Glad you made it home safe!

Thank you so much for sharing your adventure with us - you've documented so well I thought I was there with you. I'm probably not the only one who looked forward to "internet time" each day to see what you guys had done each day. I'm a little sad that you're back home and my vicarious vacation is over, haha.

You've set a great example of how to have adventure and family, thank you!

Thanks Cam! I'm sad to be home too. It's taken three days to somewhat assimilate back to the real world.


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Zzz wrote:

Cary wrote:“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

I did one of those laugh-then-cry things. This person was clearly not owning babies or toddlers. I will give you guys credit though; I've seen you pack all those kids around for years and been amazed. I'm trying to figure how it's got us so paralyzed.

When Wife 1 and I were pregnant with No. 1 Son, we vowed that having a kid wasn't going to change the way we lived our lives. WRONG! The naivete of our inexperience really knocked us over. But slowly, we adjusted so that although he changed our lives, we could still do many of the same things we had done before, just differently. For instance, we never realized how much paraphernalia it takes to haul a kid around in a car--our new 65 VW Beetle suddenly had no room for our stuff, because we needed his stuff. Our weekend trips to see Gramma and Grampa over the hill in Cheyenne looked more like the Clampetts moving to California.

But soon we learned--we didn't really need everything. Our first "test" of our new found ability to get along without came when he was 4 months old, my Gramma died in Cleveland, and we had to go there for her funeral. We learned to heat baby bottles and baby food by putting them in front of the heater outlets under the back seat (we also learned that putting cold glass baby food jars there, when the infamous VW heater is working its hardest in winter weather, will crack them!). We learned the value of disposable diapers (up until that trip, we used cloth).

With a successful albeit sad trip under our belts, we started camping the next summer, when he was 8 months old. We borrowed a big tent, then tried a tent trailer (way too much effort for the VW to pull through the Rockies), then went back to the tent. Once we borrowed Wife 1's folks' travel trailer and station wagon--the gas cost of running the big Pontiac engine shocked us on a law student's budget, even at 50 cents a gallon!

After I was on active duty for awhile, No. 2 Son was born. Meanwhile, we decided that we could afford a motorhome, and starting in January 1970, that became our modus operendi for camping for the next umpty-ump years (finally got rid of it just a month ago!). We went camping almost every weekend, and our first really big trip in it was when suddenly I was transferred to Alaska--driving the Alaska Highway. We continued to camp almost every weekend throughout our 3 years there. It was during the last 6 months there that I learned to fly, and we took some short family hops by airplane around the Anchorage area.

After I left the USAF in May 73, we continued to camp in the motorhome, of course, but I was more and more anxious to use my new found "skills" (such as they were as a rank newbie) to fly the family here and there. Our first such trip found us stuffing the 4 of us into a 172 for a trip to Sundance, WY, to visit my folks--and gave me a taste of what it was like to land on a really short and narrow airstrip, on Lee Schloredt's ranch just outside of town. I'd landed many times at Goose Bay, across the Knik Arm from Elmendorf, but it was huge by comparison--3000' x 75' instead of only 2100' x 20',and at 78' MSL instead of 5000' MSL! Over the next few years, I landed everything from the ubiquitous 172 to our partnered 182, TR182, and T210, and my friend's 231 on that little airstrip. And over the next few years, I flew the family for our longer vacations, back to the family compound on the Lake east of Cleveland, landing at Concord Air Park near Painesville. "Family" included the 4 of us, 65 lb. dog, and parakeet (by the time we bought the 182, the kids were 9 and 5, and now we looked like the Clampetts again, only in an airplane).

So it can be done--it's just a matter of doing it. Like all adventures, doing what Cory and family have just done takes mostly the will to do it, a cooperative family willing to do it, and then taking those first steps. Every journey begins with the first steps.

Cary

Sorry you missed Atlin, but maybe next trip we'll see you. Seems a pretty grand adventure you have had.

Cheers,
Greg

Cavemsn

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I didn't get as much footage as I thought I would. I knew there would be bugs, but bugs like rain at 2,000'! Needless to say, it made an external mounted camera a mess pretty quickly. But, I did manage to get some. Here are some videos of some of the scenery we saw and places we landed.



The beaches we went to so we could see some grizzlies.


Takeoff from McKinley Park strip at 9pm.


