By Thierry Pouille
Alaska, with a land mass of 586,412 square miles, is easily the largest state in the union. Surprisingly however, there are no roads at all in 80 percent of the state, providing unusual value to general aviation aircraft. In fact, airplanes have so much utility in Alaska that the state has the highest number of pilots per capita. Approximately one person in 78 enjoys the privileges of having at least a Private Pilot’s certificate.
If you think things are big in Texas, you haven’t seen anything like Alaska (which is more than twice as big as Texas). Take glaciers, for example—there are more than 100,000 glaciers in Alaska. One, Malaspina, covers 850 square miles, roughly the size of Rhode Island! And rough terrain—17 of the tallest 20 mountains in America are in Alaska, including 20,320-foot-high Mt. McKinley, the highest peak in the United States.
But the greatest challenge for flying in Alaska is the weather. You can go from wearing a tee shirt to a parka and back again all in a day’s time. Southeast Alaska is actually a temperate rain forest (areas get as much as 11 feet of rain a year), so if you visit anything from Ketchikan up to the Prince William Sound area, expect to get wet. Local pilots often rely on visibility, not cloud ceiling, to make a go/no-go decision. Flying along the coastal lowlands, it’s not unusual for pilots in all kinds of airplanes to be flying underneath a 500-foot overcast, but with lots of horizontal visibility.
Away from the coast, Alaskan terrain makes knowledge of the mountain passes a must. Smaller airplanes cannot climb over the mountains but must find ways through them. The FAA has 174 live weather cameras mounted in key passes across the state, allowing pilots to log on and actually look at the current weather over the internet. If you’re not comfortable with the weather you’re seeing, scrub your flight for the time being. There’s an old saying you’ll hear over and over again among seasoned pilots in Alaska: “We’ll see you tomorrow, weather permitting.”
Still, the experience of flying in Alaska is a lifetime top memory for many of us from the Lower 48. That’s because there is no place quite like The Last Frontier.
One place that’s a great stopover is Juneau. The runway lies at the end of a glacier-dredged bay with as many float planes coming and going as wheeled craft. The little town is eye-popping gorgeous and is a great staging place to see lots of marine life. Charter boats leave the inlet and provide you and the family with front seats to watch glaciers calve, whales breach, and sea lions swan dive from their rookeries. You can also sightsee from local bush planes and helicopters, or get right down on the deck for a kayak tour. Juneau is a great place to try your hand at both salmon and halibut fishing. Any way you slice it, Juneau is a great stop on any tour of Alaska.
Pilots who fly the eastern border or Alaska are used to crossing back and forth over the Canadian border. The town of Whitehorse, the capital of the Yukon Territory, is just a short flight north from Juneau, and there is lots to do in the area’s 20 hours of summer daylight. One great sidetrip is to visit Frank Turner at his Muktuk Bed & Breakfast and Guest Ranch. What makes the place so unusual is that you’ll stay with about 150 prime sled dogs, still the mainstay of wintertime transportation in the frozen north. Turner has run the Yukon Quest, the toughest dog-sled race in the world, more than any other musher alive and lives to take care of his dogs and the tradition they represent. His Guest Ranch is the perfect place to learn everything you always wanted to know about mushing.
Another short flight north takes you to Dawson, once the epicenter of the Klondike Gold Rush. Today it is a sleepy little community on the banks of the Yukon River with the legacy of its past now skewed more toward tourism. You can try your luck at Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Gambling Hall, explore the old paddle wheeler that used to cruise the river in gold rush days or, better yet, join the list of brave folk who become a sourdough in the Downtown Saloon.
As the story goes, there was a conversation one long winter night about who was a sourdough. The term loosely refers to anyone who lives through the challenges of the Great North. It could also refer to anyone who could kill a grizzly bear with a knife, never get lost in the woods, and survive in the coldest temperatures on earth. Now, it was clear that certain folks easily qualified for the moniker, and just as clear that others don’t and likely never will. But what about the gray zone, that huge group in the middle? Enter the Sourtoe Cocktail Club.
The Sourtoe Cocktail starts with the libation of your choice, then adds the nastiest, most shriveled-up, frostbitten and snapped-off human toe you could possibly imagine. Anyone who imbibes and allows the toe to touch their mouth has his/her name added to a growing list of some sixty-odd thousand people who have performed the ritual since it began in the 1970s.
Seriously? A human toe? Yes. In fact, it’s so serious that a few years ago the toe was accidently swallowed. Word of the tragedy went out via a live, on-the-scene newscast from the Canadian Broadcast Corporation, and by the end of that week five new toes had been donated to the cocktail club. True story. One lady in Alabama bequeathed her toes to the club upon her death, and another man, this one very alive, actually removed his own toe as a gesture to end the emergency. The Downtown Saloon now has so many toes that you can order a drink with five toes in it. They call that drink a “Foot.”
Straight west from Dawson is Denali National Park, perhaps the most breathtaking of all the Alaskan scenery. Several runways in the park are open to the general public, and one is even paved. You can fly into the park, then take a bus tour of the highlights. Of course, the easiest way to see Denali is from any of the several flightseeing companies that operate out of Talkeetna, which is just outside the southern boundary of the park. The local flight operators know the park very well and give you the best chance of not missing any of the highlights. Some of their aircraft are fitted with skis, allowing wanderlusters the chance to actually land on a glacier on Mount McKinley.
If the whole idea of bush flying in Alaska catches your fancy, you might as well spend some time with Don Lee at Alaska Floats & Skis just outside of Talkeetna. Don is a pilot’s pilot and teaches students how to handle themselves flying in the backcountry. You can get a float rating on the nearby lakes and rivers, or you can learn to fly skis into the snowy mountains. Just being around Don to hear his Alaska bush-pilot stories is worth the price of admission.
If there’s a bad thing about visiting Alaska it is in the fact that eventually your vacation is up and it’s time to return to reality. The one solace is that after a trip like this, you know you’ll be coming back.
Thierry Pouille is the founder of Air Journey, which provides both guided and concierge international adventure travel for aircraft owners and pilots. See www.airjourney.com.
ALASKA UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL
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