Klutina Pass looking towards one of the taller massifs in the area, Mount Schrader.

Up above the Pass.

One of the arms of the Valdez Glacier coming down the side of Mt Schrader.

Looking down the Valdez Glacier from Klutina Pass. The river of ice points straight at our house and the approach end of runway 24. The winds that roil down this glacier are astonishing. Gusts easily make 100mph. The winds coming out of this valley smash car windows, house windows, and tear wings asunder from airplanes.

It is really fun to power back and surf them down to sea level from 7,000 feet. Who needs roller coasters?

Round about now the smoke from the Chitna fire started rolling in, you can see it on the horizon here.

Two views of another branch of the Valdez.

The north face of Abercrombie Mountain has a nice ice cap.

Not really the best shot here, but the perspective allows you to see just how deep the Tonsina glacier used to be and to admire its rock hewing prowess.

More quartz veins on Abercrombie.

The Tonsina Glacier itself, which opened a tempting view into a potential pass which called for further exploration during my next sojourn in the air.

Summer in Valdez. Nice.

2009-08-02T14:52:00.000-08:00

After flying the airplane back from the Windy Hills, a period of sublime sunshine materialized in Prince William Sound. Having just navigated 900 miles over land and in the air over the last 24 hours, Janet and I set out for a day of slow and rejuvenating hiking.

We chose to head out the Shoup Bay trail to Gold Creek. The trail itself is in astonishing condition and is a rarity in Alaska in that the city maintains it! The brush is cut, most all of the wet spots are corduroy-ed, and there are signs! All this in Alaska! Holy cow! I hear tell during the winter there are actually groomed XC ski trails! Wow, I could get to like this city living.

The trail itself is a cliff side NaPali Coast like kind of thing. You stay about 600 feet high in order to pass by some sea cliffs below. After keeping you high above the sea, the trail takes you down to sea level and the Gold Creek spit.

Still tired from our travels of the last 2 days, we were feeling lazy so we settled into positions of repose on this beach and cogitated upon the way we had come, among other things; that’s a section of the trail visible on the green mountainside to the left.

The dogs and I reveled in the Ocean's proximity once again.

It was a perfect afternoon for some napping action. I went a bit crazy with this series of shots, but the light was good, and so was my mood, so I flowed with it.

There were quite a few folks out enjoying the fine weather in the Sound in all manner of conveyances.

Miles kept an eye on them all, some of them might have food, or they might pee in his domain.

It soon became time to head back.

There was a fair bit of fresh bear scat, so I kept the dogs hitched to my waist, skijor style.

This makes me envious.

Things got so hot on the way back, we gave both pooches showers in a small stream.

Summer in Valdez. Nice.

Penetration of the Alaska and Chugach Ranges

2009-08-01T14:24:00.002-08:00

After Janet’s folks left, I wanted to get 53J down to Valdez asap. I was concerned about the plane getting grounded by the fire smoke up there, so the day after seeing Janet’s folks off, we made the 10 hour drive up to the Windy Hills and the following morning I launched 53J into the air. Not a moment too soon, as it turned out the Rex Creek Coal Seam Fire of 09 was already smoldering underground, planning to ensconce all unwary GA airplanes within it's TFR tentacles in a mere matter of hours. But that's another story...

I launched around 7 in the morning to weather in Windy Pass a bit more marginal than the surface obs had led me to believe, but the winds were pretty calm and I knew the weather down south was sunny, so I punched through the pass.

South of Cantwell, over the Denali Highway, I could see conditions improving, but I also ran into some carb ice. It seemed the air was moist, and my carb kept icing, so I kept the carb heat somewhat on, in that sweet spot for most all the way to Gulkana.

This is the only strip in between Cantwell and Gulkana. I stayed pretty low here; you can see I am only 1000agl. At this point I was in the Fox 3 MOA, which was hot, but has a floor of 5000agl.

Although this photo bites, I found the boundary between this lake and the river below of interest. If that oxbow keeps on cutting, it might eventually drain the lake.

Once you get south of the Alaska Range, the ground gets flat, marshy, and is pocked with lakes.

Murie and I landed in Gulkana, stretched out, ate lunch, and checked the weather. Just as we were leaving, Richard from Denali flew in in his C170. I hadn't seen him in around two years, so that was an energizing treat. After a brief chat, Murie and I launched into Thompson Pass.

In keeping with my in air shots of airstrips, here is the Tonsina strip. Yet another one I don’t want to mess with until I have more horsepower.

Looking up Stuart Creek, I’ll have to explore this pass over into the Tonsina Valley…

Thompson Pass was looking pretty good! This is always a relief, because it takes 45 minutes to fly to the pass and there are no reliable web cams or weather sources for a sneak preview. (If anyone from Alaska NOAA is reading, please help out! If you personally fly the pass, please leave a PIREP!) The pass itself is pretty much the meeting place between the moist maritime air to the south and the dry continental air to the north. Not only does this make it generally a windy and turbulent spot, but it is more often than not cloudy and impenetrable. You can only find out if the pass is closed by flying to it, and if it is closed, you do a 180 and fly back to Gulkana. Hope the tanks were filled in PAGK.

The Worthington glacier sits atop Thompson Pass and is a great spot for hiking.

On this flight you can see it was easy to punch through the ample hole up at Keystone Canyon.

Once under the deck, you could see all the way out to the Pacific Ocean.

Robe Lake and the seaplane base. We are living just to the south of the lake in the Spruce forest. It is good to have wings in the Sound again, the scenery here is just excellent and most all of it accessible by airplane only.

Gold in Them Thar Hills!

2009-07-25T22:16:00.000-08:00

One of the things Darrell and Mary Lou expressed the most interest in doing during their visit was gold panning. Of course, we could have set them up with a tourist oriented outfit, but instead we made plans to head out with my friend Steve who has a gold claim in Valdez and is a fellow pilot.

We took a few minutes to pack up our gear and fired up the ATV’s.

We ran the ATV’s up an old mining road that had been washed out in a few spots a few years back.

After an hour or so on the ATV’s it came time to stash them and head down a trail for a mile or so.

We walked along the creek for a time.

The brush in PWS midsummer is always energetic, but so were we.

As the brush got thicker, our minds began to wander back into speculations of what it was like, and what it must have taken to negotiate you way through this terrain a hundred or so years ago.

The midsummer brush in PWS also has fecund berries to pick and eat. Mary Lou is picking blueberries here, the Salmonberries were also sweet.

After a week and a half up here, they are starting to look at home, just a few more mud stains on those new Carharts.

The closer we got to the head of the valley, the closer we got to a small hanging glacier.

Being an avid gold mining hobbyist, Steve was really excited to show us around some of the historic spots along the way.

This is all that remains of the Smith two-stamp mill that was built in 1913. Every piece of this was carried up to this spot (no ATV rides!) The mill processed ore from the Eldorado Mine about 2,500 feet above the mill. The ore was lowered to this mill via a cable tram.

When the ore arrived at the mill, the creek water was used to turn the dual stamps of the mill.

You can see how the water powered flywheel turned these two cams which in turn…

…actuated the stamps.

Steve is a really knowledgeable guy to have around in order to explain how the whole mill worked and the history of the area.

In all, back in 1914 this mill processed 120 tons of ore.

But since 1914, the mill has not been used and the PWS brush and climate is steadily taking over.

After looking over the handiwork of a previous generation, it was time to try our own luck in this creek.

Steve had a few goodies stashed on the other side of the river that he needed to get. I’m guessing Darrell doesn’t see this sort of thing much in Alabama. Steve also has a dive outfit that he uses in this creek. Imagine diving into that water!

Then it was time to pan. Steve gave us all a quick rundown on how to do it. I found it to be like most everything in life. You watch a guy like Steve, who has been doing it since he was a kid and his grandfather showed him the ropes, and think - that looks easy. Then you give it a go and see that it is not so.

Of course, Steve was the first to find some color.

After a while we packed up and packed out.

The walk back to the ATV’s was downhill and easy.

Steve was running an Argo, which handled the stream crossings pretty well.

Mary Lou and I ended up making the Argo boys wait for us. We had found two Bears and spent a few moments watching them.

Back at Steve’s house, he showed us two of the nuggets he has pulled from his claim.

All in all, I was pretty pleased with our quest for color. You spend a great deal of time in the bush thinking about rocks…right up my alley!

Thanks again Steve for your generosity!

The Reeds Venture North

2009-07-20T21:36:00.000-08:00

Janet’s parents came from Alabama to visit for the last two weeks of July. This was there first time at the Windy Hills cabin, and they caught some fine weather.

The second day they were here; they headed out into the Park and caught a full view of Denali and myriad critters.

Janet and Mary Lou are both avid foodies, so we spent a lot of time sharing that passion.

This is one of my favorite summer eats, grilled pizza. After making the dough the night before, you assemble your pie and then…

…onto the grill it goes. With a grill, you can more closely approximate the high temps that pizzaiolos can achieve. You can also garner that charred dough flavor. Yum!

As always in the Windy Hills, there was ample time to sit if'n you wanted to. I was impressed with how well Murie got on with Darrell.

Neither Darrell nor Mary Lou wanted to fly, but I still had to burn around a bit. Hard to stay grounded.

We spent a day in Fairbanks checking out relics from a bygone era. I wish I had had this lil dozer while clearing my land!

While Darrell and Mary Lou enjoyed a fine afternoon on the Chena River on an old riverboat, Janet and I readied for the impending move.

Here we go again, after doing this just 2 months ago, we ramped up for the move to Valdez. As often as we move maybe we need to move into a boat or something more mobile.

In the end it didn’t take too long at all to load things up.