Landing and taking off from Barnstormer's 1,400' strip. Really cool place that can get some funky winds on short final. For my plane, a one way strip.


Taking off from Tsay Key in the trench after a stop to let Allen and Stan feed themselves and their plane. It was a beautiful spot and a good leg stretch break.



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Thank you for uploading pictures and comments throughout your trip. A special "Thank you" for taking the time to edit and post videos too. GREAT trip report!

Thanks Ted. I'm trying to get it all done before I have to go back to work and life gets too busy...and then it ends up being months after the fact that I get anything posted!


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Yes really enjoyed the whole thread and appreciate your effort!!!!

This has been so very enjoyable to follow!

Cary

Thank you Cory for taking the time to share your wonderful adventure with us.

Kurt

Nice work on the videos. Enjoyed having you guys base out of my place for a while. Alaska is an epic place to be sure. Great that you planted the travel seed in your kids. Sorry about the whole going back to work thing.

Thanks guys. And again, thanks Phil. It was great to meet you and hang out for a few days. Yeah, next week that first day back to work is going to be a rude awakening.


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Warning! A really long post. If you're tired of hearing from me or not interested in making the trip, you can skip this. But, if you're thinking of making the trip yourself, I hope this will be of some help to you.

Trip Wrap Up

When I started this thread, the intent was to give small updates and use it not only for a point for people to follow us, but to coordinate meeting up too. Well, it quickly became clear that 1) if I didn't make notes of what we were doing there would be no way I could remember and 2) that doing a trip report afterwards was going to be a big task, so I decided to do it as I went. I'm glad I did. It was, as others have said, an epic trip. It's a little sad and surreal sitting here at home with it now in the rear view mirror knowing that we pulled it off with very few hitches. Again, we are so grateful for the gracious people that we met along the way that really pushed this trip over the top. Meeting them in itself was a huge highlight to this trip. There were also so many offers of help or just to stop by that we didn't get to take advantage of, and I'm thankful for those too. So thanks again.

So here are some thoughts on the trip. I share these hoping that it will be of some help for someone else making the trip.

Customs:

This was new to all of us, so we spent a bit of time thinking and asking questions about this. All of our crossings went very smoothly. The only catch we had was Northway couldn't find my eApis filing even though I had two confirmations after they told me to file again. About the third time I talked to the same lady, we were starting to get chummy and she said, "Hold on...(talking to someone else on her end) Can he come in? (Back to me) Come on in! We will see you at 11am!" Not a word was mentioned when we cleared in Northway. The guy was very nice.

We had one funny thing happen. At Beaver Creek on our way to Alaska, we landed in the evening and set up camp. It was getting late so we were in a hurry to feed the kids. Dee even went over and used the customs bathroom. Pretty soon we had a RCMP guy showed up and told us we had to go check in and that we should have done it before we set up. We explained we hadn't just come from AK and he warmed up a bit. He said he'd go over and talk to them and if he didn't come back, then just the head of households needed to go over. Well, he left so Allen and I went over. They were just getting ready to come over when we got there. Ends up they thought we had come from AK and tried to use binoculars to read our tail numbers. Well, since there was no way they could see Allen's they tried reading mine and got it wrong, so when they called Canpass, they didn't have a number to match it. There was one guy there that you could tell was the anal retentive one in the office that was pushing it. So, when I gave them my tail number, they asked if I was sure about it. When I said yes, they called Canpass and were informed all was good. Kind of funny but that's the only bump we experienced. So, if you land in Beaver Creek as your last stop, it might be good to go say hi even though it's not required. On the way back through, the kids needed to use the restroom and Dee told them we were at the airport and they said that is was fine, they had been notified. Otherwise it was a phone call on both Canadian entries, even at places like Penticton where we expected to see an actual person.

I also took a shotgun. When I called to give notice to Canpass, they took the info on the gun and I paid her over the phone. She then gave me a confirmation number. Super simple. Then I provided it on the way back. Before I left, I did go to my local CBP office and got a form showing I own the firearm. Northway didn't care, but coming back to Dorthy Scott, they were happy when they heard I had it and didn't take any info when I called to notify them. When we arrived at Scott, he asked to see the form and the firearm and that was it. Simple and pleasant.

As we were told before leaving, watch out for the time zone change between Canada and Alaska. We planned for it but as we came back through Beaver Creek, there was a plane there and I overheard the guy on the phone lamenting about customs being closed and not being able to continue on.

