Wonderful trip, thanks for bringing us along...

As others have said, congratulations on a great family trip and terrific trip report. Good on you for letting us come along.

Hey man, great TR! This is the kind of content that makes this forum so great. Thanks for posting.

Larry and I flew up around that area before the Airman's show and man is it pretty. Good deal.

What an amazing trip! Your kids are going to be talking about that for the rest of their lives - that's an incredible gift you've given them!

I made a little home movie out of some of the video we took on our trip. It's not really a flying video -- more of a travelogue -- although there is some flying in it. Still have to pinch myself to make sure this trip really happened!

Very well done. You really captured how much fun the family had. Nice. Congratulations on such a successful trip.

Awesome Kristian, glad you put that together. You guys had an epic trip! Well done!!

How many times did you set up that tent during the trip

Thanks, guys! We ended up camping 13 nights out of the trip, so a little more than half the time. We had a pretty good system for setting up and breaking camp by the end of the trip.

Ah, and a Brittany awaiting your return! Great dogs, I miss my Buddy Smedley every day.

MTV

Terry I've been watching your trip from the start congratulations on a trip of a life time, I'm pinching myself also. Trips like that seem to take along time to get started and come to an end way too soon. Glad you'll be smiling the rest of your life. What a great crew you had along. Great video too.
Russ

Fantastic video O-180! It really captured the spirit of the trip. What a blessing to share that experience with your family, well done sir!

Great video! Love your funny kids...

As CapnMile said, "What an amazing trip! Your kids are going to be talking about that for the rest of their lives - that's an incredible gift you've given them!"

What a way to spend a family vacation!

Thanks for dragging us along.

Hey Kristian,

I finally got to read all of this thread and between it and spending the day yesterday at Lake Hood, I've really got the itch to make this trip. We have actually been talking about it for a while. We are at a point where if we are going to do it, we've got about a 2 year window where it will work. This because I have the ability it get the time off and can absorb the cost. I want to get your thoughts on a few things.

First, how old are your kids? Would you not recommend doing it if they were younger? I think it would be more ideal for my kids to be a few years older (they will be 3.5, 5.5, and 8 next summer), and that they would get more out of the trip, but like I mentioned, we have a window of opportunity of about two years. Of course, I'd like to make the trip again further down the road, but it will be a while before I'd be able to get the time off needed.

Second, what do you figure the trip ran you. PM that info if you would like, but I'd like to get a rough idea of what we'd need to budget.

The prospect of making the trip seems pretty daunting, but I guess planning one leg at a time makes it more digestible. Really loved reading about your trip and am excited to make our own.

Thanks,
Cory

Man, trip of a lifetime! Denali looks AMAZING! Well done.

Thanks guys!

Cory: Definitely go for it! We were thinking about you guys during the trip. This was an amazing trip for our whole family, and the kids are still talking about it every day. There's no doubt that this will be a trip I'll remember for the rest of my life. As they say in the Mastercard ad: Priceless.

Our kids are 13 and 6 years old. For us, this year seemed like the perfect time since our son is old enough to really get a lot out of it, yet our daughter is still young enough to be excited to spend 3 weeks in a tent with mom and dad! We also planned this trip about two years in advance to get the time off.

I'd say go whenever you can get a long enough stretch off from work. It was definitely nice having three weeks, and we used every second of it.

We had several days right at the start of our trip that were WX no-goes, and later there was some really bad weather through the Yukon that kept us in interior BC for several days. Having as much time as we had, we could make lemonade out of those weather lemons and got to explore some places we probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. Monkman Provincial Park, etc. Hanging out at the airport staring at weather on the iPad is no fun for the kids. Having enough of a time buffer allowed me to just relax and enjoy the place we were at instead of stressing about making headway.

The trip can seem a little daunting at times. The biggest factors for me were weather (obviously), not being familiar with the terrain, and the distance between fuel options. I'm a planner/preparer, so I like to know what's ahead. The way up was a lot more challenging for me, partly because the weather was iffy, but also due to the fact that it was my first time through. On the way back, I knew the terrain and had a better handle on how the local weather behaved, so even if we had some weather I felt a lot more confident. The kids and I actually made it back from McCarthy to southern Oregon in 4 days without any drama.

Alaskan Flight Service is totally awesome! Being able to walk into an actual FSS and talk to a real human being who actually knows the local area makes you realize how much we've lost here in the lower 48.

Cost-wise -- I'll have to get back to you once I do the final accounting. Most of the cost was fuel, of course. Not much you can do about that. We camped more than half of the time (13 nights) which saved a lot of money. Hotels are expensive up north! We also made our own food as much as possible, which saved a lot. We tried to be scrappy: borrowing a bicycle to get to a (much) cheaper rental car place in Fairbanks, for instance.

We didn't have a single mechanical issue on the entire trip! Pretty amazing. I carried a bunch of spare parts, tools, pump, tubes, etc. but didn't need to use any of it. Not bad for a 55 year-old airplane!

Everyone had their own backpack with their clothes, gear, sleeping bag and pad, etc. This way we could fairly easily get from the airplane to a camp site without having to make lots of trips. The only downside to this arrangement was that backpacks don't pack very well in a plane. All those straps get caught on things, etc. A better arrangement might be some sort of light duffel bags with carrying straps, but the basic idea was good.

For cooking, we used a Firebox wood burning camp stove. This way we had an endless supply of fuel and didn't have to bring a bunch of stove fuel, worry about it running out, etc. (We did carry a backup MSR micro rocket.) I've converted to using the Firebox for backpacking as well if I'm out for more than one night. It's heavier than my MSR stove, but you don't carry any fuel.

Finally, I have to say again that the BCP community was incredible on this trip! Having the Delorme along with this thread helped us meet so many people we probably wouldn't otherwise have met: "Lurker" Larry in Fairbanks, Dieter and Karen in Fort St. John, Gordon and Vicky in Quesnel, TyredWagon who called us up on the radio as we passed each other between Whitehorse and Watson Lake and many others. Some we sadly just missed: Nizina, A1Skinner. Next time!

Thanks again, everyone!

Thanks for the input Kristian! I've been giving this a lot of thought lately. In two years the kids will be 9, 7, and 5. That might be the time to do it. This summer I was able to take a month off, so I'm to the point I can swing the time. Once I upgrade, it will be much harder to get that kind of time off. Thus the window I spoke of. I'll definitely be picking your brain more in the future.

Yeah we went try to travel the same way. Your insight into the dos and don'ts will be invaluable. Good idea on the firebox. I think Dee just got one of those. We've yet to play with it. We went to duffle bags a few years ago because they were easier to pack in the plan, so that is good to hear.

Yeah we have lost a lot in the FSS area. Glad to hear it's still that kind of asset there.

Thanks again! What a great trip!

Awesome trip! I see that you didn't have 12" N-numbers, they are only required if you cross an ADIZ, right? And no ADIZ on either end of the interior BC route from what I can see?

I ask, because I have 8" numbers, and was told I would need to stick on 12" ers.

bushpilot490 wrote:Awesome trip! I see that you didn't have 12" N-numbers, they are only required if you cross an ADIZ, right? And no ADIZ on either end of the interior BC route from what I can see?

I ask, because I have 8" numbers, and was told I would need to stick on 12" ers.

No need for big numbers as long as you don't cross an ADIZ. No ADIZ over land between the US and Canada, so you're good! Have a great trip!

Here's an ADIZ map:

Thanks!