Backcountry Pilot

Serendipity in Talkeetna

What to do with a Piper Pacer in 12 weeks?

"We've got to get out of here, Allison. We have the entire state of Alaska at our disposal and all we're doing is hitting the same stretches of river for the same fish every weekend, drinking the same beer, and eating the same Talkeetna pizza. Man, I wish we had an airplane up here!"

It wasn't even two days later that a good friend of mine, Leighan Falley, approached me while we were both fueling up our respective Beavers on the Talkeetna Air Taxi ramp. "Hey Marco! You know my partner in 7756D is thinking about selling his share of it? Think you might know anybody who would want a half share in a pretty, capable little pacer?"

I honestly couldn't believe what she had just said. What were the chances of an airplane that was parked right around the corner from my house coming up for sale? Not only was it here in Talkeetna, but it was well maintained by the amazing mechanics at Talkeetna Air Taxi. On top of that, it had had a rich history, with a series of our company pilots owning, flying, and modifying the living daylights out of it over the past ten years. It was a perfect situation.

All of this flashed through my mind in about three seconds, and I asked Leighan if she'd told anyone else about this yet. When she replied that she hadn't, I knew this was my perfect opportunity, and suggested she keep it that way. Thus, the Great Pacer Adventure of Summer 2015 started.

For the past two summers I've had the incredible opportunity to fly Beavers on skis (and occasionally 185's) for Talkeetna Air Taxi. It's a job that I was somewhat thrown into by, through a mixture of complete chance and luck, after spending one summer as a full time guide for Bristol Bay Lodge.

My first season in Talkeetna was nothing short of amazing. After getting checked out on skis and in our specific glacier operations, I spent the weekdays of my summer flying our flashy red, white, and blue Beavers all over the Alaska Range. Our normal missions included ferrying supplies, and taking climbers and visiting photographers in and out of the base camps and landing zones we have established in the upper glaciers of the Denali National Park.

Parked at the Pika Glacier; the daily grind, taking the Beavers into the many landing zones in the Alaska Mountain Range. But it was on the weekends that I was particularly lucky. Another pilot, a good friend of mine who also worked at T.A.T., had a beautiful 150hp Cub that he let me borrow anytime, with only a couple days' notice. This spoiled me rotten.

Unfortunately, due to maintenance, insurance, and miscellaneous cost reasons, I wasn't able to take advantage of our favorite Cub on the weekends during my second summer working in Talkeetna. This left me, my girlfriend Allison, and our dog Merlin, either stuck in town during our days off or backpacking some of the closer overnight trails. I can't complain about that at all, but we certainly missed our fly-out destination camping trips.

North end Cheltana Lake in July with Cub 7MY, our friend Alex’s PA-18 that he let us fly during our first summer in Talkeetna.

So as soon as Leighan mentioned part of her Pacer may be available for purchase, I started making phone calls. Some went to old friends, and others went to people who may have wanted to buy some material item that I could offer them for sale. I don't want to go into details here, but let's just say I scraped up the funds to buy a half of this Pacer, in a manner that only a desperate 23 year old with visions of being the greatest bush pilot of all time could accomplish. A week later, Pacer N7756D had a new part owner, and I was stoked.

The aircraft

7756D is a surprisingly well-performing Pacer. It's actually a 150hp PA-22 that was converted back to a tailwheel configuration. Its original owner in Alaska was also a Talkeetna Air Taxi pilot. He purchased the airframe as a Tri-Pacer, and flew it up to Talkeetna where he and some of the T.A.T. mechanics started tearing it apart. They converted it back to conventional gear, put droop tips on the wings, added 31" Alaskan Bushwheels with a Baby Bushwheel on the tail, added VGs, and then went to town on the interior. They made a new synthetic removable sling seat to replace the rear passenger seat, scrapped any unnecessary panels, removed carpet and most of the aesthetically pleasing items that came with a new airplane in the 1950s. All in all, the Pacer was reborn a PA-20/22 that was actually just over 100 pounds lighter than it was out of the factory, even with the big tires. So despite still having the short wings and the smaller of the two engine options, it can hold a ton.

After the original owner left Talkeetna Air Taxi, he sold the Pacer to two other pilots who fly for T.A.T., and one of those pilots then sold it to me. So it's actually been in the T.A.T. family for quite some time, and we aim to keep it that way!

Piper Pacer 7756D in all her glory, parked on an undisclosed sandbar near the drainage of Lake Chackachamna.

