Haha I wish DP. It was bittersweet unloading all our gear for sure. As much as I love this airplane, I have my hands full with my Bearhawk build for the time being. I can't wait to fly IT up here.

Arrived Lake Hood:


Why didn't anyone tell me you get to taxi on actual streets around here?

Melancholy was the word I used to describe how I felt at the conclusion of my trip. Do it again in a second. Congrats Zane!

Zzz wrote:Haha I wish DP. It was bittersweet unloading all our gear for sure. As much as I love this airplane, I have my hands full with my Bearhawk build for the time being. I can't wait to fly IT up here.

Arrived Lake Hood:


Why didn't anyone tell me you get to taxi on actual streets around here?

We don't want that sort of word getting out. Funny to see N1192A right there, it's been sitting in the same spot in McGrath for 4 or 5 years, never flying, and finally, yesterday, someone ran it around the patch a few times, circled high over the airport and then disappeared over the horizon to the East. Just found out today from the owner that he's selling it.

Flying up there was high on my list.
Worth every second of the 20 hours to get there!
I have a plan in place for my next venture North.



Remember to leave your credit cards at the hotel when attending the "SHOW".

SkyTruck

Great TR, Zane. I'm guessing the flight home won't be as much fun.

Yeah, what Rob said. Great trip report for sure. I've been reliving my AlCan trips via you and Brad, and getting pretty nostalgic, and wondering when my next chance is going to come.

-DP

You guys missed the pretty part of the state.

I meet an old guy up there once. He said "he had been flying around all over Alaska for 30 years and he ain't seen half of it."

Looks like you guys had an awesome trip.

born2flyak wrote: finally, yesterday, someone ran it around the patch a few times, circled high over the airport and then disappeared over the horizon to the East. Just found out today from the owner that he's selling it.

I talked to that someone. He said it was an interesting flight over here. I guess it's here for annual.

Zzz wrote:Why didn't anyone tell me you get to taxi on actual streets around here?

That's true, but remember that moose still have the right-of-way.

Epic adventure Z, thanks for taking us along. Can't wait for the article and video.

Waterboy wrote:I meet an old guy up there once. He said "he had been flying around all over Alaska for 30 years and he ain't seen half of it."

Looks like you guys had an awesome trip.

I have been flying up here for 20+ yrs and have not seen 1/4 of it. I hope to change that once I get the 180 on line so I can range out farther and faster.

Great TR Zane, hopefully one of these days I can do one headed the other way. Flying down to JC is on the bucket list.

Zzz thanks for sharing the the trip with us. I'm really hoping to make the reverse trip someday.
See you tomorrow at the show!

Like everyone else I dig the pics and the write up. Glad you got to make the trip. I did it one time in 1981 when I delivered a C-185 to anchorage. It was quite an adventure for a 25 year old kid at the time. All my other trips through anchorage for the last 25 years have been in airplanes with three engines or more. Not near as much fun. I really like alaska no matter how I get there.

Awesome Zane! Glad you had such great wx.

I'm thinking BCP mini-caravan 2015?

I feel like this trip report was left hanging a little bit, as we arrived anchorage and suddenly had our evenings filled with social activities rather than the little towns in days previous where it was just a hotel room and wi-fi with little more to do than tell this story.

Day 6: Arrival in Anchorage

The evening before at Copper Center was pretty memorable, if only because it was my first ever night in Alaska, at a very cool B&B on the Copper River. I enjoyed a few beers and the owner's son, Patrick, offered to drive me to a lookout to shoot a few sunset photos. I missed the prime time light by a few minutes, and these were challenging exposures in the haze, but nevertheless the feeling is there.

Mount Drum with the confluence of the Sanford and Copper rivers in the foreground.

I'm trying to get this show on the road and Brad is snoozing. This is just old hat for him, I guess. Preflight was quick because we didn't even bother tying the aircraft down as we were too confused from reading BCP.

The flight from Gulkana to Anchorage is pretty short, down the Glenn Highway, and we had time and fuel to burn. I was about to fly up my first real glacier.



Mattanuska glacier and its massive field of seracs.

I had a strange, unquenchable thirst for Glacier Freeze Gatorade



Looking up the Knik river and glacier from about 20 miles out.

Flying down river into the Knik Arm, about to cross the A-1 highway.

We reported Goose Bay with Anchorage approach like good little boys and were vectored toward Lake Hood. As is usual, we turned inbound at Point McKenzie and beelined for Lynn Ary Park ("the ballpark") and contacted Lake Hood tower to be cleared for runway 32. It's a good thing I was in the back seat because the deluge of bush plane porn reached up and smacked me in the face. It was overwhelming.

Short final to the Lake Hood airstrip

At Lake Hood, aircraft have the right of way. These streets are for us.