The drive to Valdez from the Windy Hills takes 9 hours, 10 in a U haul, and follows the pipeline for much of the way.

As usual, Murie kept a steady eye on the road for me.

After a few months in the arid Interior, it was good to be back in Prince William Sound.

We caught the tail end of the Pink Salmon run.

Darrell was looking for just the right spot to wet a line.

We took them up to the Worthington Glacier, but the weather was a bit Maritime in nature.

All good things must come to an end, and after two weeks in Alaska, Darrell and Mary Lou hopped onto ERA’s Dash 8 for the ride to PANC and then back to Alabama.

The Cusp of the Smoke Plume

2009-07-17T11:55:00.004-08:00

Mid July in the Interior is always tough. Things get hot. This year things got really hot. We actually saw 90’s during the first two weeks. Many Alaskans are averse to heat, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. Additionally it didn’t rain. July turned out to be the driest July ever recorded in the Interior, ever.

We did what we could to stay cool.

That weather did make for a spate of quite flyable days. I explored the Tanana Valley and the Foothills. This foothill is Rex Dome, and this is ground zero for the underground coal seam fire that was to start in just a few weeks.

Deep in the foothills, looking toward Homestake Creek.

Jumbo Dome and Ptarmigan Lake.

I didn’t have the chutzpah to try the Totatlanika runway with only 100hp. I’ll need a more powerful steed before I tackle runways like this one.

My plane prefers this kind of strip. This is final for 01R at Fairbanks International. Check out the shooting range in the lower right hand. It seems a poor juxtaposition in my mind, but more strips in Alaska have shooting ranges at the ends of the runways than don’t. Go figure.

I really like flying into PAFA because this is the airport where I did my primary training. I guess it is akin to the fond reminisces that fill your mind when you visit the neighborhood you were a child in but have long since abandoned.

I can spend hours tramping around the ramp checking out rigs…look at that sweet 150!

On this particular flight back from PAFA, the Railbelt fire was ramping up. This section, you’ll recall from a previous post, is the original fire that started on solstice. You can see the town of Nenana in the foreground.

Farther south, the southern flank was racing towards the Teklanika…

…and seemingly the Parks Highway. In this shot, you can see the fire is 6 nautical miles from the road! (As I write this one month later, it seems amazing to me that Fire Service has so far been able to hold the line here!)

After landing, the smoke cloud from the fire continued climbing. The Clear airport is 10NM from the fire. Because of the fire’s proximity, for most of July PACL was used as a Helibase. I spent a fair bit of time talking with the fire pilots. A bit later on, as the fire grew into the millions of acres, fire service brought in the only 747 aerial fire tanker in the world. Now that would be some fun flying!

The warm July weather continued and I flew down to Denali for dinner and a sunset flight in the mountains.

This is the Denali National Park strip.

The Park has a nice 3000 foot airstrip, one of the nicest I’ve seen in the state. They provide transients with full tie down rigging and excellent access to the Park. Just need some fuel sales…

After dinner I zipped up into the Sanctuary River Valley. I was looking to see if I could find an easy pass over the range other than Windy or Anderson. There was a bit of a wave setting up, as I approached the spine of the range winds picked up to 30knts from the south and I started getting into some smooth 1000fpm updrafts and downdrafts. I changed my plans and surfed in the waves for a bit instead under the mute gaze of Fang Mountain.

On the way back to Clear I reveled in the tailwind and the GS it gave me. Those of you who are 150 drivers understand.

Unfortunately, the farther north I went, the hazier it became from the fire smoke. No sunset shots for me.

As I crested the foothills and looked to the North, I realized I had a lesson to learn about fires. All is well if the wind blows the right way. But don’t count on it staying that way. During dinner, the wind had started blowing smoke into the vicinity of the airport. This view of PACL was from 4NM out, for a bit I thought I’d have to turn around and fly back to the Park.

It is very common with these fires for the smoke to be thick in one spot and nonexistent in another. You can clearly see that here. The airport was right in the cusp of the smoke plume and there was a healthy sheer layer there, a place where the hot air of the smoke was roiling around with the cool clear evening air. That, and the reduced visibility made for an interesting landing. Full flaps, full slip.

Life was Sublime

2009-07-11T16:20:00.003-08:00

The smoke cleared out for three glorious days this weekend. Seriously, the temps hovered in the high 80’s and low 90's and the winds blew the fire smoke away. The mozzies are mostly dead. Life was sublime.

I scurried off to the airport, only to find the wax job I had done to my airplane had been sullied by the vile fires. It didn’t affect the plane’s aerodynamics though. No water out there to spray it off with, nor is any rain in the forecast, so it goes.

I flew down to Healy.

While in Healy I had a chat with a former coworker of mine who has gone on to open a Denali glacier landing business using this turbine Beaver.

The Beaver is turbine powered, making it extremely powerful, fast, and eminently reliable. It also has hydraulic wheel skis so that you can land up on the Ruth Glacier, 8,000 feet below Denali! Flying this machine around the area is exactly the kind of gig I’m hoping to get into…in time…in time.

Back in the air again, I whipped out the Yanert Valley over to Pyramid Mountain.

I’d always wanted a closer look at this singular massif.

I was also aiming to get a closer look at Nenana Mountain, but the Air Force MOA here turned out to be hot, so I found no joy. Next time.

I didn’t use a pass to cross the Alaska Range in order to get back into the Interior, rather, this time I just climbed over.

When you get up high, you see features in the larger scheme that mimic smaller features in the world. These big peaks look like small waves. Pattern repetition; is that one of the hallmarks of chaos theory?

I’ve been to the top of this mountain, Sugarloaf, on foot myriad times.

As you move north along the Alaska Range, the mountains transition in composition to Birch Creek schist.

Schist is rock that has been twisted, folded, kneaded, and then baked at high temps and metamorphosed, making for cool striations and intricate details. It is also incredibly old.

The Healy River Valley, beckoning for more exploration; series of three.

The following day, Janet and I took our kayak out for a foray under the peaks of the Outer Range.

Strange occurrence this morning. I woke up and went outside to the outhouse. A snowshoe hare was screaming and kicking about three feet from the outhouse while in the clutches of a Lynx. The Lynx saw me and bolted. The hare took a spasmodic minute or so to die. The lynx never came back for it. I should have eaten the freshly killed bunny, but instead just moved it about 1/2 mile away.

Now the smoke is back…so time at the computer out of the smoke is more alluring. I hope this weather breaks soon.

Torpid Heat, Smoke, and Fire

2009-07-03T16:12:00.002-08:00

While in Fairbanks I got some silicone baffling to replace the stuff that was degrading from the torpid heat that has been gripping the Interior.

The O200 up front hearkens from a time, or maybe it’s a design philosophy, of simplicity. No liquid cooling, just air flow, increased by the baffling.

Things should run a lot cooler up front now.

After a week’s worth of sun and temperatures in the high 80’s, the inevitable happened. The fires started and the smoke rolled in all at once. It was pretty impressive to see it come. It reduced visibilities to below 1 statute mile for 3 straight days. You couldn’t breath. Fairbanks set a temperature record of 91 degrees. It was like 2004 again.

Janet and I ran the truck down to Valdez so she could do a little bit of work and we could find a rental for the upcoming year. We also reasoned that if we drove 10 hours south, we’d escape the heat and smoke. We were wrong. The smoke went as far south as Juneau! We stopped halfway there for some time in this fine campground enjoying Loons and Beer.

Just outside of Valdez, we took the dogs up to the Worthington Glacier in order to escape the heat. Temperatures next to the ice field were easily 20 to 30 degrees cooler. Miles liked that.

The smoke continued to thicken and the temps continued to climb. We drove back north and hunkered down into the cabin in an effort to escape.

Alaska Range Volcanics

2009-07-01T15:43:00.003-08:00

This summer is turning out to be an exceptionally hot and dry one. Which, for the moment at least, is making for some excellent flying! Usually hot and dry in Alaska means fire. I expect the fires I saw two weeks ago were a bit of a harbinger…

Meanwhile, the skies were clear for a flight into the Alaska Range.

I punched through The Bowl into the Sanctuary River valley…

...and cruised past the flanks of Double Mountain. I’ve always liked double because of its dual nature. Not just the obvious twin summits, but the two types of rock that make it up. Compare the conglomerates on its base with the volcanic up top.

The Teklanika, a great place to tramp.

Contrast the volcanic summit of Cathedral with the granite pluton of Denali in the distance.

As you cross Round Top, you get a nice view up towards the headwaters of the East Fork.

It’s a nice looking valley.

Things were reflecting well in my freshly waxed airplane.

The main spine of the Alaska Range is a fecund spot for critters, and these talus slopes record their movements quite well.

It always amazes me to see just how much rock mountain streams can move.

I’ve been living and working in this area for over a decade and I’ve never been able to fathom out whether this valley has a name or not. It sure looks like a worthy candidate for some tramping.

Polychrome Glacier is one of the more famous views in the Alaska Range.

Most folks see it from the rest stop along the road in the upper right hand of this shot.

Calico Ridge, with Denali peeking out in the distance.

Another draw I’d like to tramp through one of these days.

I popped around Calico for a look around the Toklat drainage.

One of the things I love about the Alaska Range is the patina of colors that comprise its slopes, none of the more monolithic coloring you see in ranges like the Chugach.

I’ve wanted to get up here for a good while; this is the headwaters of the East Fork of the Toklat with an unnamed glacier and an unnamed big bad basalt mountain on the right.

I then popped over a ridge for a look around the West Fork of the Toklat. I should have flown further...

...but I was starting to run low on fuel, so I made my way back to the east, but first took a look at the Toklat work camp. After living out there a few years, I still have an affinity for the area, and the folks who I worked with out there.