Mission #1: Chelatna Lake

The first journey we went on was an overnight trip to Chelatna Lake. We had been there before, during the previous summer when our friend's Cub was on floats, so it was semi-familiar terrain. It isn't too far west of our usual operating area in the Alaska Range, and it's also quite accessible if anything were to go wrong. Only about a 40 minute flight from Talkeetna, Chelatna Lake has a well maintained state strip on the south end of the lake, just about a mile upstream of the mouth of Lake Creek. Contrary to popular belief, Chelatna Lake Lodge does not own the entirety of the strip, so if you land on it, just park on the southwestern end of the strip and you're on public land. It comes complete with a classic pebble beach and phenomenal view looking northwest at the snow-capped mountains sandwiched between the Kahiltna and Yentna glaciers.

The northerly view of Chelatna lake from the Pacer while on final approach into the state airstrip.

The strip is only a few minutes of paddling to the mouth of Lake Creek if you're able to bring a collapsible kayak or Porta-Boat with you, and it can also be accessed by walking if you've got the "wader-up" attitude that most of us do. Being near the bottom of the Yenta/Kahiltna glaciers there is generally a decent down glacier wind that extends just far enough to keep the bugs down. Normally one would expect the muskeg areas of lake drainages to be simply infested, but we never had issues. The Chelatna State strip was the first real unimproved strip that I had had the chance to operate out of with the Pacer, so I took it for a few laps around the pattern to get used to the tires and the handling of the plane off airport. The Pacer was pretty light, but I was still astounded by the performance. I honestly felt comfortable expecting to get off the ground in less than 400 feet, and I could get it stopped in less than 300 when I did everything just right. Things were really looking up, and I was anxious to go play around with this new STOL machine and see what it could do.

Parked at the public use end of the Chelatna state airtrip, where there is plenty of room for multiple planes and supplies.

Mission #2: Knik playground

The next outing we went on came at the right time. Two of our best friends, Travis and Derek Sherman, came up to visit from back home in Florida. They were first time Alaska visitors, and came up to strictly fly with us at T.A.T. and get some backcountry/mountain/off airport flight time. Naturally, we loaded up the Pacer with fuel, and Travis, Ali and I piled in with our gear and dog. The remaining stuff, plus Derek, went into the back of Bobby Breeden's infamous black Glacier Cub, and off we went as a flight of two through the Talkeetna Mountains on our way to Knik. I know most of you have probably been to, or at least already heard of, the mythical playground known as Knik, but this was my first time there. You can imagine my excitement, as well as that of my two Floridian friends, to hit every gravel bar and strip possible, and find the best one to camp on and drink some beer. Unknown to us however, was the fact that three more of our friends would be surprising us when we got there. We actually ended up having a small fly-in of Talkeetna-ites at the "Mud Strip" on the dry side of the Lake George moraine.

Where the Breeden Glacier Cub goes, the Pacer goes too; hanging out at the Knik/Lake George mud strip with friends from Talkeetna airport and Florida. The Knik gang: Me and Ali, Merlin the dog, Bobby Breeden, and the Sherman brothers. The Knik valley is truly amazing, and despite having a lineup of aircraft ranging from a stock Champ with stock tires, all the way up to the Breeden's Glacier Cub, there was a landing zone for everyone. Another incredibly accessible area, very close to Palmer and within an hour's flight from both Talkeetna and Anchorage, the Knik area really is a playground that enabled us to test the Pacer's abilities. Again, I was impressed with the Pacer, as we went in and out of the 800 foot "Mud Strip" with no worries while fully loaded right at gross, with enough fuel to make it to Palmer at all times.

Fresh calving off the Colony Glacier created some incredible iceberg flows this summer, viewed on Lake George in the Knik River basin. It gave me and Ali the confidence in the plane to become more adventurous and start going off strip with it more often, and we began to venture farther from home to destinations I had only dreamed of visiting. It was perfect timing, as we only had 10 weeks left in the summer.

Sunset at the "Mud Strip" below the Lake George Morain after a day of landing on every possible gravel bar and strip in the Knik Basin.

The next step was to get my Floridian friends back down to Anchorage, so that they could head home. To do this, I flew into Lake Hood and dropped them off at Ted Stevens' place. Bobby Breeden was in the area, along with his Cub, so he and I decided to spend the rest of the weekend flying around near his base of operations in the Soldotna area. Only days earlier, I had actually had a 48 hour long period of blizzard and white out conditions while stuck at the Kahiltna Base camp in one of Talkeetna Air Taxi's Beavers.

The only downside to working in the Alaska Range every day... Eventually you'll get snowed in at the Kahiltna Basecamp.

Mission #3: Kenai peninsula and Prince William Sound

Needless to say, I'd had enough of ice and glacial sub-zero temperatures to last me for at least a few days, so a Pacer filled weekend gallivanting around the Kenai and Southwestern Alaska Range sounded perfect. To start, we flew the Pacer and Cub as a flight of two across Turnagin Arm, down to Bobby's house in Sterling to spend the night, where they have a beautiful gravel strip. The next morning, after coffee and working on engines for a few hours, we took off and headed towards the High Vista ridges on the northern side of the Kenai Peninsula, in an attempt to look for beaches with a low enough tide line to land on. We found quite a few, and made some memorable landings and departures off of the beautiful pebble beaches, with the cliffs on one side and the Cook Inlet on the other.

