Video: Flying The Trench - Yukon Canada

Being Zen

When I reflect on our trip now that it is over, and when I ask myself what I learned from it, one of the things that stands out is the idea of "being zen". My cousin Chris used this phrase and it reminded me of my training in zen meditation many years ago.

When confronting the elements as we were (particularly the weather), it really helped. It struck me as strange that having spent a large part of my life involved in yoga and meditation, I needed to be reminded to practice some of the things I had long ago learned. Thankfully, I took the reminder, and from that point on, the trip became more of a moment to moment adventure and much less stressful.

As I reflected on this today, I decided to write a short piece about "being zen" on my Turn-Stress-Into-Bliss professional website. I'm sure it has many applications other than just flying to Alaska. And no, it wasn't just so I could tax deduct the trip, but that would be nice! Thanks Cuz for the reminder. It made a huge difference to the experience.

The Final Leg Home

After an early morning departure from Duluth we tracked along the southern shore of Lake Superior above a low layer of morning scud. To our south we could see the building cumulus associated with the stalled front we had broken through the previous day.

We landed a Newberry, MI (Luce County) to refuel with the cheapest gas we found on the entire trip. We didn't waste time and set off again for the leg across Lake Huron north of Toronto, once again in Canadian airspace but just in transit. We landed some three and a half hours later in Watertown, NY and got ready for the last leg of our long trip.

We noticed the heat and the low visiblity associated with it as we flew the last hour into Great Barrington to be welcomed home by Lori, Shannon, Chris, Adele, Bella and Lydia.




We enjoyed our first home cooked meal in three weeks and shared a few stories of our adventures. If you are a reader of th is blog and would like to read some of them stay tuned. On the trip there was not a lot of inspired writing time as we were focussed on making the next leg or letting down after the previous one. Now we're back I plan to share some of our stories of people and places like our meeting with Beat, the Mayor of Beaver Creek and my meeting in Anchorage with Rod Perry who competed in the very first Iditarod Dog Sled Race. And then there's the story of our prolonged stay in Watson Lake and the folks we encountered there.

Now Chris prepares to return to Australia but luckily we have a few days to decompress first, do some laundry, and enjoy being around family.

Back in the Lower 48

Yesterday was our biggest day as far as distance flown. Plagued by bad weather for many days we wanted to get as far as the weather would allow.

With our new friends who we'd now been traveling with for several days, we enjoyed a dinner together at Mr Mikes in Grande Prairie, Alberta and then went back to our hotel to flight plan. From here we were all going in different directions but still worked as a team to explore routes and options.

We chose to head across the Prairies to Saskatoon as the weather had pretty much passed on through there. We ended up going from there to Minot, North Dakota passing through a lot of rain showers that would be rapidly developing into storms in a few hours. We made our 4.30pm appointment with US Customs at Minot and found ourselves back in the USA. As the weather was once again catching up to us from the west, we chose to fly another leg across the plains and made it into Duluth International by 8.30pm local time. We had pretty much flown from the Rocky Mountains in Canada to the Great Lakes in the USA in one day.

The late evening flight across the plains was in beautiful evening weather and we enjoyed finding all the small towns on the map we passed over and watching the checkerboard farmland drift by underneath us.

We Flew The "Trench"

After two days in Watson Lake with several other pilots waiting out good enough weather to get through the mountain passes into Fort Nelson we started to get creative. Maybe there was another way? There was. It's known as the Trench Route. It is less popular for several reasons. First it's a long way - some 400 miles. It's also very very remote. No roads, no airports, no generally "known" fuel stops apart from a few private strips and native reservations that may or may not have fuel and may or may not sell it to you.



Landing at Scoop Lake

The Trench is also a little intimidating. It's like flying down a funnel with mountains on either side. It also has no accurate weather reporting or communications and has micro-climate phenomena that aren't in the forecast.

But the night before a pilot flew in to Watson Lake in a Piper Cub. She had flown up the trench and was armed with information. Like places you could land and wait our weather if you had to. A few places where you could get fuel if you had to. The first of those was Scoop Lake - a hunting camp just eighty miles south of our start, but with fuel that we could use to top off our tanks and be in a better position to make the distance.
As it turned out, this place was awesome.



Refueling at Scoop Lake

We were greeted and invited to lunch and hung out for an hour in a pristine wilderness camp chatting with the owners and some of the workers. Even though it was $2.50/liter we were pleased to have the extra gas. There were four planes in the group we had created to fly the trench. We had become friends over the two days of waiting and camping out at Watson Lake Airport and worked as a team to support each other down the Trench.

We had a few tense moments with rain showers in the valley, some very tight passes, and big mountains on either side. The weather didn't get much worse than showers and we could maintain 10 miles of forward visibility most of the time even through the light rain. The scenery was spectacular. We eventually reached Williston Lake - our "road" out of the mountains. We followed the lake through narrow mountain passes for some 50 miles to the dam at it's end just before it spilled out across the plains - back to flat land. A half hour later we landed in heavy rain at Dawson Creek, leaving the mountains behind us.

Weather again!

Watson Lake - last airport in the Yukon before we get back into BC at Fort Nelson. On the way up this was the problem leg, weather wise. And the same is happening again.