If I wasn’t flying, I’d be down on the ground putting a new culvert in with these guys. See 'em way down ther eon the road?

Lets have a closer look.

This nice Tor like outcrop caught my eye.

Another famous Alaska Range valley, the Savage.

I put down at the McKinley Park strip for a stretch. Weird winds here.

I hadn’t yet fully sated my flying desires, so I launched up to Fairbanks for some fuel and parts.

North of the range the ground gets marshy from all the permafrost. I like checking out all the old drainage's.

Shooting Gunsight Pass in Our 150

2009-06-26T11:13:00.003-08:00

Janet and I took an extraordinary flight to Denali in our C150 yesterday. We launched pretty early in the day in order to grab some nice light.

About 30 minutes from takeoff, we crossed into the Park right around the East Fork River. It took a bit of time to get here, because we were working the little 100hp O200A on our 150 pretty hard. We took off at full gross and had to climb up to at least 7,000 feet to fly the route I wanted to. Above 5,000 feet my little 150 can only muster about a 200 foot per minute climb, so it took a long time to reach altitude. I guess I got spoiled down in KS when I was flying machines that would have made this climb in 15 minutes and still have had the reserve power to climb higher. At least we are flying though.

As we leveled off at 8,000 feet, the mountain began to loom larger on the horizon and individual features became more defined.

The view up the Toklat River from 8,000 feet was spectacular.

Now that we were level and doing 90 knots the mountain really began popping.

This is the Toklat again. I was really eager to make this flight because the entire state of Alaska has been under the grip of some record setting cold weather. Here it is, the last week of June, and the first week of summer, and we were running our cabin’s heater! The cold air brought with it a slug of moisture, which did two wonderful things for a photographer. First, it cleared the air of smoke, haze, and the other particulate stuff that robs of resolution, and second, it laid down a thick belt of fresh snow on the mountains, down to about 3,000 feet, that made for a fantastic juxtaposition with the verdant summer greens.

See what I mean? I knew the colors were gonna pop this morning. This is the Stony Creek Valley.

Although this is a pretty bad photo, I thought this little lake looked like it would be a pretty nice place to tramp to.

Back to the centerpiece of the Park and the flight, Denali.

Most folks approach the mountain via the Park Road. This, from over the terminus of the Muldrow Glacier, was the only view we had of the road corridor during this leg of the flight. But from here, you can see about 40 miles worth of the road, including the Eielson Visitor center.

But we were headed were no roads go. Because we were only 8,000 feet up, we were limited in our routing, so we followed the Muldrow Glacier up to the mountain.

The Muldrow can be accessed via two passes if you are coming at it on foot, this one is Oastler Pass.

The Brooks Glacier and Mount Brooks.

Up around McGonagall Pass, the Traleika and the Muldrow come together around Mount Tatum, and I can’t decide which of these three images I like the best, so here are all three, you can choose your own path, just as the glaciers do.

The first few ascents of Denali were made using this route up the Muldrow.

Just past the Great Icefall, to the right of the shaded ridge coming off Mount Carpe, the Muldrow comes to an end. It is at that spot where some climbers ascend up a ridge and follow it to the summit, which is not the immediate peak you see here, but the one farther back in this image.

Right around Gunsight Mountain, the Muldrow really starts to climb fast…faster than 200 feet per minute, which was all our little 150 could muster. Denali itself rears up to 20,320 feet, so at this point we were not even halfway up! So we ditched out through the notch to the right in this shot, Gunsight Pass.

Gunsight Pass takes you into the Valley of Peters Glacier.

Nearing the terminus of Peters Glacier, you can see a mixture of the 60 million year old granites and Cretaceous sedimentary rocks that make up the Denali massif, and the younger volcanic rocks from the foothills that have been scoured and stirred up by the action of the ice river that is the Peters Glacier over the last few thousand years.

This one is for you Peter! Peters Dome, 10,600 feet.

The north face of the mountain rises forth in the Wickersham Wall, a superlative 10,000 foot cliff.

The view along the range looking southwestward; round about here I was wishing my airplane (and myself) had more fuel and more endurance. But it doesn’t, so we had to land.

The only airstrip around is 5Z5, a 1,800 foot strip in the Kantishna area. For you pilots out there, the runway has an appreciable upslope to it and landing from west to east is the way to land uphill. The up sloping caught me unawares during my flare. Heads up.

53J sitting next to a Husky, which would be a sweet ride to have.

Janet and I spent an hour or so eating lunch out at Kantishna, which seems to be enjoying a relatively bug free summer. Maybe it was just our timing though, or perhaps the cold weather stunned ‘em, because this area of the state usually has hands down the most pernicious bugs I’ve encountered.

53J and Greg’s Champ. The Champ would be a fun machine to fly, no flaps, some where’s around 85hp. About as basic as it gets, so it would be a really fun stick and rudder rig.

Departing Kantishna, we overflew Wonder Lake, a very popular destination and an exemplary lake.

I worked out in the Park for a decade and could only get to so many places on foot, so on the way back we flew through one of the valleys I had wanted to see for quite a while, and this is the Stony Creek valley.

We followed Sheldon Creek to Bear Draw to get into the Toklat drainage.

This is the Toklat work camp, where I spent a number of years working.

And tramping. A chap can wander for hours on this river bed.

As you ramble down the Toklat, you can gaze at peaks in the Wyoming Hills.

North of the Hills, the country gets flat fast. And cold, flying over this stuff you can see ample evidence of permafrost.

I’ll leave you with this image of THE BUS.

This is the “Into the Wild” bus. You can see that since the book and movie’s release the trail to it has become more of a road.

Keep it high!

Back in the Air for Solstice!

2009-06-23T11:31:00.002-08:00

Janet and I have been very busy over the last week. We drove down to Anchorage last week in order to pick up our airplane and to start my job hunt in earnest.

We stopped at the Summit airstrip on the way back in order to reconnoiter its condition. It is the closest strip to the southern entrance to Windy Pass and I wanted to make sure it was a valid out for me in case I needed to ditch on the way back.

We spent a night camping out at Ekluntna Lake and then an entire day in Anchorage seeking out chief pilots, chatting with them and handing out resumes. In all, I applied with 6 companies in Anchorage. Seems to be that, like it is Outside, times are tight. Plenty of furloughed jet drivers to compete with, and word is that Alaska is in the process of furloughing another 80 of its pilots later this month. Even though I now have all my legal certifications and ducks in a row, realistically, it looks like I’ll be needing to build time for another 2 years before I’ll be piloting professionally. I'm going to keep throwing pitches though...

After pressing the flesh, I picked 53J up at Lake Hood and made the 5 minute cross town flight to Merrill Field. We tied down at the transient campground on field and spent the next two days waiting for Windy Pass to open up. Drinking beer on Merrill Field watching airplanes = good times.

Pretty nice to live on the airport. There was plenty of time to check out airplanes. I couldn’t tell you what this Soviet era looking thing is, but it sure has character and probably plenty of stories to tell.

After waiting two days at PAMR, we woke up early on Thursday to find the Pass was open. I was in the air by 6:15am. The leg from ANC to Talkeetna is flat and uneventful. Some of the residents around Talkeetna are a fun lot, they must be to get it into their head's to carve a sign like that in a field.

As soon as you fly north of Talkeetna, the Alaska Range rears up. This is the Ruth Glacier and the Chulitna River.

Tokosha Mountain.

Byers Lake is one of our favorite campgrounds, you can see it on the far side of the lake. This is the lake where we launched our home built tandem kayak several summers ago. Good times on a good lake.

Terminus of the Eldridge Glacier in Denali National Park.

Windy Pass is a short venturi of a pass. It is one of the few places one can penetrate the Alaska Range which, in addition to being a very large range, serves to separate the air mass in the Interior from the maritime air in South Central. The weather is never the same on either side of the range and the pass serves as a funnel between the two tightening the wind gradient and accelerating it. The wind is always blowing, today was no different. Good time to tighten the seat belts down...

True to form, approaching the northern side of the pass, you could see the weather in the Interior wasn’t quite as nice as it was down south.

This is the main visitor/welcome center to Denali National Park. I’ve spent countless hours tramping around this 10 square miles of land on foot, now I’m looking forward to spending hours shooting touch n goes here.

For the remainder of the flight north of the park and the pass things were showery, but visibility never dropped below VFR minimums. Did pick up carb ice for the fourth time in my flying career. Total flight time from Anchorage was 2hours 40 minutes, contrasted with a 6 hour car drive!

Things cleared up soon enough and I made a few low level passes over our Windy Hills cabin…

…and the whole 10 acre compound. I’d really like to put in an airstrip here, but that is probably extremely wishful thinking. Maybe we need a helicopter…

I made a few flights to Fairbanks in order to apply for flying work. I applied with 4 outfits there. Still no luck.

In between our house and town lies the Tanana Valley. Wet marshy low lying country. I got a kick out of looking at the patterns of river flowage. One can see old stream channels and current flow channels.

I just barely scraped through on the first return flight. For the last few days a low pressure trough has hovered over the valley, bringing thunderstorms with regularity.

This one built up in a hurry. I flew through a brief bit of hail.

But my timing was just right, after punching through, I did a 180 and saw things were brewing up right quick.

This is Clear, the strip I’ll be based at for the next month. The Air Force restricted early warning radar site is to the right. I’ve probably said too much already.

We’ve been enjoying a very flowery spring up in the Interior. Not sure what kind of orchids these are, but they caught my eye. Bigger than Calypso's.

Seems we had a VERY large visitor sometime over the last day or so. Found these tracks about ½ mile from our house. I’ve seen a lot of Grizz in the Interior, and very few are this big north of the range. This is one of the reasons I never tire of life up here. Big bruins abound.