We chose to use short stage lengths and it worked out perfectly. We were on time for each arrival.

As for radio license and station licenses. We went back and forth on this. I finally called Canada and they didn't even know what I was talking about. So we opted to save the money. Unless your a commercial flight, they don't care. We also were told that by a friend that ferries planes back and forth. She said she'd never been asked anything about it, so save your money and don't worry about it.

We used an app that was suggested on another thread called Flashpass. It was awesome! It's a pay app but you get a month for free with unlimited use. It worked flawlessly and was super simple. We never used the government site beyond setting up the account.

On the way up, we filed our flight plans via Foreflight. Shortly there after we got a call from Lockheed. Ends up Canada isn't set up to accept ICAO flight plans so he had to convert it to a domestic plan. So when you file, make sure to do a domestic plan. We landed at Scott and called FSS to open our flight plan. With no radar or RCO, they called it an assumed departure at our proposed time and gave us a discreet squawk, even though they wouldn't see us on radar but I guess the Canadians shortly would.

On the way back, we actually filed via Foreflight...a domestic flight plan this time...as we were about to enter the pass between Gulkana and Tok. We had planned on stopping at Northway and doing it in person, but our timing was looking good to just activate the flight plan as we flew over Northway, which we did. The nice FSS guy we talked to was the same guy we met two weeks earlier when we came through. They had snacks and drinks at the FSS which he offered again, but we had low ceilings and were on time for our scheduled arrival so we pushed on while we could. On the ground at Beaver Creek, we called as instructed and were told we were all set. We had good 3G at Beaver Creek with Verizon.

Gear:

I think we packed about perfectly for this trip. The only things we took that weren't used were the things you didn't want to have to use...like survival or emergency equipment. If I had anything to do over again, I would have gotten a new sleeping bag for Dee and me. Ours are a bit older and below 40 we got a little cold despite them being rated for much colder.

We had some real winners for gear. We wanted water proof foot gesr and ended up getting some Altra Neo Lone Peaks in a high top. Love them! Great traction and my feet were dry the whole time. I stepped into ankle deep marsh to get Tyler out when decided to jump off the helipad and my foot was completely dry.

Another continuing winner was our Coleman oven. Love that thing! Brownies in camp when it's raining was awesome. It really has broadened our camping menu.

Before the trip I grabbed a bunch of sleeping masks from my plane at work. They made the lack of darkness a non-issue.

I admittedly went overboard on mosquito gear. We never had to use the incense coils or bug jackets. I only used the citronella candle once and only used a little of one of the two bottles of Sawyer lotion I bought. We used most of one can of Saywer spray we bought. That stuff is great! It's not oily and once it's on, the bugs didn't bother us. I also treated our clothes with their product and it seemed to work well. Like I said, overkill but I didn't want bugs to be an issue. They ended up being almost a non-issue.

Lastly, I wanted good gear for everyone with regards to jackets. We went with the layered approach and bought the kids new Columbia fleeces and rain jackets. It was perfect when combined with the choice of short or long sleeved shirts. Everyone stayed nice and dry. Dee already had a Gortex shell. I bought myself a Marmot rain shell and Dee and I both took our Marmot down coats. It was a good mix.

Campgrounds:

We had some great camping spots on the trip, and some not so great. Here some info on each:

Coulee Dam - great spot! On the north side of the runway is a grass/dirt path leading down to the campground. Picnic tables, fire pits, wood, and by the water. It was a little buggy being by the water but not bad. The bathrooms are across the runway and they have a courtesy car to get into town. Every night during the summer they do a laser light show on the dam.

Quesnel, BC - another great spot! Nice campground with a covered area to cook in. There were grills (although we didn't use them) and potable water with a wash basin that could be hooked up to the hydrant to do dishes. Down at the pilot lounge, they had fast wifi and showers, as well as a microwave and fridge. We threw water bottles and water in a milk jug in the freezer so we could have more ice.

Watson Lake - an ok spot. I was actually a bit disappointed in it. There is a gazebo that could be handy if it rained. There was a hydrant that was probably potable water since there weren't any signs not to drink it. We filtered it anyway. The terminal is a pretty good walk away. The wifi in the terminal was pretty slow and the water isn't drinkable. One look in the sinks or toilet will tell you why. They are all stained from the lead in the water. Apparently the building, which is pretty nice, has the original lead pipes in it. The campground had two port-a-potties, but they hadn't been serviced in a long time and were covered inside and out by a ton of spiders...some pretty big ones! But, given the lack of other options, it makes sense to stay there. Plus there is reliable fuel.

