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.