Yesterday Janet and I made the run into town for a Thai lunch. We saw a fire start up in the Minto area.

It always impresses me to see how quickly forest fires kick up.

I’ll leave you with a view looking south up the Nenana River towards Windy Pass.

Cheers!

Leaving Tatitlek

2009-06-13T10:58:00.002-08:00

The weather in Tatitlek for our final week there was sweet. Clear blue skies abounded. Haven't seen the weather this nice in the Sound for a year or so.

And I was grounded. My airplane’s engine, with only 123 hours on it was making metal. This is the metal that it made over the last 23 hours. I paced the cage, and packed, waiting for the weekend. I didn’t want to fly the airplane too much before having my mechanic take a look inside the engine. Concurrently, 53J was my way out of the Bush and I had to time my flight into town with the picking up of a U Haul for the impending move.

As an aside, David has now looked at the engine and feels that the metal came off of the starter tooth. He found no other untoward items. So, he thinks it is fine to fly it for another oil change cycle and we’ll have another look then.

The weather opened up enough for a flight to Valdez with my buddy Ricky. We drove Skin’s truck over to Anchorage, where I picked up Janet and I’s Soob which I then drove back to Valdez…600 miles in 2 days.

I left the Soob in Valdez and hopped in my plane for a flight to the mechanic over at Lake Hood. Because I wasn’t sure what was up inside the engine, I flew through Thompson and Tahneta passes in order to keep the road under me at all times.

After all that flying Outside, I can't adequately describe the joy I felt to be back in the Alaskan air!

All of the remaining snow on Thompson Pass had a strikingly obvious layer of ash from one of Mt Redoubt’s recent eruptions.

Because I wasn’t sure about my engine, I climbed up to 7,500 feet and could see for about 150nm miles.

For once, the pass was smooth. Normally right about here you start to get air from the Copper River Drainage spilling over the ridge to the right and things get jiggy, but not today.

Here is the Tonsina River flowing into the Copper River Valley .

Mounts Sanford, a 16 thousand footer, and Mt Wrangell. Both are volcanoes, with Wrangell being one of the world’s largest with a total volume of 220 cubic miles. (For comparison, Shasta, in the Cascades has a volume of 85 cubic miles.) Look at the size of the crater on Wrangell to the right! Estimates place the eruption responsible for that caldera at about 2,000 years ago. Wrangell is still actively heating up and is now releasing about 10 megawatts of energy a year, enough to power a town of 10,000 folks.

Turning to the west, I flew over Tazlina Lake and Tazlina Glacier.

This is Tahneta Pass and the Glenn Highway, one of the state’s nicer drives. The airstrip, Sheep Mtn, is the strip where we are hoping to have an Alaska Cessna 150 owners fly in this July.

Sheep Mountain.

Once through the pass, you fly over the Matanuska Glacier.

Even though the light was flat, I thought it was still worthy of multiple shots.

Here at the terminus, lies a pretty nice campground and a school where it might be hard to concentrate on learning with that backdrop.

Tahneta Pass skirts between the Chugach Range to the south and the Talkeetna Mountains to the North. Janet and I have lived in the Chugach for the last few years, so it was nice to see some new mountains. This is Anthracite Ridge in the Talkeetnas.

This is King Mountain and the Matanuska River in Chickaloon Pass. The river carves through the Castle Mountain Fault, which marks the dividing point between the highly mineralized and coal laden Talkeetna mountains to the right and the younger Chugach terrain to the left.

The Chickaloon River Valley; looks worthy of further exploration, some have likened this valley to Yosemite before we westerners arrived.

Coming out of the pass, you pop into Palmer. Back in the 1935, the federal government transplanted several hundred farmers from the Midwest into this valley and called it the Matanuska Valley Colony. You can see the farms which to this day remain the most productive in the state.

Wasilla. Note that Russia, over 600 miles from this spot, is not visible from here.
I landed in Anchorage and hopped on a Dash 8 for a ride back to Valdez. 600 more miles, making for 1200 in two days. I could have went to Russia and back.

The next morning in Valdez dawned clear and I drove to the airport to pick up the U Haul. I got a bit distracted by airplanes though. This Twin Comanche is the kind of plane I flew for my Multi Engine training Outside.

It would be really nice to be able to scoot around the state in this airplane at 200mph.

On the other hand, this may be a better machine for AK. This homebuilt will scoot you along at 160mph, but will also allow for landing on beaches, gravel bars, and mountain sides, something the Comanche could never do. Catch is you have to build one of these…

I pried myself away from the airport and drove the U Haul onto the Ferry. There was pretty nice weather on the Sound for a 3 hour ferry ride.
Arriving in Tatitlek, Janet and I had 5 hours to pack the U Haul and clean the house. It was a high energy, high stress kind of deal. But in the end we pulled it off and boarded the Ferry that evening for the ride back into Valdez.

It felt good to be done with the loading.

It also felt good to bid Tatitlek adios and make our way back onto the road system.

In Valdez we rented a storage unit and left ½ of our belongings to await our return this August. The following morning we made the 10 hour drive to the Windy Hills and spent a day unloading our stuff into the cabin. Of course, we had to return the U Haul to Fairbanks the following day. That added 650 miles to our total distance, making for 1850 miles in 4 days.

We spent the following day trying to unpack all our boxes. Because we have not lived in the cabin for two years, I was astonished at how many things were simply not working. Take the water system for example. The water pump had rusted internally, requiring me to disassemble it and troubleshoot. In addition to the water pump, every water mixer in the system (the tap in your shower or on your sink) had ceased to work after 2 years of non use and freeze thaw cycles. I was particularly disappointed to find our Kohler sink faucet had failed the test. Use it or lose it. What really amazed me was that you can’t buy rebuild parts for much of this stuff. What a throwaway culture we have become.

It also took me two days to get the satellite dishes working. I poured new concrete footers for both dishes and sunk poles so that they will be easier to move from place to place in the future. I established a new personal best when it took me 30 seconds to lock onto the Dish Network 119 west bird. It took me three days to hit it in Tatitlek!

But, we also had a date with some friend’s in Girdwood to see them off as they headed south on the AlCan towards their new life. So it was back into the car for the 700 mile roundtrip drive to Girdwood.

That journey also brought an end to our driving for a time, 2550 miles in 7 days!
Over the course of all those miles, it really sunk in just how truly astonishing country that lies in Alaska is, with some equally astonishing people.

I can’t adequately put into words how good it was to be back after all that time Outside.

On our way back from Girdwood we picked up a 2003 Cache Camper for the back of Buck, our big truck.

It is a pretty simple unit with a minimum of systems to maintain, no water, just heat and lights. Cache Campers are built one at a time and instead of being built out of MDF and particle board are built of ¾’ plywood. This one has a set of roll bars as well. Pretty beefy, simple, and easy to modify.

We are looking forward to breaking it in and not having to rely on our tent while on the road system anymore.

Until next time…

Smooth Trails.

Commercial Pilot Training at Career Pilot School - 6

2009-05-21T10:18:00.001-08:00

When you last heard from me I had just finished my CMEL check ride, leaving me with one more rating to garner for myself, the Commercial Single Engine add on.

After flying the complex Twin Comanche around, it was a bit of a change to return to a simple machine, like this Cessna 172 I flew for the add on rating. The school’s 172 was a newer model and hands down the nicest 172 I’ve yet flown. (Thanks to Michael for the above photo!)

One morning, as I went out to preflight, this Cardinal was tied down next to the 172. If I were the kind of guy who lived in the contiguous states, I’d be really pleased to own one of these. And as my middle name is John, this one really caught my eye as the call sign would be easy for me to remember.

The school's chief pilot, Michael was my instructor for this portion. Michael is another example of a person who excels at what they do. Anyone looking for flight instruction could do no better than to book some time with Michael. After Michael showed me the CSEL maneuvers, I spent a good 10 hours practicing them on my own.

A few of the maneuvers required recovery down low, so over the week I was able to grab some views of the resplendent Kansas landscape from a lower perspective than I had previously.

My training came to a halt on Friday when a robust cold front ripped through. The mass of cold air brought with it a bevy of thunderstorms and soaked the landscape. The extent of the flooding was evident from the air on the following day.

After flying, I went for a walk in order to see the some of the effects of the swollen streams from the ground.

You can see this entire meadow was flattened by the storm surge water; it must have been quite a sight to see the actual flooding.

As the walk wound down I turned my thoughts back to the sky and my impending check ride. The check ride turned out to be the hardest one of the three I came south to take, mostly because I was spent. I also wasn’t expecting as arduous an oral exam as transpired, and although I knew the answer to everything asked, the oral ran my energy down. When time came for the actual flying portion of the check ride, I flew very poorly, but barely, just barely, within standards. That last hour of Kansas flying was analogous in my mind to a marathon runner crawling past the finish line. I was spent.

But I was done…and had achieved at long last a goal I had wanted to achieve for decades!

I was in Kansas for a little over 8 weeks during the onset of spring. During my time there, I regularly visited a small county park and had chosen two spots to photograph upon my arrival and upon my departure. I wanted to see the changes that took place during my visit.

It would have been interesting to see the changes that summer, fall, and winter brought to the area.

On the other hand it was already far, far, too hot for me.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t Outside long enough to see this young Red tail fledge. Hope he is flying by now…

…and I had some miles to make. I made the 10 hour drive to O’Hare and hopped onto a 737-900 bound for Anchorage.

It felt really good to be climbing out from O’Hare.

After 8 weeks of flat it was mighty fine to see some vertical variety begin to creep back into the landscape.

Boy it was good to be back in the mountains!

