Ski Flying Safari 2010

A week ago, I decided to take a day of leave to do some flying. It felt like winter was rapidly coming to a close and I better get some flying in while the skis were still on the plane. As I got to the airport, I called Paul to see what he was doing. "We're going flying. I'm at the airport right now" was his reply so at noon, I took off and met up with Paul, Clint, and Kim over Potter Marsh. We headed across Turnagain Arm to Hope and then up to Resurrection Pass. After flying through the pass, we landed at Juneau Lake.




There is a great cabin at Juneau Lake.


Taking off from Juneau Lake, we headed to Kenai Lake, flying over the lake and south to Lost Lake (just north of Seward). At Lost Lake, I followed everyone and landed last. The snow was deeper than at Juneau Lake.







From Lost Lake, we followed the highway and, then the railroad, back towards Anchorage. Along the way, we stopped at Spencer Glacier to transfer some fuel from Paul to Kim.







Leaving Spencer Glacier, we overflew Alyeska Ski Resort (since Verena was skiing there...she saw our flight of four as we passed) and we returned to Anchorage through Powerline Pass. It was a great day of flying and turned out to be my last day of ski flying for 2010. Overall, I got 25.8 hours of ski flying since January 23rd!

It has been pretty warm and there was a puddle of water forming under my plane, so I opted to get off the lake and switch back to tires. On Thursday, I taxied over to the public ramp and jacked the plane up and switched back to tires.

President's Day Weekend

On Saturday,Sean and I headed north to try our hand at burbot fishing on a lake we found near Talkeetna. Based on the bathymetry we had chosen a spot near the middle of the lake that we wanted to try. As we approached, we realized that someone on a snow machine had taken our spot so we landed at the outlet end of the lake. We set three set lines and tried jigging in a few other spots. I had one fish on...but lost it. Otherwise, we got skunked. It was a beautiful and sunny day, though.







Then, on Sunday, after Michelle cut my hair, I talked her into taking a ride up to Donkey Lake to check on Heidi's cabin. Later this week, Heidi and I will fly up there and I wanted to check on conditions and make some trails up to the cabins. We had a slow flight up with a strong headwind and a quick flight back. We met the owner of the lodge on the lake and he was beginning to put in an airstrip on the snow with his snow machine. We landed in the middle of the lake and walked up to the cabins with snow shows.

Out for a Sunday Drive

A couple weeks ago, I got the skis installed on my plane and, since, have been learning to pick landing spots. As many tell me, skis are easy to fly but also extremely easy to get stuck. As a result, I carry a shovel, snow shoes, rope, ice anchors, a come-along, and enough warm clothes/sleeping bag to spend a night stuck somewhere, just in case.

Yesterday, I left Lake Hood and flew north to Yensus Lake and Donkey Creek Lake to check on cabins that a friend owns.


View Sunday Fly in a larger map

After over-flying both lakes, I spent some time looking for lakes to practice landings. As I was looking around the mouth of the Susitna River, I heard three friends departing Lake Hood. I met up with them and we flew north to visit a cabin. I followed Kent and Paul, drug the strip twice to get a feel for the snow, and came in and landed. Heather landed a few minutes later. We spent some time at the cabin and got ready to go. As usual, I had a small mechanical issue (solenoid) that delayed my departure. After hand-propping the plane, the issue resolved itself and I departed and headed back to Lake Hood.





Paul's Plane


Kent


Heather and Coal enjoying the snow


I'm pretty lucky to have friends who are willing to help out and let me tag along.