I think the last photo I posted was of N645M parked in front of Alaska Aircraft Sales, just after landing. I thought that might be the final hurrah for me and the Top Cub, but it wasn't! We snuck out that evening in an empty airplane and headed west for the Tordrillo Mountains, with a few mundane objectives in mind: We wanted to lay eyes on the Tordrillo Mountain Lodge (Aktahoe1's competition) and also to check out a bear den that my new buddy Kenan from AAS told us about. The air was perfect with only a mild northern wind, and I flew the majority of the flight out there low, profiling terrain up the apron of Big Su at 50 feet AGL and diving off the back side. We toured the Triumverate glacier a little, and flew NOE down the shore of Beluga Lake looking for wildlife. It was time to turn the Top Cub in, and that sunset flight into Lake Hood under my own command, something that is probably a daily drive for many pilots, is a feeling I won't soon forget.

Tordrillo Mountain Lodge (not my photo) in summer.

We returned to a bath of golden light on the area, an opportunity to capture some of the rich 4-hour long "magic hour" as photographers call it.

Mark 3 Turbine Beaver on amphibs.

Brad and N645M.

I guess we'll ease into this porn...

You can see some rotten ice on the lake in the background. 2 days later in seventy degree temps, the lake was clear.

Office of the Airmen's Association. Is this your handiwork, DonC?

Good "tailgating" spot.

We drove around the lakes for a while, spotting aircraft and looking for photo ops. It was too much, I was simply in awe. No particular aircraft was responsible, but the collective mass of them all was significant. It was like nothing anywhere else in the world for a bush plane lover.











Good night, until tomorrow. Wait, what was I going to do tomorrow? Time to connect with DenaliPilot.

Day 7: Talkeetna

My charmed life was about to continue this streak. I totally slept in on Friday. I'm just not a morning guy, and while I have no problem jumping out of bed for a mission, I was running on little sleep from staying up late writing and rising early to fly. Denalipilot was in town, and he suggested that I head to Talkeetna to check it out.

For those unfamiliar, the little town of Talkeetna is, as Denalipilot puts it: "an institution." It's a historic jumping-off point for flights to the mountain, where climbers are ferried to base camp and where heroic rescue missions have begun, flown by the likes of Reeve, Sheldon, and Hudson. Denalipilot, the long time good guy and supporter of BCP that he is, bought me a glacier flight with Talkeetna Air Taxi. I'm forever grateful to him, because it's not something I would have done of my own accord. Mission accepted.

With no aircraft of my own, and N645m off to the static display at the tradeshow, I rented car and hit the road for the 120 mile drive, running on an extremely narrow margin of time as this plan had come together last-minute. Let's just say it's good that the A-3 is very straight for the most part. I was piloting the Ford Taurus faster than a Top Cub in calm winds trying to make my departure time.

The Beaver fleet parked in front of Talkeetna Air Taxi.

Sometimes carrying a sizeable camera pack and wearing a BCP logo jumper buys you a little credibility. I found the young man who was our pilot and asked him if I could ride in the right seat because I was shooting for this article. He was super cool about it and agreed.

Our pilot, Trent. Good guy and expert Otter wrangler. What a life! He's even figured out the secret to maximizing Zulu ANR performance.

I hope you guys appreciate this, because not only was I in the cockpit of a turbine DHC-3, mind freshly blown from the takeoff and climbout, but I was flying into the most serious mountain terrain I'd ever experienced. I wanted to just take it in and enjoy it, and converse with Trent, but I did my duty and shot plenty of photo and video. I did make one rookie mistake though, and shot through the plexi window instead of asking if I could slide it down. Totally un-pro.



I've flown skis a little here and there with buddies, but this was a totally new experience: Uphill landing into base camp with the rock walls towering thousands of feet over us in this amphitheater of ice and peaks, the apron of the 14,573 foot Mount Hunter.

Gratuitous pose with the king of bush planes and Mount Hunter in the background.



Our takeoff slope and some climbers playing with their newly delivered supplies.

The labels on these levers mean nothing to me.

The Garret turbine is just getting broken-in.

It was a great time flying with this outfit, and I made a few new friends in the time spent standing around in amazement of the scene. Oddly enough, 4 of us were pilots on the flight, and a few of the guys knew who I was from BCP! I was flattered and proud. Nice to meet you, Eldon, Jeff, and Brett; all Northwest guys.

I hung around Talkeetna airport a little after the flight, shooting some video and checking out planes. I as feeling a little sunburnt and beer-thirsty so I loaded up and headed into the village.

Talkeetna feels like an old miner's town from the mid 1800's, with the exception of hippies walking down the middle of the main drag.

On recommendation, I tried this joint. Pretty good!

I had to seek out the village airstrip and take a peek.

Another amazing day was in the books, time for the drive back to ANC and dinner with Akgreg and Denalipilot.

I'm enjoying this Z. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.

Wow, that's awesome Zane!

Z,
heading to Valdez? Weather looks like it is going to best its been in years! Ill be the guy in the ugly '59 182 with mud on the bottom of the wings...unless there is some wing washing rain in route.



Rocket