Once I was back on the ground in Alaska, I had to spend some time speaking with my mechanic over on Lake Hood. By now, with all the photographs of airplanes I have been sending, you’ll recognize the look of these machines built for the Bush as opposed to the shiny jets that abound down south.

This is a Amphibious Turbine Beaver, which would be a mighty fine cockpit to be in…probably 10 or more years down the road for me, if I am ever that lucky. By the way, notice the 1,000 or so freshly hatched mozzies on the cowling. This summer is shaping up to be a stupendously fecund year for Alaskan Bugs.

Beaver getting loaded up for the Bush.

After a morning at Lake Hood, I drove over to Merrill and sat right seat in a Navajo bound for Tatitlek. It felt awesome to see the Sound again! PWS is really one of the 8 geologic wonders of the world. It was also quite enjoyable to be in a Navajo working strips like this one in Chenega.

Before too long I was back in Tatitlek with Janet and our dogs. Life was sweet!

Commercial Pilot Training at Career Pilot School - 5

2009-05-12T09:32:00.002-08:00

The last two and a half weeks have been busy. During that time I have been flying a Twin Comanche.

The Comanche is a fantastic airplane, and has taught me some valuable lessons. The primary advantages of a twin are speed and load carrying capacity. The Comanche cruises at 185mph and can carry up to six people at that speed around 1000 miles. It can do all of that at altitudes of around 10,000 feet, thereby getting you up above most inclement weather below. The sun shines on the Comanche more often than it shines on those relegated to the ground. The utility of a machine of this size and complexity is fantastic!

But one has to earn the ability to safely pilot such a machine. The Commercial Multi Engine license I just grabbed took every bit of concentration I could muster with my weak brain bandwidth over the last two and a half weeks. Looking back on it now, it was worth the work.

It took me 29.2 hours to earn the CMEL license. During that time Patrick and I used the Comanche’s speed and range to roam around the Midwest. Most every day we’d wake up, look at the weather situation and decide where to roam. KC’s central location allows for access to a great variety of cities all within a two hour flight. We roamed to Tulsa, Omaha (which, surprisingly, has an exemplary vegetarian restaurant.) Topeka, Ok City, etc. Upon arrival at each city, the local FBO would give us the keys to a car with free gas and we’d head out to tour the new town and sample some food. Good times!

But also hard work. Up to this point in my experience all the aircraft I’ve flown have moved much more slowly than the Comanche, which of course gives you more time to think. For the first time during my flight training, I was asking myself, “Can I actually do this?” It took 15 hours for my brain to begin to develop the rudimentary ability to keep up with the speed of this machine. I can’t thank Patrick enough for his patience with me during the learning process. Things happen very quickly in a twin, very quickly, and if you are flying in Class B airspace (meaning busy, like o’hare, anchorage, Kansas city, in the air with 737’s etc.) whilst in the clouds you’re head must be moving ahead of the situation. It takes a while to cultivate that skill set. Patrick was ideal to have at my side for the learning process.

We encountered this interesting airplane in Tulsa.

It’s an Avanti, designed for fast flights at 25,000 feet across the continent. Check out how fat the cabin is - that extra width allows for what is reputed to be one of the more opulent cabins around for passengers. It really dwarfs the Comanche.

In addition to the additional speed of the twin, I also found it difficult to work with the additional complexity of managing two power plants and their associated systems. Obviously the main thing that is different between a twin versus a single is the additional engine. But neither engine is on the center line like a normal airplane, so the pith of learning to fly a twin comes when you start shutting one of the engines off in mid air and learn to fly with one engine. We spent a lot of time working that problem in all phases of flight, en route, climbing, landing, and doing all of those things visually and while on instruments alone.

One of the other cool aspects of a heavy twin is its stability. You can trim it fly hands off even in winds that would flip my little 150 at home. Pretty nice.

We also spent about 10 hours working on all of the above at night. One evening we landed on a parallel runway out at KC Intl. at the same time an Airbus 320 was coming in. As the A320 landed the pilot burst onto the tower frequency with, “Tower, we just had a coyote run right in front of us, can you get someone out here to handle this?” I don’t know what they wanted done about it, but I can imagine if you have the controls of an airbus with a couple hundred folks behind you and you just landed, you are pretty well locked into rolling straight down that runway at 160mph, coyote or not, so that pilot must have been pretty well amped up.

The school has been putting me up in this apartment, which has been a good place to unwind after struggling to get up to speed with commercial pilot standards. Heads up if any of you readers are contemplating CPS. While I was lucky and had a room to myself for the entire program, be aware that the housing is set up for two folks to a room.

Patrick had to head out to California for a weekend wedding, so I found myself with a 4 day weekend. The weather turned really crappy in KC, so I jumped into the Matrix and made the 1400 mile round trip drive to Wisco for a family visit.

Matt and Amanda’s baby Sara was the real attention grabber over the weekend.

It being Wisconsin, we had to get some beer soaked Bratwurst on the grill, swine flu be darned.

The state was in the grip of some fantastic spring weather, so we set up an outdoor barbecue during the second evening.

After two nice barbecues and some really good visits with both of my grandparents, it was time to head south and get back to work.

Back into the Comanche. Patrick and I flew six days in a row and each evening I put my head into the books in anticipation of the oral exam we had scheduled for Sunday. Each flying license you grab demands that you pass a written test, then an oral exam by a FAA examiner, followed by a flight test with said examiner. This check ride, the multi commercial, was a bear to study for because anything was fair game during the oral exam and my level of knowledge was expected to be that of a professional aviator.

After three weeks of work, I went into my check ride on Sunday and aced both the oral and the flight test and came out a Commercial Pilot!

All that remains now is to pass one more oral/check ride, the single engine add on to the commercial license. I’m really looking forward to it because up until now all the work has been new and mostly relegated to smooth instrument flying. Not so with this add on. I’ll be working a series of VFR maneuvers that are designed to hone my stick and rudder skills. I have the check ride scheduled next week and will be done then!

I inveigled my way into ferrying a 152 for the school yesterday (free flight time!) and took a slow flight around the area. Sadly though, a pair of Starlings had built a nest in the cowling of the airplane. I couldn’t fly with a nest in there, it would have caught on fire in mid air, and although I tried to remove the nest gently, I still broke two of the eggs. Made me sad.

Whatever big football or baseball team is based in KC uses this stadium.

Interstate 35 cutting through the KC countryside.

One of the myriad “copy/paste” subdivisions.

The only water around these parts is found in reservoirs, although to mollify the mind Kansans call 'em lakes. This one also has a grass airstrip for folks who live there.

Anyone who attends CPS will get to know Grain Valley, we flew the VOR A approach into here a bazillion times. It'll probably be on your Instrument check ride.

The Missouri River and the Sibley coal plant.

Things are really greening up ever faster.

For the next few days, the airplane I’ll be using is in the shop and the weather is forecast to turn for the worse, so I’m in a holding pattern, with one day legs.

With this down time, I drove out to a MO state park with some alright trails.

This park also has some nice MO river access. The river itself is about the same size as the Nenana.

This sandy spot is purported to be a spot Lewis and Clark set up camp at back in 1805. It is also directly across from Leavenworth Prison, the proximity of which sort of colors the mood.

While north at the park, I visited with Glenn who is the school’s mechanic and an all-round excellent man. He is in the process of rebuilding this Maule M5. This is a new O-540 Lycoming that produces 235 HP with a constant speed prop.

As you can see, that 235HP hauls around a 4 seat fabric covered fuselage. The fuselage was just stripped down and re covered last week. The wings are metal, but the point is, that with all that power and such a light structure, Maule’s like this one are built for STOL performance. This would be an excellent Alaska machine, and Glenn’s work is top notch. Some lucky person is going to get a beautiful rig when Glenn finishes with this rebuild later this summer.

There were two nice visitors out at the airport this morning, including the plane on the right, a turbine Cheyenne, which would be ideal for AAT’s routes and would work the Tatitlek to ANC route in 25 minutes.

Now that the end of this training program is in sight, things are coloring up nicely.

My next update should come from Alaska!

Commercial Pilot Training at Career Pilot School - 5

2009-04-20T09:08:00.001-08:00

Big day for me today, I passed my Instrument Oral exam and check ride! Yeah! I’m now Instrument Rated!

That was a big one. Now that I am Instrument rated I can now legally fly into the clouds, punch up through them, grab some sun, and come on back down! My airplane insurance company holds the rating in such high regard they dropped 30% off of my annual premium this afternoon!

The check ride was surprisingly truncated compared to my Private. 3 hours of oral and 1.7 of flight time.

I almost elected to discontinue the ride after the oral due to winds aloft, but I'm am glad I didn't. After flying in 20G40kt winds yesterday, today's winds were a cake walk. I wonder if Kansas is always this gosh durn windy and turbulent? Yesterday, I was crabbed over so hard that I was looking at the runway out the passenger side window as I came in on final. About treetop level I straightened out and surfed the most bodacious ground effect turbulence I’ve yet flown in. I guess it was low level wind shear, or so the PIREPS said. One of the reasons I came down here was to work on new skills, and this place and its winds is certainly affording me that opportunity.

This also marks the 2/3’s complete point for my program down here. I’m on track for a mid May completion.

Let’s go back in time for a bit for some photographs from the last week of flying.

Sometime last week I ferried one of the school’s 150’s from Olathe to Mosby. I like these ferry runs because it is just me in the airplane and I get to fly for free. The school needs the rigs moved around for maintenance and such, and I am building time, so it is a win win.

This flight astounded me because KC approach gave me clearance right through the heart of downtown. They never do that! It was surreal flying over those skyscrapers in a little 150. No different than flying over mountains I suppose.

Felt good to be back in a lithe and light little 150 after all that time in the heavy Piper Arrow and Archer.