Beaver Creek - Oddly enough, one of our favorites of the trip. You're sleeping on hard gravel and the only bathrooms are at the customs building over by the highway. But, the weather was perfect and it was beautiful. We had a really enjoyable evening throwing a frisbee and just enjoying it. When we pulled in to park, I noticed a post on the edge of the parking area and decided to go see what it was. An outlet! Yup, here is where we are parking! Ends up its a common thing you see up north: outlets at parking spots for plugging planes in. It was great for recharging all of our electronics! And, being 4 miles from the border with good 3G cell service, it was a great spot to set up our border crossing and to launch for Northway.

Fairbanks - Pretty much the crown jewel of big airport camping I've ever come across. The day we arrived it was 89 degrees, then it rained constantly and hard the next 48 hours. We dragged our tent under the cabana that had a wood burning stove, 4 picnic tables, and all the wood you could burn. It was an awesome place. It also had showers and good drinking water. We got rental cars from the airline side and used the courtesy bikes to retrieve them. It was a little sketchy riding over there, but doable. There is also a shower at the pilot facilities at the base of the tower. We had hardly unpacked when the airport manager came by to see how we were and if we needed anything. A really nice guy. The police and airport management make several sweeps a day through the campground which is nice. We also had one local pilot come by to say hi too. Even with the rain, it was an enjoyable place to stay. I'm surprised there isn't a comparable place on the Kenai. Luckily Barnstormer, AKgreg, and a friend from college took care of us while we based out of there.

Routes:

Planning for this trip, we really hoped to do the Trench up and the Cassiar route on the way back. Well, we got our wish. We got to meet the famous Vicki, whose first words out of her mouth were, "Do you want some ice cream?" Super nice lady. She really took care of us and the kids, especially with Tyler's little mishap. She advised us to not land at Fort Ware and said that Tsay Keh would be better for a leg stretch and for Allen and Stan to throw in some fuel. The trench was pretty cool and we had great weather and a tailwind going up. A lot of beautiful, remote country but with several places to land if needed.

The Cassiar coming back was at first questionable due to some weather pushing over the coastal range, but it cooperated and we had a beautiful flight down. That stretch from Whitehorse to Deese Lake was beautiful, as well as the stretch from Deese Lake to Smithers. Of the two, this route was our most favorite as far as scenery goes. That first stretch to Deese is pretty remote though with not a lot of places to set down if you're not on floats! We missed the Atlin area in favor for a little wider canyons with the lower bases. I hope to get to see that area on the next trip!

Weather:

We had awesome weather, flying 18 of the 23 days we were gone. Of the five we didn't fly, one was our boat day with Greg, and the other four it was rainy. NavCanada was awesome! It was refreshing and invaluable to be able to talk to someone that had a depth of knowledge on their local area/region. Alaska was great too. We had a low off the panhandle both going up and coming back down and NavCanada did an excellent job of briefing us on what we needed to know. Some things I learned, TAFs can change dramatically and it seemed like more often than the regular schedule. Down here I use the NWS forecast for a good high altitude, big picture source of info for trends. It seemed a lot less reliable up there. The webcams through Canada and Alaska were invaluable and, with good cell service through quite a bit of Canada and some places in AK (the Kenai peninsula was the worst with Verizon) it was something we could check enroute.

Foreflight has all the same charts that NavCanada and FSS use, so having gotten familiar with them ahead of time helped. Then combine it with their local, specialized insight really helped build the picture of what was going on.

Charging up:

We knew one challenge was going to be keeping all out electronics charged on the way up. Allen and Stan brought their generator, so if we really got in a jam, we could have used it, but we managed with out using it. Before we left, I bought an inverter that has two 1 amp USB ports and and two 2.4 amp USB ports, along with three regular 120 volt plug ins. I velcroed it to out lower pedestal and it worked awesome. I was careful not to overload it, but we had two regular plug ins and 3-4 USBs plugged in at least a couple of times and it worked well. It's the Bestek 200W Power Inverter. In addition to that, I had two rechargeable power packs. One has a solar panel on one side to help slowly top it off. I'd leave it on the dash so it would be in the sun while we flew.