But we have company. Six planes and eleven pilots stuck here this morning. Along with 2 other planes - a Husky and a C172, we got stuck here last night with rain and thunderstorms in the area. We all slept in the airport lounge after a $30 cab ride to town for dinner. Hoping to get out this morning we took off around 7am. An hour later we hit the Liard River where we wanted to turn into another valley to get to Fort Nelson but it was not to be. Rain showers, mist, and low clouds combined to force us to turn around and go back to Watson where we now sit weighing our options. Waiting seems the best.

The first two pics below show the flight two days ago from Beaver Creek to Whitehorse and a GPS shot showing the terrain on all sides. Then there's some shots of Watson Lake, the old hangar and our plane with our companions outside the Watson Lake terminal. The hospitality from the local radio operators has been awesome. Fresh brewed coffee, weather checks, and letting us camp out in the main terminal overnight. We hope we don't have to take up the offer again tonight but time will tell.

 
 
 

Back to Whitehorse

Well it's taken us two days to get from Fairbanks to Whitehorse. Weather is once again the thing that is slowing us down. Yesterday we left Whitehorse under cloudy skies but made our way down to Tok for refueling before crossing the border and clearing Canadian customs in Beaver Creek. We decided to head out down the valley towards Whitehorse hoping to make it as far as Burwash Landing but had to turn back when rain showers filled the valley ahead bringing visibility down. Flying in the valleys between the mountains is not a good place for poor visibility combined with low ceilings, so we turned back to Beaver Creek. The Airport Radio Operator at Beaver Creek heard us call to say we were returning and by the time we landed had secured a room for us and gave us a ride to the small Alaska Highway roadside town about a mile from the airport.

It was an enormous room with two king beds, a kitchen, and living room, located above the store that serves the highway gas station. To me it seemed right out of "Northern Exposure". We had burgers at Buckshot Betty's just down the road spent a comfortable night.

This morning we waited each hour for the weather report of places down the way towards Whitehorse and finally by the 11am report, we thought it looked good enough to go. By returning the previous night we had enough fuel to make it to Whitehorse with required reserves but that was all. If we had to turn back again we would have to backtrack to Tok in Alaska for fuel as there was no fuel available at Beaver Creek or any place from there to Whitehorse.

The first part of the flight saw us under an overcast but with good visibility. We had been concerned about low ceilings around Burwash but got a pilot report from a flight of three Connair Water Bombers heading up our route from Whitehorse. They told us they had made it all the way at about 600ft above the highway with good visibility beneath the low overcast. We pressed on but stayed very focussed for the next two hours as we made it through each of the passes in the valley and eventually into the Whitehorse area. It was a challenging two hour flight.

We had hoped to go further but the briefing from the Nav Canada folks at Whitehorse had us looking for a hotel for the night and a revisit to this Yukon City that we've come to know pretty well.

A great meal at a Japanese restaurant, another hotel room, and hoping to get out tomorrow if the weather gods are smiling on us but the forecast does not look good. We hope it's all wrong, which seems to happen a lot up here.

Fairbanks

After waiting out the weather in Anchorage we finally made it to Fairbanks. Departing out of Merrill field in a low overcast we made our way up the valley towards Talkeetna as the overcast gave way to broken and then scattered clouds. To our surprise, through the scattered layer we got a full on view of Denali, soaring to over 20,000ft off our left side. The journey up the valleys and through Windy Pass was relatively easy with good visibility and just a few rain showers here and there. The pass was steep and tight with mountains off either wing before crossing into the tundra and an easy descent into Fairbanks.

Fairbanks International is an awesome airport with a float plane landing pond between two long parallel runways. The float plane "runway" is designated 20W - the "W" for "water". We landed on 20L and taxied to the East Ramp where we found there was an airplane camping area on the field just off from the float plane pond. We decided to take advantage of it and camp the night. We taxied the plane into our camping spot and set up our tents. There was an immaculate toilet and shower building and another shelter with grill, tables, a fish smoker. A bicycle rack with bicycles for our use was also a surprise. With such great facilities, it was easy to enjoy our first "plane camping" night of the trip.



 
 
 

Glaciers

What a great day! We decided to take the train from Anchorage to the port of Whittier and then go on a glacier cruise.

 
The train ride was a great start to the day. It was a modern and comfortable train with commentary along the way - a 2 hour scenic packed ride that emerges from a 2.5 mile long tunnel through the mountains to Whittier. We found two companies offering a glacier cruise and chose the one that we thought offered the best lunch. We really lucked in. The company, Major Marine Tours, does everything right.
For six hours we cruised Prince William Sound, saw a dozen or so glaciers, two humpback whales, sea otters, seals, two bald eagles, ice breaking off glaciers, and majestic scenery. Shortly after leaving dock we were provided with a buffet lunch consisting of fresh caught wild Alaskan Copper River Salmon, prime rib, and an assortment of sides, salads, dessert, and drinks.
 
 

 
 
 

 
 

 
 
 

Last leg into Anchorage

Pictures from our last leg into Anchorage AK following the Glenn Highway through several mountain passes. Note the glaciers we passed and the steep mountain passes we flew through. Apart from a few showers and build-ups over the mountains, the weather was good and we had a great up close view of some great scenery.

The highlight of our arrival in Anchorage was the "above and beyond" service we got from Michelle at Ace Fuels at Merrill Field (the airport we flew into - see bottom pic).

Michelle gave us a ride to our hotel with a tour on the way, info on places to go and places to eat, and was just a wonderful help. By and large we've been well treated at the various airports in our travels but this one was top of the list.