The Alaskan Adventure…
by Jeff Crabb
I
had flown my RV-6A to the Bahamas and a good part of the lower 48 states, but
had always wanted to go to Alaska.
It all started a few months ago when Dane Sheahen from the
Chicago
area sent out an email to see if anyone was interested in having a gaggle of
RV’s fly up to
Alaska. In no time at all there seemed to be seven or
eight airplanes that wanted to go. We
had three sign up from the Tennessee Valley RV Builders Group (TVRVBG), but as
time got closer to the trip everyone backed out, except for the TVRVBG gang.
The Alaskan Adventure started on July 30th. Jim Harchanko with his wife Becky (RV-7A) and
me in my RV-6A headed up to Oshkosh
to enjoy a couple of days of 
AirVenture.
Al Wright in his RV-6A flew up to New York
first to pick up his dad, Eugene. Jim
and I departed Oshkosh on Aug 1st
and met up with Al and Eugene in Minnesota
at our first fuel stop.
It was a long day of flying, but we made Cut
Bank, MT by mid afternoon. This was the
last stop before crossing the Canadian border.
There’s not much at Cut
Bank, but they do have two courtesy cars, hot showers,
and a couple of beds for pilots in need of a nap or in our case pilots in need
of a good nights sleep. Jim, Becky, and
I camped just about every night, while Al and Eugene
wimped out for hotels. Al and Eugene
hadn’t made any hotel reservations prior to the trip, because we weren’t sure
where we would end up each day, but they lucked out every time getting the last
or next to the last room. The rest of us
were a little envious, because they looked so refreshed each day with a hot
shower and clean shave!
We planned our first stop at
Lethbridge (CYQL) to clear Canadian Customs.
Even after 9/11 this was still an easy process. We called before departing Cut Bank and they
entered into their computer all the basic information; such as, pilots name,
birthday, tail number, departure point, and destination. When we landed in Lethbridge,
it was basically just a phone call telling them we had arrived. Flight plans are mandatory in Canada
and the form is much different than the US,
but the Canadian Flight Service walks you through the form o
n the phone and
they seemed to be much friendlier and helpful than our flight service. From Lethbridge,
we flew to Whitecourt (CYZU), Fort St. John (CYXJ), Fort Nelson (CYYE), and
finally Watson Lake (CYQH) in the Yukon.
Watson
Lake has a small campground with gazebo,
potable water, porta potty and even a wood stove to take the chill off on a
cool night. I camped and fished there
for two days. We had only planned one
night, but the weather the next day was lousy and there was concern about
getting through a few mountain passes on the 
way to
Whitehorse,
so we ended up there an extra day. One
of Watson Lake’s
main attractions besides the lake is the Sign
Post Forest.
We
basically flew the Alaskan Highway
most of the way from Fort
St
John to Fairbanks,
AK.
As you can imagine the terrain is pretty unforgiving in most of Canada
and Alaska and if you had an
emergency, having a couple thousand miles of runway under you at least makes
you feel better…
From
Watson
Lake, it was up to Whitehorse
(CYXY), which is the capital of the Yukon,
then to Northway, AK
to clear US Customs. Northway is in the
middle of nowhere with a gravel strip. Clearing
US Customs at Northway was also easy, but they did ask a few more questions
that the Canadian Customs. By the way, we
landed the RV’s on several gravel strips in Alaska
with no apparent damage to the wheel pants or prop. The key is to do your mag checks, etc. while
the aircraft is moving…
From Northway, we flew on up to
Fairbanks
to start our Alaskan sightseeing.
Fairbanks International has a great camping area right on the north end
of the field. It’s the only one I know
of like this. Each airplane camping spot
has a picnic table, fire pit for grilling, and bathroom facilities. We had to take showers about a half mile
away, but they were in the process of building showers right at the
campground. Sure wish we had more of
these fly-in campgrounds in the Lower 48 states. We visited the University of Alaska Museum
and Pioneer Park
in Fairbanks learning much about
Alaskan history and wildlife. Probably
can’t see it too well in the picture, but that’s an 8 foot grizzly behind me. We even drove by the North Pole – a real town
just west of Fairbanks.