Otherwise, we found power in the bathrooms at the Fairbanks campground, the little power poles for overnight aircraft in cold temps at airports, the side of Barnstormers's house, and the motor home where we stayed.

Going with Kids:

By now I like to think we have the kid factor figured out, but this was a trip on a magnitude never tried before. In the end, I'm really happy how everything went. The kids did really well in the plane and at the end, weren't even minding putting in 7 hour long days. Even Stan and Allen commented that they handled the 8 hour bus ride and the 6 hour cruise very well.

We tried to make sure that the activities were kid friendly and would keep their attention. Viewing animals and being outdoors were big hits. Sadie was a little timid going to view the bears, but all of them behaved well and acted more reserved like we needed them to be. Surprisingly, they liked the museums and visitor centers too, although with shorter attention spans. Most seemed to have hands on stuff so they could touch and feel. Gold panning was a big hit too.

We knew going that keeping things charged was going to be a top priority right behind keeping the iPad (navigation) and Delorme charged. As long as they had their iPads, Nintendos and the wifi hard drive available for movies, they were pretty happy. Again, the inverter was great! It was no free ride though...Dee had plenty of reading and homework worksheets for them to do before they could play!

We decided that the kids needed new gear and we were really happy with the Columbia fleeces and rain jackets we got. They provided the flexibility to layer that we wanted.

Food:

Meal planning was another topic that was new for us. Usually we plan what meal we would have on what day. This long of a trip required we change our thinking more to 1) what meal options are realistic and 2) what do we have room for. Once we had the meal options, we would buy groceries whenever we had the chance to try to keep ourselves stocked with four dinners minimum, breakfasts, and bread for sandwiches. Chips, apples, and small watermelons were easy to pack and traveled well. Fortunately, we had access to cars most of the trip that allowed us to shop when needed. When we didn't, we would use a taxi or walk. We had a medium-size, hard-sided cooler and one plastic box as a food container.

Overall, it worked out really well and the oven really opened up our meal options...including brownies!

Well, I think that's about it for now. I hope this will be useful for someone looking to do the same trip someday. I'm talking to Zane about trying to create a home for all the info on the site and that I've collected for making a trip to Alaska so it's more easily available. I think that would be pretty useful. In the meantime, anyone thinking of going, feel free to contact me and I'll give you what I've got!

Thanks for joining us. I hope you've enjoyed it and I can't wait to do it again some day!


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One more lesson learned today. When I got back I saw I was missing 2/3 of my data from my EDM-700. I called JPI this morning and learned why. At a sample rate of 6, you get 20 hours of data. At a sample rate of 2 you get about 6 hours. Mine was at a rate of 6. So the early data was overwritten. Had I even of thought about it, I would have dumped it while on the trip. Oh well...


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Grassstrippilot wrote:....Dee had plenty of reading and homework worksheets for them to do before they could play!....

Excellent trip report, and an even more excellent trip wrap-up Cory!

On another tack, it sounds as if your wife home-schools your kids?

hotrod180 wrote:

Grassstrippilot wrote:....Dee had plenty of reading and homework worksheets for them to do before they could play!....

Excellent trip report, and an even more excellent trip wrap-up Cory!

On another tack, it sounds as if your wife home-schools your kids?

Thanks! No she doesn't, but she likes to keep them up to speed over the summer. Kind of cruel if you ask me! Plus she likes to make them earn any electronics time they get, which is good I think.


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Awesome write-up Cory!
It was a lot of fun following along with your trip vicariously here and on FB. I'm so glad everything went smoothly for you!
Great job, all!

Thanks Kristian. And thanks for all the help in planning!


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Slightly off topic, but since you brought it up a couple of times, I need some advice on your oven. I bought one a few months ago, and I've done a little experimenting, but it seems that I "overcook" the bottoms of biscuits, lasagna, and pizza, which are the only things I've tried. I've moved the grill up (really overdid the first lasagna on the lower position), but it still seems that to get the rest of things cooked adequately, the bottoms just over-do--sometimes burn. I use it on a smaller 2 burner Coleman liquid-fueled stove, and I'm careful with the temperature (assuming that the thermometer on the door is somewhat accurate, and it does match a separate oven thermometer). Any suggestions?

Cary