Day 5 on our Journey from Torrance California to Alaska in a Robinson R22 21 May 2010; The Final Push

It's another beautiful day on our journey north here in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory; the sun is out with a slight chill being that it's early morning. After a shower I pack all my stuff into my back pack and we are out the door. We walk over to the restaurant where we see Jon and Floyd finishing up breakfast. I order up a nice egg skillet breakfast of eggs, hash browns, cheese and peppers plus orange juice and sourdough toast. During breakfast I give US Customs a call with a planned arrival in Northway, Alaska around 10am accounting for the hour we'll gain as we cross the border into Alaska. With the helicopter topped off with fuel, flight plan set, and our call made to US Customs we are ready to go. I call the tower and ask for a departure from our present position at transient parking. This first leg into Haines Junction will be more or less west following the road, Highway 1, through the valley. It's such a nice sunny morning with very little wind and high wispy clouds. Jon and Floyd aren't too far behind us in their MD500. There's a reason we need to stop at Haines Junction. This particular leg from Whitehorse to Northway is a very long stretch. We have to top off our tanks in Haines Junction to have any chance at all of making Northway. Haines Junction doesn't officially have avgas fuel but we heard a rumor about a guy there that will help out helicopters in need of fuel. We'd given this guy a call the night before to see if we could get some fuel from him. As it turns out he's more than happy to help us out and informally sell us 10 gallons of avgas. That's good news because if we couldn't get fuel from him we would have to stop at a gas station at Destruction Bay or Burwash Landing along the Kluane Lake. The winds are light as we meander along through the valley following the road. No tail wind today so far, and if anything we start to pick up a slight head wind. Jon comes on the radio and asks our location. "Hey Jon, we're about 20 miles out from Haines Junction." It appears they are closing in on us fairly fast. At about 5 miles out from Haines Junction they are right on our tail. Corey gets on the radio and says "Hey why don't you guys come up alongside of us and we'll take your picture." We'll need to get this done pretty quickly because we're just about to land at the Haines Junction airport. I slow it up to 70 knots and keep it nice and steady straight ahead. This lets Jon slowly move in closer with their 500 to within 50 feet or so. We snap several photos when I have to descend for a landing and they peel off to the right and northwest bound following the road towards Kluane Lake.

 Jon and Floyd fly up along side of us just before we land at Haines Junction in the Yukon

After landing and shutting down at the Haines Junction airport, Corey runs into the building and comes back out with two 5 gallon red plastic gas containers and pours them into the tanks. Now we are topped off and ready for the rest of our journey to Northway, Alaska. At least we won't have to worry about fuel on this leg which was a concern because it's such a long stretch. Thank you guys at the Haines Junction airport for the 100LL avgas!

On approach to the Haines Junction Airport, Yukon Territory

After fueling up we are ready for the push into Alaska and our visit with US Customs. I hit the bathroom real quick and then we are off departing to the northwest. We basically follow the road along this very long valley which holds Kluane Lake. We notice that we are picking up a definite head wind now.

The very large Kluane Lake, it never seemed to end

 We have a steady head wind blowing 8 to 10 knots right down the valley in the direction we are moving which really slows us down. Checking our ground speed with the GPS we see that we are going to be an hour late at this rate. We start to worry a little about our appointment at 10am with US Customs and have no way of calling them. There's not much we can do about the head wind except to keep on trucking. It's a good thing we got fuel in Haines Junction because there is no way we would have made Northway, Alaska at this rate. We cross over to the west side of Kluane Lake and continue up the long valley following the Canadian Highway 1. It's pretty here but the valley is long and it never seems to end. We are flying direct to Northway Alaska; that keeps us fairly close to the road along the valley floor. If we didn't have to check in with US Customs we could have headed straight to Glenallen, Alaska cutting off quite a few miles, but in actuality I'm not sure this would have been possible considering that it's nothing but rugged wilderness through the Wrangell-Saint Elias National Park and Preserve with no airports to refuel at. Looking at some of the photos of the park, I'm not sure it's an area I want to navigate through with the little R22 helicopter.

