A clear day up here is bound to reset your high water mark for scenic beauty. After waiting for days to get perfect conditions for my intended little foray, I woke up on the 22nd to clear skies and limitless visibilty. What's more, it was even nice over Prince William Sound. I checked the FAA webcams at Portage, Whittier and Potato Point and instead of the usual raindrops on the lens against a gray background, each of them looked like somebody was holding a postcard in front of the camera. My Olympus had just been returned from the hospital, so all systems were go.
I left Lake Hood strip and flew down Turnagain Arm through Portage Pass which pilots around here say is easy to spot because it glitters from all the aluminum airplane bits strewn about by folks who missed the gap. Over Whittier, it was obvious I was in for a great trip. I flew the indented coast down to Valdez, past the supertanker berth without even THINKING about TFRs which thankfully were eliminated in Feb of 04. After circling the airport and looking up the Copper River delta, I flew back to the Columbia Glacier and hopped my way through passes to the College Fjord to the Yale and Harvard glaciers. I found the Surprise Glacier and flew up and over into the valley where Lake George is located, and across the Knik Glacier to Palmer. It was a knockout.
After Palmer, I flew to Talkeetna and walked into town to the ranger station. They have detailed aviation maps of the Denali NP with all the visual reporting points and their coordinates free of charge. While munching a burger, I decided I didn't want to solo up McKinley and try to take pictures while flying with rudder only and trying not to hit any rocks or revenue hauling airplanes. So I did the next best thing. I took a seat in a Beaver with Talkeetna Air Taxi. That was the right choice. I would NEVER have been able to comfortably put my Maule in the spots we flew through. Some of them had me wincing in fear that we were going to scrape paint off the wingtips. Not to mention the glacier landing...for my Maule that would have been "one way in, no way out" Even as the total tourist, I was in total awe. As a pilot, if you come to AK, do this one flight even if you have to pass on everything else. It's beyond words, pictures or video. But, you are welcome to look at my pix in the album I put up last night. Just realize these are mere slivers of the experience. My apologies for foaming at the mouth, but it was just great!