The High Vista beaches; using the Pacer to follow Bobby Breeden in his Glacier Cub on a central Alaska flying safari to see where the Pacer can really go.

From High Vista we took off again, this time as a flight of three, as the second Breeden cub had come out to meet us. In the two Cubs and 7756D, we crossed the Cook Inlet and headed towards one of the most spectacular places I've ever been, Lake Chakachamna. There are not many places that any airplane can get into on the lake, unless you're on floats of course. There is one large alluvial fan on the valley side of the lake, but as with most fans or river deltas, there is no certain guarantee that you can find a good line to land on. Everything from logs, branches, ice, ditches, and berms can litter them, making finding a landing zone greater than 300 feet a real challenge. Due to this, we decided to plan on landing on some of the sandbars in the many rivers that lead uphill into the southwestern Alaska Range, just in case we couldn't find an appropriate LZ at Chakachamna when we got there.

Once we got to Chakachamna though, after about 20 minutes of searching for a good line, we found a solid 300 foot area that, although it was sloped and rocky, would do well for the Pacer. I was light, and the wind was right down the line, so it ended up working out great. If you can make your way to this particular fan, it's absolutely worth it. You need big tires and a good eye, but it's doable to find a good enough LZ, just depending on the season's drainage and debris movement.

The Pacer after landing on the Alluvial fan near the drainage side of Lake Chackachamna. Well worth going for if this part of the fan is still landable. Lots of debris, but there are a few good lines.

The route. Click to expand.After getting home from Chakachamna, I had the utmost confidence in the Pacer. I was absolutely convinced (and still am) that with these mods, it is the most capable bush plane you can get for the money. It's cheap, fuel efficient, faster than most in cruise, and when flown properly can still get you in and out of most strips and LZ's, even with four people on board. I absolutely loved it.

Next, it was time to venture out alone. Ali and I had always wanted to see the Prince William Sound, but we'd been apprehensive to do it without floats, so we waited until we had a perfect weather forecast lined up. We decided to plan a several hundred mile cross country trip from Talkeetna to Seward, onto Cordova with a stopover of one night camping on Hinchinbrook Island, and then from Cordova back to Talkeetna via Whittier. We got lucky, and it was one of those rare weekends when there wasn't a single cloud in the sky across the entirety of South Central Alaska, Prince William Sound included.

After making it to Seward nonstop, we spent the night with friends and enjoyed some of the finest beer selections Seward has to offer. The next day, we fueled up the wing tanks and 3 extra fuel bags, and took off heading east over the Ellsworth Glacier and Ice Field. We stayed high, as some of the tallest points in the ice field are about 6500ft, and this also kept us within gliding distance of some of the beaches surrounding the many islands in the sound during low tide.

After departure from Seward; Montague Island 6,500 feet beneath us, flying eastbound towards Hinchinbrook island.

Once we passed Chenega Bay, it was a simple matter of following the Gulf Coast of Montague Island (which looked like it could have many land-able beaches during the right tides) to the northeast, towards the Johnston Point VOR (which also has a WX cam to check on before you head there) and Hinchinbrook Island. On the Gulf of Alaska side of Hinchinbrook there are two perfect sand beaches that actually have good enough hard sand to land on, above the mean high tide line (even with 8x50's). So even at high tide, you can be completely dry with no worries of getting swamped by rising water, at least as long as there isn't any storm swell to contend with.

The first of two landable beaches on Hinchinbrook. This is at mid-outgoing tide, you can see all the dry sand that stays dry even during an ultra-high tide. It's soft, but easy to taxi through.

We camped on one of these beaches overnight, and we had happened to time it just right, so that we could see schools of pink salmon in the waves as the tide rose. We got a few on fly rods as they were holding in the surf, waiting for the tide to rise enough to get into the small rivers that flow off the island into the Gulf. It was a nice surprise that we weren't expecting.

Our camp setup on that first landable beach we found on Hinchinbrook Island. During July, even in this off year, there were plenty of Pink Salmon in the waves offshore to cast our fly rods at.From Hinchinbrook Island we took off the next morning, just before the usual sea fog rolled in from the Gulf, and continued about 20 minutes northeast to Cordova. If you haven't been to Cordova, go! It's the definition of a perfect Alaska town, and if you're in the mood for a $100 hamburger kind of day, you should eat at Baja Taco. It's an old school bus that they built a restaurant around, and they have epic Halibut and rockfish tacos.

