Dispatches from Camp Ketchikan: Dan's Flight; Anchorage to Ketchikan

May 24, 2012

I have a couple of days off, so I thought I would take a breath and make a posting to catch you all up on what we have been doing. I'll let Nancy fill you in on her stuff.

After a smooth and beautiful cruise up from Prince Rupert, we arrived in Ketchikan on a bright and sunny day. We'd hoped it was an omen for a good season to come. We moved into our apartment and settled in for our first night back in K-town. We awoke to heavy rain and 25-30 mph winds and 42 degree temperatures. That continued for 12 of the next 14 days! The other two were light rain and only 10-15 mph winds.

We hit the ground running. I had to go through recurrent training and of course take a drug test. This time everything went smoothly. I was in and out in 15 minutes. (See last year's post for how it could have been: "Dan's Letter From Kamp Ketchikan; May 31, 2011)

Taquan was in the process of training 5 new pilots, so things were a little hectic. I wasn't able to fly for a week after I got here. Then my currency ride lasted 4-tenths of an hour and I was good to go. After 3 days on the line I asked for 3 days off to help Jared fly his PA-12 from Anchorage to Ketchikan. We had a weather window that looked good and we didn't want to lose it.

I took the Alaska Airlines milk run to Anchorage on a Wednesday. It stopped in Sitka and Juneau before landing in Anchorage at 9:30pm, some 5 1/2 hours later. I called Jared, but he didn't answer. I got a ride over to the Millennium Hotel (right on Lake Hood) for a burger and a beer. The Millennium is one of my favorite places. You can sit and relax while watching the seaplanes come and go from Lake Hood. They say one quarter of all the seaplanes in the world are based there. That's my kind of place. While I was having my beer I got a text from Jared saying he was in the air and would be at Lake Hood soon. Just as I was finishing my burger I saw the red PA-12 come taxiing in. I called Jared and he met me at the Millennium. He had spent most of the day changing the PA-12 over from wheels to floats and the test flight was from Big Lake, near Wasilla (you know, you can see Russia from there). We rented a car and drove to Girdwood where Jared's father lives. Although he was not at home, we were able to stay at the house. Girdwood is the Aspen of Alaska. There are lots of beautiful houses overlooking the mountain and Alyeska ski area. The view is so beautiful that most of the houses don't have curtains. I slept in the loft with a great view and no curtains. Alaska....summer....no curtains! Do you know how long the sun stays up in Anchorage during the summer? I put a clean sock over my face and got to sleep about midnight. The sun had gone down but it wasn't dark. Needless to say I was up early, which was a good thing. We had a lot to do before we could depart. It looked like the weather report was right on; clear and sunny.

We left Lake Hood at noon and climbed out toward the Turnigan Arm under clear blue skies and no wind! That rarely happens, but it did today. We passed Girdwood and climbed over the Chugach Mountains to Whittier and then crossed the Prince William Sound.

We passed Valdez and landed in Cordova, an hour and a half after leaving Anchorage. Part of the lake was still frozen. We taxied to the dock and were met by the operator. Three men in casual dress approached and asked where we came in from. They asked who was the pilot. Not wanting to lie, I quickly pointed to Jared and said, "He is." The man in charge turned to Jared and introduced himself and his companions as being from the FAA and wanted to know how they could help us. That's right, we got ramped checked. 47 years of flying and the second time I was ever ramp checked was in Cordova, Alaska, only days after the lake was open for landing and the gravel strip had only a half dozen planes on it. The guys were friendly and didn't give us any problems. We fueled up and were on our way to Juneau, 5 1/2 hours away.

Did I mention we were in Alaska? Yeah, that place of ice and cold. Did I also mention that the heater didn't work? I am just glad that I brought my winter jacket, fleece vest, Xtra-tuffs, wool socks and a roll of duct tape. There were so many air leaks in the back seat of that airplane it could almost qualify as an open cockpit! I taped up the window, stuffed our lunch bag and some old maps against the air leak in the door on the right. Did I say air leak? It was more like an air tornado. I unfolded a Sectional on my lap, not to navigate, but as a blanket to keep me warm. Did I say warm? Jared was in the front seat with the sun on him, just wearing a wool shirt, complaining about how hot he was!!!!

We left Cordova after filling our aux and main tanks with 66 gallons of fuel, and we burned just under 10 gallons per hour. That comes out to just over 6.6 hours, and we figured it would take about five and a half hours to get Juneau.

The visibility stayed better than 10 miles, sometimes way better, but the ceiling came down to about 1,500 feet. The flight from Cordova took us through a slit in the mountains toward the Cordova airport and the Copper River Delta (shown here on the right). We saw five moose there. From Cordova we stayed along the coast all the way to Juneau. We passed Yakataga, Yakutat, the Alsek River, Cape Spencer and Juneau. We had the Pacific Ocean off our right the whole way and a beach that was over 200 miles long below us. Some of the most spectacular scenery in the world was out our window. We saw over a dozen black bears, five moose, one grizzly bear, countless eagles and several whales.

I'll let the following pictures do most of the talking for the trip to Juneau.