Wrangell St. Elias National Park and Preserve

After what seems like ages we finally cross the Alaskan Border. You can see the border from the air. There's a long straight right-of-way cut out of the wilderness along the Alaskan/Canadian border. The Kluane Lake Valley seemed endless. Maybe it's because we are anxious to get home and that dam headwind doesn't help our cause; headwinds are frustrating for pilots. Come to think about it we've been accustomed to moving right along at a pretty good clip during the trip, our average ground speed has been 100 knots on our journey so far. The head winds we are experiencing today slows our ground speed to 75 knots, which is really slow and puts us behind schedule with US Customs. Overall though we feel like we are making progress now that we have crossed the border into Alaska. Wow, we've made it through Canada and back into the USA! We cross over a couple more ridge lines and see Northway in the distance. Northway is the principal port of entry for light aircraft entering Alaska from Canada and the lower 48 states. When we are within ten miles I make a call telling Northway Radio we are 10 miles out, inbound for landing. I'm sure Customs is listening on the same frequency. We hope they're listening because we are late and we want them to know we'll be landing soon. Shortly after I make my call I hear Jon come on and say they are ten miles out also. What the hell is going on, once again we are ahead of them, I can't believe it. After Jon's radio call they gain on us and we let them land ahead of us. I'm scratching my head, we've beat them the whole way we've been traveling together. Why? I'm guessing it's mainly because they stayed really close to the road while we flew straight as the crow flies, a zip line if you will between destinations. We flew a little higher in general avoiding surface winds, this may have helped our speed also. In any case I'm happy with this R22, it flies smooth and has plenty of power. It's not a dog ship. We have one R22 that just doesn't seem to have the power our other two R22s have. It's known as our dog ship, not sure why nor do the mechanics seem to know why. We finally land and there's the Northway US Customs agent to greet us. The agent meets with Jon and Floyd first. I mill around stretching and walking as usual. I notice the runway looks brand new, it's been repaved recently. I found out there was a massive earthquake in November 2002 with a magnitude of 7.9 that destroyed the airport. That's why it looks brand new, it's been rebuilt. We find out the avgas truck is broke down, we'll have to pick up and move the helicopter over to the fuel truck when we're done with customs. After the agent is done with the MD500 crew, Jon and Floyd, it's our turn. He wants to see our pilot's license and medical certificates. After that he wants to see our passports. I go to get my passport; I forget for a minute that I moved it to a more convenient spot for retrieval. For a nano second I panic, I can't find it, did I leave it somewhere? My mind is flooded with all these scenarios that end badly with Customs. There it is, right where I put it. I should have left it where it was! Whew! I give the man my passport. I hate it when that happens. After all the paper work; Corey had to fill out some form for a fee which the owner has to pay, figures. Then the custom's agent brings out this geiger counter that he starts waving around the helicopter from one end to the other. Not only are they worried about nuclear proliferation, but certain drugs and other illegal things will set off the bells and whistles on this thing. The whole time he's using this meter it's chirping away. He says it's detecting the natural radiation that's all around us. That was a surprise, I never expected a geiger counter. We are cleared and done with US Customs our main hurdle for the day. By-the-way he wasn't too concerned about us being an hour late. They understand flying schedules aren't a perfect science; an ETA is just that, estimated. Corey goes ahead and moves the helicopter over to the fuel truck. Jon and Floyd have been topped off with jet fuel and they are ready to get going. We say our good byes and they are on their way to Delta Junction, this is where our paths part. I'm sure if we were heading to Delta Junction we'd be there in time to greet the MD500 as they were landing :-).
 