This is the Missouri River and a large rail switching yard. I imagine KC started growing as a town because of the railroad. Not sure though.

The downtown KC airport, Wheeler; this one is a fun airport to fly into, they route you right in amongst the skyscrapers.

You kinda have to squint to see it, but exactly in the center of this shot is the National World War One museum. Good place and interesting building and grounds.

While on the subject of worlds, this is the worlds of fun theme park.

Not many folk dropping coin on that these days, as evidenced by the parking lots.

Lots of freshly tilled fields around.

Home base for CPS, KGPH in Mosby.

Things are continuing to green up. 80 degrees today and temps are forecast to hold round about there for the next 4 or 5 days. Flowers are everywhere.

Another ferry trip, this time over to Higginsville. I like KHIG. The lake and park next to the airport are the finest I’ve seen in MO yet.

This sky crane was over at IXD the other day. It is rated to lift 20,000 pounds. Look at the size of those turbines!

I took the Archer over to King Avionics and was transfixed by the assorted rigs getting serviced there. This turbo Mooney is just an exemplary machine for a lower 48 lifestyle.

Here is a close-up of the Mooney’s business end. With the twin turbo’s on here and TKS anti icing this machine can get you into the flight levels and scoot you along at about 278mph. You could easily beat the airlines on flights under 500nm.

Inside King’s hanger there were even more fascinating machines. I spent some time walking around and checking them out, although the mngmnt at Kings didn’t like the camera, so you’re spared for the moment.

Tomorrow, I start in on Commercial Multi training in a Twin Comanche. I’m a little nervous about stepping up into a twin. I’m not sure I’ll be able to handle all the horsepower and speed.

For the next week all my flying will be VFR in the twin. We are going to head out on a 300nm cross country tomorrow, haven’t figured out where yet.

Cheers!

Commercial Pilot Training at Career Pilot School - 4

2009-04-12T20:09:00.000-08:00

Things are continuing to progress as I work towards my instrument rating. Patrick and I have flown every day out of the last 7. As is the case whenever you learn a new skill, you find rough spots. Currently I’m wrestling with holds and partial panel flying. But, with the steady application of energy and focus, I’m finding the head game that is instrument flying is slowing down and becoming easier.

I found a bit of time after flying on Friday to tramp. Once again, I found the trees Outside to be most enjoyable.

Alaska just doesn’t have Oaks like this one.

Nor does Alaska have thorny things growing on trees like this…anyone out there know what this is?

Just a few trees over from this one, I found a nesting Red Tail hawk. I sat and watched the female bring in a couple of mice and eviscerate them for the young eyasses. I’m going to try to make the nest a regular visit ~ if time allows.

You’ll recall from the last mailing that the Archer I flew to Wisconsin and back was in need of engine work. I flew it over to the mechanic's place on Thursday and traded it in for this Arrow. I really like this airplane. Really, really like it. It has 4 fine leather seats, 180 fuel injected horsepower (which would make for much safer aviating in AK), a constant speed propeller, and retractable landing gear. All these refinements make it 50 knots faster than the Archer. Flying the Arrow has also landed me my complex endorsement. I can’t say enough good about this machine, as far as 4 seat GA machines go, this may be one of the most sensible, economic, and refined choices out there. About $60K.

This is a left base for KGPH, Midwest National, CPS's home airport.

Short final from the Arrow on the ILS 18 approach, KGPH.

I reckon the other big news from Kansas is that the landscape is really starting to spring to life.

In the space of 48 hours, the green has really started popping. This is Excelsior Springs, MO.

And no update is complete without some grub shots. Amazingly, one block from the flight school lies a local donut shop. Yeah! These things are awesome!

Can a man keep his first class medical and still eat these?

Later…

Commercial Pilot Training at Career Pilot School - 3

2009-04-08T19:39:00.005-08:00

I’m about a quarter of the way done with the program now down here in Kansas. Over the weekend a fair sized low pressure system roiled its way through the area bringing a fair bit of wind along with it and leaving a nice swath of turbulence in its wake. On Monday, we flew around the KC area and practiced approaches and holds in the Archer, all the while manhandling our way through some pretty fresh winds. We shot a VOR approach into an Air Force base with winds blowing 26G34kts. Good flying.

On Tuesday the flying got even better when we embarked on an 850nm IFR cross country flight from Kansas City to Sheboygan and back. That’s the longest XC I’ve been on as of yet. Patrick and I flew the Archer on Victor airways on the way up and GPS direct on the way back. The whole flight took around 9.5 hours and for a good six of those we wrestled with some nice turbulence. I’m talking steady 1200 foot per minute up and downdrafts accompanied by moderate chop; the kind of stuff that lifts wings, smacks your tail, or swooshes your belly into your feet at random intervals. We tried flying numerous altitudes all the way up to 10,000MSL in an effort to get out of the badness ~ to no avail. We were only able to find respite from the chop in the Sheboygan and Kansas areas. Navigating the nation’s IFR infrastructure was tiring work to be sure, but mentally invigorating.

Here is Madison, WI… Janet and I's old stomping ground.

And here is an even older stomping ground, Terre Andre…

And every Sheboyganites faithful friend - the power plant.

When we landed in Sheboygan, the turbulence had calmed down quite a bit so I took my brother Peter up for a short jaunt.

Thanks to Pete and Deanna for putting Patrick and I up for the evening; Macs and Dax.

The return flight from Wisco to KS was uneventful, although the turbulence was unrelenting. Over the course of the trip, the Archer’s engine began to show signs of sickness, so it is looking like it’ll have all four of its jugs pulled and replaced over the weekend. I’m looking forward to looking in on the rebuild process; always fun to take a look around the inside of an engine when it is disassembled.

This means I get to finish my Inst rating in an Arrow, a rig with retracts, a 180 hp fuel injected engine, and a constant speed prop. That means by this weekend I’ll have my Complex Endorsement! Yeah!

Now that I have been flying around the lower 48 for 20 hours or so, I am astonished at the amenities that FBO’s offer pilots down here. Up in Alaska when you fly into a place you fuel your plane, manhandle it around, and tie it down. If you need to get somewhere you call a cab or walk. Down here, linemen tie your machine down, fuel it, and clean the windows for you. Meanwhile, you get the use of the FBO’s lounge, internet and crew car. That’s right; you get a free car for as long as you want to use it! Makes you feel coddled…why can’t we get this kind of pampering up in Alaska?

I’ve also really been enjoying seeing the seemingly unending array of aircraft around. Jets, turbines, twins, sailplanes, commuters, helis, military, experimental…on and on it is amazing!

Check out that sweet Bonanza! That’s a serious cross country platform.

And here are some serious fly low and slow platforms.

Getting even smaller, here is a light sport machine suitable for daytime only flight.

This Grob was my favorite of the day. It’s a motor glider, so you seek out turbulence and then turn the engine off and ride around in the updrafts.

I’ve also found time to finally make a run into downtown KC. You know, for a city KC seems like it would be a really diverse and enjoyable place ~ if you liked big cities. The city really seems to have a remarkable amount of cultural amenities. Too bad it is so hot, and so far from water…

But there does seem to be no shortage of fine dining.

This was the fare at a superb Thai restaurant this evening. The elephant suppository was not part of the deal.

So far the weather down here in KC has been pretty good for tramping, although we’ve had some days with temps as high as 70 already. Things have not really started to green up, but I’m sure it isn’t far away. Another downside to KC is that it is tough to find any place isolated and somewhat wild to ramble. I’ve sampled one or two parks…but still haven’t found a really good one.

I found this single-track in the backside of a tiny county park.

Mostly, while tramping, I’ve been enjoying the trees down here. Just nothing like them in Alaska.

Until next week….keep it high and fast.

Commercial Pilot Training at Career Pilot School - 2

2009-04-02T19:24:00.001-08:00

Big news for me, I passed through my first major hurdle this morning by scoring 92% on my Instrument written exam! Yeah! It is really nice to have that out of the way, nobody likes tests and the IRA has a rep for being a tough one.

I also have now moved into the apartment that the school runs. Much nicer than the hotel, although living with two 21 year olds makes me feel like a dad.

The next two weeks will be devoted to the procuration of the instrument rating, so I thought I’d share a few views of my classroom for the next few weeks.

This is 72F, the Archer II I’ll be living in for the next 40 to 45 hours. I’ll be living in it with Patrick, the guy on the right above. He’s one of those guys you meet and wonder how the hell anyone could have been gifted with so much intellect. I’m pretty amped to be able to be learning from him; I think he’ll really push me. His other job is flying a Twin Commander.

The instrument rating requires me to spend that entire 40-45 hours flying this airplane “under the hood.” This means that for the next two to three weeks, I won’t be able to look outside at all as I’ll be wearing a view limiting device and this view of the panel will be my world. Life will be good, although that means there won't be many pics for a bit.

Too tired for more…

Commercial Flight Training at Career Pilot School - the Beginning

2009-03-30T13:40:00.011-08:00

Late in March I uprooted myself from life in Bush Alaska and made my way outside for flight training in Kansas at Career Pilot School. My goal was to grab a Commercial Multi Engine rating, a Commercial Single Engine rating, and an Instrument rating. The 9 week journey began with a quick trip to my hometown of Sheboygan Wisconsin to visit with my family.

Here is a view of a Lake Michigan fishing boat. They all look like this one down here, guess they run the nets from inside the boat so everyone stays warm and dry.

Other than the time I get to spend with my family, the thing I like best about Sheboygan is the lake shore.

This is my brother’s dog Dax on a walk with me.

Good times.

This is most all of my family, minus two of my grandparents.

Can’t go to a place without some good food shots…

here is some Ciabatta and a fine garbanzo bean fennel soup, appetizer for…

…this sweet pizza.