After
a couple days in Fairbanks it was
time to venture out so we departed for Fort
Yukon, which is north of the
Artic
Circle. It
was on this flight that I saw a huge grizzly bear out in the middle of a
field. There were several forest fires
still burning northeast of Fairbanks and down by Watson Lake, which reduced
visibility to 3 miles in some areas. We
also stopped at Circle Hot Springs for a dip in a swimming pool. It is fed by natural hot
springs around 120 degrees. A few weeks prior there had been up to 300
fire fighters in the area, but now they were down to 75 just to protect any
homes that might be close to the few remaining fires.
Departing Circle Hot Springs, we
flew down to Healy River (HRR), which is just north of the
Denali
State Park. During the landing, I found out very quickly
that I didn’t have any left brake, so I just let it roll to a stop and shut
down. After some troubleshooting, we
discovered that the gear leg fairing had rubbed a pin hole in the brake
line. Luckily, Al had an extra piece of small
hose in his plane and a nice fellow stopping by to look at the RV’s took Jim to
the local NAPA auto parts to buy a couple of hose clamps. With the temporary repair in place, now we needed
to bleed the brakes. No one at the
airport had a brake bleed kit or fluid.
In hind-sight guess I should have taken one with me, but you can’t plan
for everything! The local guy mentioned that a friend of his
was getting off of work, was also an A&P, and that he might be able to help. Sure enough, a little while later Jim and Nancy
came to my rescue. With the brakes
bleed, I was back in business. The
repair held for the rest of the trip. Did
I
mention that 1 out of every 5 people in
Alaska
fly airplanes!
We
decided to stay the night at Healy
River,
camping by our planes. Jim and Nancy not
only helped with bleeding the brake lines, but took us to dinner and breakfast
the next morning. They even took Al and
Eugene to a local hotel. Jim/Nancy –
thanks for your great Alaskan hospitality and saving the day for me!
We
flew south on down to Talkeetna (TKA) to top off with fuel and talk to a local
tour pilot about the best way to safely sight see around Mt McKinley. We
decided to fly up Ruth Glacier to about the 8,000 foot level and turn around at
the amphitheater and then return down the glacier flying down the southeast
side of the mountain. The charter pilot
said at times there can be as many as 50 planes flying around the mountain so
you have to keep your head on a swivel and definitely not a place to have an
engine failure! After departing
Mount
McKinley, we headed south across
the Cook Inlet just west of Anchorage
to Homer (HOM). It’s a nice little town
right on the coast. We camped in the
town campground with a great view of the mountains and watched fisherman catch
silver salmon on the spit in Homer.
The
next day we took off from Homer, flying by Soldovia (SOV) and then up the
coastline by some beautiful mountains and glaciers to McCarthy (15Z). To me this was definitely one of the
highlights of the trip. McCarthy is
about 80 miles east of Anchorage in
the middle of no where, but has a gravel strip at the base of the Kennecott
glacier and is part of the Wrangell-St.
Elias National park
(largest US
national park – 13.2 million acres). The
Kennecott copper mine was active from 1908-1938 and had one of the richest deposits
of copper ever found in the US. The town consists of just a few building, but
reminds you of an old western town. Jim
and I camped by a river within a few hundred feet of town.
After
getting up the next morning, I hiked a ways and had big moose crossed the river
right in front of me. (Where is the camera when you need it!)
On Aug 9th, we decided
it was time to head back to Alabama,
so we took off from McCarthy and headed to Northway, then along the Alaskan
Highway to Fort Nelson to fuel
up and spend the night. Jim and Becky
had relatives in Calgary, so they
stopped there for a few extra days. From
there it was back to Cutbank, MT
to clear US Customs. Al and I split up
at Cutbank. He flew Eugene
back to New York and I headed
southeast to Huntsville, AL.
My
first fuel stop was Rapid City, SD
(RAP) which is only a few miles east of Mount Rushmore,
so of course I had to fly by and take a couple pictures.
Overall, it
was a great trip! We flew over 8,000
miles, 54.9 flight hours, and used about 425 gallons of fuel. The weather was outstanding the entire trip,
except for one extra day at Watson
Lake. Even at RV speeds - it’s a long way to Alaska
from Alabama, but one I’ll never forget by making the trip with friends in
something we all built in our garages!
Jeff Crabb
RV-6A (N38JC)
jeffcrabb at knology.net