Jon and Floyd; Salmon, ID where they started their trip

I’m kidding folks, I’m not completely naïve to what they are doing, they’re taking their time along the road “time building” as we helicopter pilots call it. Jon is learning some valuable lessons from Floyd who has been around the block a time or two and has loads of experience with the MD500 in the Army with special ops. He got out of the Army after 10 years. He then did contract work in the desert, namely Iraq with private sector security forces. I’d like to fly with Floyd myself. It was interesting listening to him tell his stories and talk about his exploits. I was doing the same thing with the R22; I was “time building”. It may not be an MD500 but it is helicopter time. The company I train with was gracious enough to allow me to go on the ferry flight and bring up an R22 from the factory in Torrance, California at a significantly reduced cost per hour. I gained 35 hours of very valuable cross country time and experience, I’m thankful for that; thank you Alpine Air Alaska. It was definitely a confidence builder. So, after we are done refueling we head over to the hotel that's nearby to pay. The guy that refueled us gives us a ride in his golf cart; it's kind of tight with three guys, so I'm hanging half way out on the way over. It's not much of a hotel, really old and not any souls in there except one other caretaker. I'm willing to bet the hotel won't last much longer. And from what I hear there's not always a guarantee they are going to have avgas. After filling up my water bottle inside the hotel, using the bathroom and Corey is done paying for the fuel we are ready to depart on our way to Gulkana Airport. Pretty soon we'll be back in familiar territory. What I remember most about the leg from Northway to Gulkana is the magnificent beauty of the Wrangell - St. Elias National Park and Preserve. As we go around, just inside the border of the park on our way to Gulkana, we could see Mt Drum and Mt Sanford, which are truly spectacular.
  

Mount Drum - Wrangell-St. Elias

Mount Sanford -Wrangell-St. Elias

After an hour and a half we land and hover-taxi over to the self serve fuel pumps at the Gulkana Airport just a few miles north of Glennallen. Corey tops off the tanks while I use the bathroom. It's nice and warm. The sun is out and I mill about for a little while. I'm feeling good. We are almost home with one last leg to go. We jump in, fire up the helicopter and depart straight out from the fuel pump ramp. I have to clear some power lines due west, so it's altitude over airspeed to clear the lines and we are on our way. We more or less follow Highway 1 out of Glennallen back to the Anchorage area. We have a strong headwind that really slows us up and it's turbulent but the sun is out and it feels warm. I've been fighting turbulence 90% of the time on this trip; it's something I won't miss. I try and make good time but because of the turbulence I have to slow it down. However, I have gained some very valuable experience when it comes to turbulence, winds, and the weather in general on this trip. I have a better feel for what the helicopter can handle. The turbulence may have been rough but well worth the experience.We pass Sheep Mountain Lodge, a place I've been wanting to visit for lunch someday in the helicopter. It has a nice little landing strip. Then we pass Chickaloon, which means we are getting close. Eventually we break out of the Matanuska Valley and transition midfield over the Palmer Airport, twenty minutes to go. Dusty one of our instructors is out giving instruction in one of the other R22s and recognizes my voice on the radio. "Welcome home 99507" he says over the radio. Thanks Dusty. A few minutes later I call Birchwood traffic, "Birchwood traffic, helicopter 99507 is five to the northeast inbound for landing." As we land Mary, my wife shows up to give me a ride home. She’s been keeping an eye on the SPOT and has a good idea when I’ll land. The SPOT did its job! Mission complete and what an adventure! I'm more than tired but feel good - the trip was a success! I wanted to log it here so I won’t forget and of course to share it with all of you too. I hope you enjoyed our little adventure; I enjoyed sharing it.

Hobbs schedule for the day:

Whitehorse Airport, Yukon, Canada (CYXY) - Haines Junction Airport, Yukon, Canada (CYHT) 1.1 hours

Haines Junction Airport, Yukon, Canada (CYHT) - Northway Airport, Alaska (PAOR) 2.4 hours

Northway Airport, Alaska (PAOR) - Gulkana Airport, Glennallen, Alaska (PAGK) 1.5 hours

Gulkana Airport, Glenallen, Alaska (PAGK) - Mission complete; Birchwood Airport, Alaska (PABV) 1.8 hours

Total 6.8 hours 486 NM's