After the familial visit, I made the ten hour drive to KS and started up my program over at CPS today.

The operation is made up of a main office and classroom sim center and a fleet of aircraft out at the Liberty airport. I’ll be crunching through the instrument written over the next two to three days, so it’ll be a little while before I can show you the fleet.

The reception area.

They run a few sims, this one is an Elite sim. I have unlimited use of this one…

This is the CRJ-200 sim. It has a 270 degree wrap around screen up front with three projectors. The whole thing takes ten computers to run! The picture comes courtesy of Patrick Lee, who has a far more adroit command of indoor shooting than I ever will.

This will be the only flying I’ll be doing for the next few days.

The stack of books is the knowledge that I'll need to master in order to vanquish the written.

My first impressions of the staff are pretty fair. I have not yet met Bhavesh, the owner. He just bought the place from Michael, the chief pilot, DPE, and check pilot. He seems an all around good chap.

I’ll be working quite a bit with Patrick in the next few weeks on my Inst. He’s a displaced New Yorker who can talk circles around me and is one of those guys you meet in life who has so much energy and knowledge you wonder how one person can handle it all. I'll be learning a lot from all these guys!

I’ll be sequestered another few days in this shoddy hotel and then I’ll be moving into an apartment with another student named Vishnu. He’s a touch younger than me and from India.

Lots of trees garnished with spring flowers down her and a bevy of chestnut trees. After winter in AK this is refreshing.

My Snow Shadow

2009-03-08T21:09:00.004-08:00

It was a fine weekend for flying. On Saturday, Janet and I zipped into Valdez for some groceries and a mental refreshing. The weather was pretty subdued as we ghosted down to RWY 6.

After spending a few hours in town, I checked the weather out at the airport which is 5 miles away. Yikes! Winds were 14G21knts out of the NE. My personal minimums are 15G25knts when the winds are coming from the North in Valdez. The big mountains to the left of the airport in the above photo are North North East of the strip and when the wind comes from that direction it tends to come in turbulent gusts that are completely chaotic. If the wind comes from any other direction, it tends to be much more laminar and I can easily fly in those winds, even when they are stronger. But when the wind roils down the mountainside as it was that that afternoon the turbulence can easily overwhelm a little 100hp machine. We loaded up and climbed into 53J. As we lined up for departure on 6 I saw a wall of snow blow down the mountainside towards the runway. I punched the throttle and as soon as we were up I banked hard to the right away from the rapidly arriving gust. Visualize the approach of a large wave as you wallow in the surf and you have thee idea in mind of what the approaching gust looked like as it bore down on us. I readied myself for its arrival and when it hit us it swept us away. When the gust arrived, we were making 70knts and climbing 500fpm. The gust erased our climb, but we didn't loose any more altitude. It also bumped our ground speed up to 95knts. We rode in its grip for about 30 seconds. Felt like aerial surfing...which I guess it was. Good times. Makes me want to get into gliding.

That was enough flying for Janet, so when the following day dawned just as fine, she stayed home as I took out friend Nichole into Valdez with me so I could tend to a few errands. My buddy Steve, the airport manger at Valdez, and a C172 owner, flew around with us a bit on the return flight.

Here is Steve piloting 32R in front of Copper Mountain.

After the fine weekend of flying, I tied 53J down into the nest I've built up out of the snowfall this year.

-edit...since the above photograph our snowfall has increased to 108" inches for the year...nine feet on the ground! I grabbed a shot of 53J's snow shadow on a flight over the airport on 3/14.

Consumate Sound Sunset

2009-02-28T16:32:00.004-09:00

Janet and I made a flight to Cordova after work last Tuesday. Here is a view of the town as we overflew it at 1500 AGL. If you look closely, you can see the airstrip on the left shore of Eyak lake.

After returning to Tatitlek and dropping her off around 5.30, I resolved to head back out in order to catch some sunset light and also spend some time in the pattern shooting a few night landings and takeoffs.

I sped on over to the Columbia Glacier and enjoyed a 45 minute show of light that had to have been the finest display I’ve been privileged to bear witness to this winter. I shot around 2 gigs worth of images which will take some time to work through and post, but I’m excited enough to present two preliminary samples.

This is the light that got me so excited. I had a fantastic time juxtaposing the warm colors of the sunset with the cool timbre of the glacial ice and snow covered peaks below. Additionally the low angled winter light really highlighted the texture of the glacial crevasses to the point where they could play a supportive visual role to the interplay of the colors.

Of course the ice fields weren’t the only parts of the Sound in play that evening.

You can see the light was pervasive throughout the Sound, what a sunset!

Dog Is My Copilot

2009-02-23T16:23:00.002-09:00

February in Prince William Sound brought some exemplary flying weather with it this year. All told I managed 13 flights this month. I know that doesn’t sound like many, but those of you who own an aircraft that is tied down outside in Alaska know how tough it is to deice, preheat and still find time to fly. It can take a couple hours to wake the bird up and another hour to put it to bed. Add in the fact that 53J is tied down with the Pacific Ocean ¼ mile to one side and the Coastal Range ¼ mile in the other direction which results in a wondrously wet mix of MVFR and IFR at this time of year, it really is remarkable how good the flying weather was this month.

Most of my flights were between Tatitlek and Valdez, or Tatitlek and Cordova. I always prefer to have a passenger along, but during one flight to Cordova, I couldn’t find anyone who had the time or inclination to ride along, so I brought one of my dogs along.

Murie is a 9 year old Lab, and this was his first flight! He had no problems at all. He did rip the Mutt Muffs off of his ears at first, but within a few minutes he seemed to have figured out that they made the cacophony much more endurable. After landing in Cordova and walking him around for a stretch we climbed back into the machine for a few hours of exploration of the coastal range.

As of late I’ve become enthralled with an unnamed massif which I’ve taken the liberty of naming Paul’s Peak. I hope it sticks.

In between trips to town, Janet and I took a ride up for a look-see during sunset a few days ago. While in the air I realized that after a hundred or so hours of flying about in the local area, I had never had a close look at the actual summit of Copper Mountain, the veritable symbol of Tatitlek. Here is what the summit proper looks like.

Copper Top.

Janet and I also garnered a really nice view of Mt. Denson, the biggest peak in the immediate area.

Finally Flying!

2009-02-07T16:18:00.000-09:00

Upon return from Kauai, I was of course eager to get back into the air, but my ambitions were stymied by some mechanical issues that had reared their heads in my absence. Tatitlek, like any other bush village, is a difficult place to get parts delivered to logistically, so I was forced to cool my heels for a few weeks. The entire month of January slid on by…

…but as February arrived, so did the parts for my airplane! I leapt into action and in no time at all 53J was back in the air.

It had literally been 6 weeks since I had last flown, in addition to being a bit rusty, I was a bit nervous as I took off. The air around the Sound wasn’t fully cooperating either. Although the weather was CAVU (clear air, visibility unlimited) the winds aloft were flowing at around 20 knots out of the north. I’ll grant you 20 knots is nothing…unless your steed happens to be a C150 and your airport and local traffic area lies in the lee of some pretty big mountains, even by Alaska standards. Things were a bit rowdy up there, but it was just the sort of workout I needed.
It was exhilarating to leave the ground again, and as I returned to 7KA round about sunset I noticed the moon rising over the mountains to our north east. Good timing with good light.

This is Copper Mountain and Landlocked Bay.

Landlocked Bay was the site of the first copper claim to be staked in Prince William Sound in 1897. Threeman Mine was constructed on the north shore of the inner bay in 1903 and made regular shipments of high grade copper ore until 1915. Between 1906 and 1911, the Standard Copper Mines Company ran, to my mind at least, an audacious mining enterprise in this bay. The mine site was located just where the bay narrows. Most of the ore was mined from 5 tunnels that totaled 1300 feet long. The crazy thing is that the tunnels were located 2,000 feet up the side of Copper Mountain and required a 2,526 foot aerial tram to get the ore down to sea level.

After flying 53J around for an hour or so, sea level was calling me as well. Here is the view of the village from a left base for 30.

After landing, the airplane seemed to glow with energy from its first flight in 6 weeks. I’m sure I did too.

Kauai ~ Kalalau 2009

2009-01-12T14:06:00.000-09:00

Janet and I just returned from a backpacking trip to Kauai. The trip was just so satisfying that some of these moments need to be shared.

Before leaving for Kauai, Janet and I went up to our Windy Hills house and it turns out we timed our trip up just right. It never got colder than 25 below and we enjoyed a fine Holiday together.

We left for Anchorage just as the cold weather that is currently over the Midwest started to move in. Temps at our house dropped to 58 below just a few days after we left for Kauai.

Things were much different in Kauai. We went from 25 below to 80 above in under 24 hours! It was also a warming treat to see my brother Peter and Deanna again. Here we are at the start of the Kalalau Trail.

Our first order of business was to start hiking out to Kalalau. We planned on spending several nights out at Kalalau Beach, which is located 11 miles away from the end of the road. The only access to the beach is via the Kalalau Trail. Our packs were heavy, but our spirits were light and buoyant, as we began humping our loads up and down the mountains, through the valleys, and along the sea cliff’s of the Na Pail coast.

The first day’s hiking took us 6 miles in. Most of the hiking is pretty easy for the first two miles, but then the trail narrows and leads you into the high country.
There must have been some pretty substantial rains before we arrived, because much of the walking was wet and muddy.

We spent our first evening on the island in the Hanakoa Valley. The valley has a long history of agricultural usage, although it has been long since abandoned as far as those pursuits go. These are Sisal plants introduced and grown for the rope industry of yore.

