I've been wanting to take a trip to Alaska for some time now, but I've been torn between taking a cruise, and flying my own plane there. This year, I decided to do both. My plan: fly the Cessna up to Alaska, and spend a week seeing as much of the state as I can, then take a seven-day cruise to Vancouver, and have another pilot fly my plane from Anchorage to Vancouver and have it waiting for me when I got off the cruise ship.

As nutty as that sounds, I found a pilot on another forum who was willing to do the tag-team flying. He had flown a Cessna 172S like mine to Alaska once before and had frequent flyer miles to get him to Anchorage. The trip worked out great for both of us and I'll share some photos here. You can access higher-resolution images by following the link to my Flickr album.

03-alaskaroute by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
My girlfriend and I left San Francisco on June 3 and cleared customs in Boundary Bay. Here's the route we followed to Anchorage. SkyVector proved to be very useful for trip planning.

03-shasta by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
Great view of Mt. Shasta on the way north.

04-yolkmount by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
I used FltPlan Go on my iPad Mini in Canada. The yoke mount came in handy.

03-boundarybayapproach by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
Approach to Boundary Bay. Clearing customs was very easy here. All the rental cars were booked here so the FBO let us take the crew car.

03-vancouvereagle by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
A bald eagle greeted us on arrival.

After visiting downtown Vancouver, we departed on the 4th for Quesnel. There was a scattered to broken layer most of the way but I was able to fly the whole route VFR without sacrificing viewing opportunities.

04-BCrockies by jcavuoto2000, on FlickrAmazing view of the Canadian Rockies.

04-brokenlayer by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
We stayed on top on this segment.

04-quesnelairport by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
Plenty of pilots camped on the field at Quesnel. We took a taxi into town and had a great dinner.

We covered a lot of ground on the 5th, with stops in Mackenzie and Watson Lake on the way to Whitehorse. I was eager to make my way to Alaska and take advantage of the good weather, but in retrospect the three legs were a little rough on the gf. She was good for one or two legs of 2 1/2 to 3 hours max. We probably should have stayed in Watson Lake but there weren't as many options there as in Whitehorse.

05-mackenzieapproach by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
Mackenzie was a great fuel stop before heading up the trench. The nice woman at Trench Aviation made us a sandwich before we headed out.

05-trenchshore by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
We had nice weather on the way up the trench.

05-watsonlakeapproach by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
We made a quick fuel stop at Watson Lake.

05-windyriver by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
Interesting features on the way to Whitehorse.

05-alcan by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
The AlCan highway was a great navigation aid on the way to Whitehorse.

The next morning, we left Whitehorse for Fairbanks. Though we were both eager to get to Alaska we agreed it would be worth a slight diversion to see a glacier that John, my tag-team pilot, had recommended. We were glad we did but the diversion and some headwinds made the three-hour flight more like four and I was now deeper in the doghouse after the previous day's three-leg jaunt.

06-whitehorsedeparture by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
Whitehorse departure

06-nearmtlogan by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
Stunning terrain in the Yukon on the way to the Kaskawulsh glacier.

06-kaskawulshglacier by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
When we got to the glacier I was tempted to continue flying but it seemed like no-man's land here.

06-fairbanksfinal by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
We cleared customs in Fairbanks and checked into a hotel near the airport.

We rented a car in Fairbanks and had a nice dinner at Pikes after checking out the ice museum downtown. The next morning, we checked out of the hotel, eager to take advantage of what looked like great weather on the way to Denali.


Unfortunately, the perfect weather didn't last long enough and by the time the mountain was in view, the peak was occluded.


By now the clouds were starting to get lower and so I cut short my flight around the mountain so we could land at the gravel strip in the park.


We were the only plane on the "ramp" at McKinley strip. We grabbed our tent and some minimal camping supplies and foolishly hiked a mile or so to the campground in the park. I say foolishly because had we just crossed the train tracks we could have gotten on the free shuttle bus to the campground. Oh well.


The green mosquito zapper on the table worked pretty well but I should have paid a little more for the moose repellent version.


We saw this guy from the comfort of one of the tour buses.

After a chilly night in the tent, we did a zipline tour of Denali then packed up and caught the free bus to the airstrip. My turn coordinator crapped out on the flight to Denali so not only did this rule out IFR flight, but I lost my autopilot too. Fortunately, my girlfriend was getting more adept at using the Nikon and 300 mm lens from the right seat. I had cell service in the park and after a few calls, was able to locate an avionics shop at Merrill who had a replacement part. Since I would be handing over the plane to John the next day, I didn't want to leave him with a less than ideal airplane.

08-takeoffroll by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
It was mid 70s in the park when we departed so our takeoff roll wasn't quite as spritely as it had been the previous day.

08-ruthglacier by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
We got a nice shot of Ruth Glacier leaving the park.

08-AKstreams by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
Interesting streams on the way to Talkeetna.


Approach to Merrill.

We rented a car in Anchorage and checked into the Coast Hotel near Ted Stevens. We had a nice dinner at Sullivans and even caught a bit of game 4 of the NBA finals. The next day, I drove to Merrill and met with the avionics guy, who replaced the turn coordinator on the spot. Then I went to pick up John and his daughter, who had arrived via commercial flight the night before. I know a lot of plane owners would have been hesitant to turn over the keys to a pilot they had never met, but we had established a good rapport over the phone. I handed him the documents he might need, including a notarized letter authorizing him to pilot the plane into Canada and a copy of the insurance policy.


John and his daughter take over the plane.


We spent a couple nights in Anchorage before boarding the Alaska Railroad for Whittier, where we picked up our cruise ship. The cruise was excellent and a stark change from the previous seven days. It was nice not having to worry about weather, flight planning, lodging, or what I could drink.


We did a whale-watching tour in Juneau.

The next day we were in port at Ketchikan, and I met John for a drink there. He got stuck an extra day or two there waiting for weather on the coast, but finally made it to Victoria the day before our ship got to Vancouver.

After seven wonderful nights at sea on the Star Princess, the ship pulled into port in Vancouver on June 17. I caught the ferry to Victoria, then grabbed a taxi to Victoria Flying Club, where John had parked the plane. I cleared customs in Friday Harbor, then flew back to San Francisco that night.

17-ferrytovictoria by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
On the ferry to Victoria.

17-craterlake by jcavuoto2000, on Flickr
Just happened to fly over Crater Lake on the way back to SF.

All in all it was an amazing two weeks of air, land, and sea travel to Alaska. I'm glad we did the flying portion first because after seven days of great food on the cruise ship, our useful load would have been much less had we cruised first. Still, it was obvious that we had just scratched the surface and there's a whole lot more to see on my next trip.

Excellent TR! Sounds like a really great trip, thanks for sharing!

What would you do differently next time?

Thanks for the feedback. I guess the only thing I might have done differently is maybe spend another day on the ground in BC or Alaska on the way to Anchorage. But I didn't want to risk getting stuck somewhere waiting for weather so I pushed the schedule a bit.

Excellent TR

Will probably go back and read it slower.
Thanks a bunch

Chris C