From Cordova back to Talkeetna was a long flight to non-stop, but we did it. In the process we covered territory that defines the Prince William Sound. It's beautiful, filled with good LZ's for most of the trip, and completely satisfied my longing for flying the coastline. It was at this point that I realized I was fully in love with our Pacer. August came around a lot faster than I expected, as it always does. One just can't seem to hang on to Summer long enough in Alaska, but as the days got shorter, cooler, and the Aurora started making appearances every now and then, it had me itching for one last big weekend trip before I had to head back south for the winter. My girlfriend Ali had already departed to head back to school and my friend Andrew was beginning his month and a half long journey backpacking and hitchhiking around AK, so we decided to meet up in Talkeetna and go somewhere Andrew couldn't reach on foot alone. We were stuck between the Wrangells or Lake Clark National park and the Twin Lakes region- From hearing reports we were told the Twin Lakes region was tough without floats, just not many suitable places to find multiple LZ's so we decided to head for the Wrangells on a three day cruise.

Mission #4: The Wrangells

Arrival into the Wrangell-St. Elias in the Pacer-- upstream on the Nizina River to find the Peavine strip and cabins.

We packed up everything we could fit into the Pacer: Full fuel plus four fuel bags, backpacking gear, cold weather gear, and enough whiskey to keep us occupied while not flying. We of course planned on landing at every possible strip we could find, just to say we did it, and hopefully one of the famous Park Service cabins would be open and available. The first night we landed and camped at the Nizina Glacier Strip.

Our camp on the Nizina glacier strip; even in early August the colors had started to change, especially this close to the glacier.

It was perfect, a cold down-glacier wind was blowing right down the strip, and all the leaves were changing colors already, especially the ones closer to the lake and the glacier itself. From there we packed up and were able to find an open cabin at the Peavine Gravel Bar Strip, where we unloaded all of our non-essential gear at the cabin and then took off again to land at Jakes Bar, Wolverine, Glacier Creek, and back again to Peavine for the night.

Just before takeoff at the Peavine strip; the condition of the runway is great, the cabins and park0-provided amenities are even better.

At Wolverine we encountered the only problem I have ever had in the Pacer, when the trim cable jumped off the wheel on the elevator side of the system right after takeoff. It was the product of having a kink in the line and really bad timing, but luckily it was stuck in a barely nose down position, close enough to neutral that it ended up not being a big deal, minus having to fly back to Talkeetna for four hours with no trim. Loading of the plane all of a sudden became very important for the trip home...

Exploring all the designated LZs that the park service has published in the Wrangells. This is at "Wolverine Strip" which is actually a saddle on the edge of a 5,000' ridgeline, so if you go, go light. There were more mountain goats on these ridges than I've ever seen before.

Things always get busy in Talkeetna during the end of the season. Lots of last minute vacationers come in and want to see Mt. McKinley before it gets too rainy, so not many of us had as much time to depart for weekends. Rather, it became time to hit all the "secret spots" and all of the LZ's that we find while flying the Beavers for work. The ones that we see and say, "Hey that'd be a cool spot to take the Pacer/Cub/Champ/someone else's airplane" kind of spots. After having flown the Pacer for the whole summer, I was ready to just plain test it. Once the trim was all fixed, it was time to stay lightweight and get slow and tight. There are literally hundreds of stunning LZ's all throughout the Denali National Park, specifically on the Talkeetna side.

One of the secret Talkeetna Air Taxi spots that we found in Denali National Park; Kanikula Glacier below us on the right and the Tokositna Glacier below us on the left.

Of course we'd all been flying over them every day looking at every ridge line, saddle, bench, and abandoned mining camp all summer long. Now it was hot enough for most of the snow to be melted off the lower portions of the mountains, exposing these spots for what they really are, which is land-able. All that was left to do was gather a gaggle of Cubs and Pacers and try to hit them all.

Another saddle in the Talkeetna side of Denali National Park. We had all been wondering if we could land there, so Alex, Leighan, and I brought the Pacer and a few Cubs in-- no worries at the end of the season. Unfortunately, I can't give out any latitudes and longitudes, because these spots are a bit of a company secret, but I can certainly share the photos with you. They're all absolutely gorgeous spots, and have proven to be a lot of fun. If you can find them, go for it! All in all, the Piper Pacer has proven to be a venerable little member of the family. It's an exceptional aircraft, and I've completely fallen in love with it. By chance I came to own it, and piloting it has taught me more about flying than any other experience I've ever had. So next time you're at the Valdez competition, or some other backcountry strip, and you see a Pacer there with you, give it a look over. They're pretty cool planes, and they can take you anywhere you want to go!

All photos ©2016 BackcountryPilot.org/Michael Marco