We made camp amongst old stone terraces constructed long ago and overgrown with coffee these days. The camp also brought us alongside a stream with a deep cool pool just right for bathing. After cleaning up, we were all exhausted and fell into deep sleep.

The second day on the Island dawned clear and warm. We packed up and set out to hike the next 5 miles of trail to Kalalau. Immediately after climbing out of the valley, the trail takes you around Manono Ridge, which serves as a point of delineation between the windward and leeward sides of the Island massif. Consequently, things dry out, vegetation thins out, and the views open up. I find this half of the hike much more enjoyable.

The first 6 miles of the trail are fairly precipitous. Mile 3 for example, takes one up a cliff side 835 feet above the pounding surf of the Pacific. But being on the windward and wetter side of the trail, the vertigo inducing drops are camouflaged by fecund vegetation. Not so once you round Manono Ridge. This stretch of the Kalalau Trail has many nicknames; we heard two new ones this go round. One hiker called this section of trail, “the cliffs of death”, another called it “crawler’s ledge” in reference to the debilitating vertigo some hikers succumb to as they round this stretch of trail.

Crawler's Ledge, Mile 7 of the Kalalau Trail.

It’s good walking, that’s for sure!

Just past Manono Ridge, there is an emergency helicopter pad that makes for a natural breaking point in the hike.

From the Mile 8 overlook we could see the beach…and the remaining 3 miles of walking, which included yet more arduous ascents and descents.

This rainbow infused photo was taken just after one of the hardest climbs of the 11 mile walk. The rainbow barely erases the fatigue from our faces.

Around Mile 10 the trail leaves the Na Pali cliffs behind. The section of trail that conveys you from the heights is a red clay hill known as Red Hill. The footing is sketchy, the descent steep, and the trail faint.

Red Hill does offer an exhilarating view of the Kalalau Valley.

After descending from the cliff sides, we took some time to ford across the Kalalau River. Once across the river, we found ourselves on the final path to the beach, strolling amidst the perfumes of orange, lime, guava, nuni, star fruit, breadfruit, and other fruit bearing trees.

After two solid days of strenuous hiking, we were back!

This beach remains one of the finest places we’ve yet experienced. It was satisfying to return. The beach rarely has more than 20 people on it, is surrounded by some of the most charismatic geology one can find on one side and the mighty Pacific on the other, and the campground is in the midst of a grove of Kukui trees bordered by a waterfall that serves as a mighty satisfying shower. Kalalau Beach has the total package!

It was here that we made camp for the next few nights and commenced sampling the landscape’s myriad delights.

After two straight days of having those 50-60 pound packs on, straining and sweating beneath their weight, we reveled in the sun, surf, and lightness.

The surf at Kalalau is particularly robust and energetic during the winter months. Many of the waves are easily 10 feet high.

Peter and I spent many hours over the next few days playing in the waves. They were packed with power. It has been many a year since I’ve been knocked off my feet, and these swells did it with regularity. The power of the sea was very evident as these waves worked to pull you, flatten you, carry you, thrust you, and proved great fun.

We were told that this winter’s swell was smaller than normal. This meant there was more sand on the beach than the last time we visited which allowed us to walk about ½ a mile farther than we could our during our previous visit. The new beach opened up access to this sea cave. The hole in the 4 million year old Basalt cliff stretched back about 100 yards and the ceiling was around 15 feet high. We all swam back into the beach at the far end. It was enthralling, but spooky.

The nights at Kalalau were spent burning driftwood, swapping stories, drinking terrible rum, and worse wine, and a lot of stargazing.
We spent two nights, including New Year’s Eve, in this fashion.

I can’t speak for the rest of the crew, but to my chagrin we had to leave Kalalau. Personally, I can see the allure of living out there.

We left the beach at noon intending to hike the 5 miles back to Hanakoa. The afternoon was hot and the cliffs warmly welcomed us back.

It is always easier to negotiate this terrain with a lighter pack. The lighter packs also enabled us to make faster progress. We ended up hiking 9 miles in 6 and half hours and spent a night exhausted on the Hanakapia Beach at mile 2.

It started pouring that evening and the remaining two miles that we walked out the next morning were sodden and muddy. But rain and mud hold no sway over the Kalalau Trail, it is simply too exhilarating a place to be to occupy one’s mind with such minor inconveniences.

After wrapping up the hike, cleaning up, and celebrating, we turned to the next phase of our island experience and dove straight into Tourist/Condo Land.

Deanna’s parents set us up with a condo at the Lawai Beach Resort. I can’t thank them enough! The resort was exemplary! Beautiful grounds, a heated pool, outdoor hot tub, Weber grills, and myriad other amenities designed to make your life slow and sweet, including a roof side miniature golf course, were all part of the soothing package.

Life was good.

The condo was right across the street from an excellent snorkeling beach, and we all spent many hours imbibing of the activity.

All that time in the water inspired us to try our hands at surfing. Peter was the only one of us who figured it out.

After two days of frolicking in the water, we decided to head to the summit of the Island. This is a view of the Kalalau Valley from above. It was enjoyable to grab this view of the valley that had been so welcoming to us just a few days prior.

You can see the effects of the island life in our faces now that we’ve been on the Island for more than a week.

We then made our way through the misty Kokee forest for a stroll alongside the top over the Waimea Canyon.

Unfortunately this turned out to be a wet afternoon and the full geologic glory of this massive rift was somewhat veiled for us.

Peter did find an opportunity to jump off a water fall though.

We split up the following morning to follow different paths. While Peter and Deanna donned wetsuits for a foray into the realm of scuba, Janet and I caught sunrise over at the Paa Dunes on the Mahaulepu Coast. These dunes are made of lithified sand, meaning they are composed of lime sand which has undergone the cementation process.

This is the only place I’ve ever seen dunes like this, and they proved to interact with the light exquisitely. We returned here several more times, as you’ll see.

It had been 2 weeks since I had been up in a light airplane, and I was eager to see the Island from a different perspective, so Janet and flew around the Island in this C172.

We first flew over Mt Haupu and Kawelikoa Point.

We then turned the airplane towards the interior of the Island and Koai’e Canyon.

Overflying Waimea Canyon we reveled in the view of the Island’s creation and past that was laid out for us. The chasm exists because it is the structural scarp where the original shield volcano that formed the island’s eastern face collapsed 4 million years ago. The canyon now exposes the lavas that flowed forth from that volcano 5 million years ago and those from the second and younger volcano that formed after the island slumped in two.

As we flew over the north side of the Island, we were able to see Kalalau Beach from above.

It was also engaging to see the fluted erosion of the Na Pali cliffs from above.

Returning to the airport, we passed the wettest place on the entire planet, Mt. Waialale. This is the mountain’s eastern face, which rises 3,200 feet in ½ a mile. It is shaped in a perfect fashion to orographically scoop moisture out of the Trade Winds. Consequently, the summit averages 430 inches of rain each year!

On our last day, we went back out to the Mahaulepu Coast.

Over in Kawailoa Bay Peter found a coconut and put some energy into setting us up with it’s meat.

We popped open a bottle of Maui grown, aged, and bottled wine and settled in to enjoy the sunset on Makawehi Point.

There was some fine light to catch.

Unfortunately as the sun set, so too did our time on the island and it was time to walk away...

24 hours later the subtropical sunlight segued back into subarctic light as Janet and I were given this view of Prince William Sound from 36,000 feet high.

You can see the village of Tatitlek and all the way to the Alaska Range here! If the mountains were not blocking it, you could see both of our houses. It was a CAVU day to be sure!

Unfortunately, the weather in Alaska wasn't quite up to Hawaiian standards. Approaching Anchorage one could SEE the cold that had gripped the state since our departure two weeks prior. During the drive to Valdez we passed through the Copper River Basin where it was 44 below.

The boating weather in Prince William Sound turned out to be nasty, and it took us two days longer than we had planned to get back to Tatitlek. During the ride back, the waves hit 7 to 8 feet by Valdez Arm, the winds were steady at 35knts, temp was 5 above, and the boat was covered with freezing spray. Fun ride, but a very different Pacific ocean than the Pacific we had just reveled in for the last two weeks.

The island sun was energizing and the memories from this trip will be with us for the rest of our lives. All of it was made all the more special by the company and camaraderie, nothing like traveling with your family!

Prince William Sound in a Pair of Cessna 150's

2008-08-30T22:58:00.003-08:00

On Friday Janet and I got our first taste of formation flying. Our buddy Jeff took advantage of a gorgeous afternoon to fly from Anchorage to visit us over in Tatitlek. Jeff moved up to Anchorage just 4 weeks ago. But, check this out, he flew here on his own in a Cessna 150G, same model as ours, all the way from Florida! The flight took 64 hours. Here is his account of his trip north.

Those of you who have lived in bush Alaska understand how critical it is for your mental health to get out of your village whenever possible, so with that goal in mind we hopped over to Valdez for dinner with Jeff.

This is Jeff in his machine, which he calls Gremlin.

I am still a rookie flier, having only 130 hours under my belt and having owned 53J only since January of this year. This was my first experience with formation flying, and I’m glad it was Jeff who has 800 hours TT and around 70 hours of formation flying experience over there breaking me in gently. I have to say it freaked me out mightily to see another airplane that close! By the end of the evening I got over that.

Look at this Labor Day weekend weather we had in Valdez!

After dinner we flew the two aircraft back to the Whittier area and enjoyed some fantastic sunset views of the Sound and it's Glaciers.

This is my favorite shot of the night of Jeff and Gremlin over Shoup Glacier.

Eventually, the dual constraints of fuel and the approaching sunset conspired to force us to turn back for home and Jeff to make his way through Portage Pass and back to Anchorage.

What a fine day of fall flying!