Robbing two pieces of luck from my box of experience

I was really looking forward to this winter hunt for ptarmigan and snowshoe rabbits. Cold? You bet, at about -25 degrees F, but that’s pretty much what one quickly learns to expect of interior Alaska. After all, this trip was to be made during the cold weather month of January, 1957. Our planned trip would center on an area around Mendeltna, a wide spot in the highway leading from Anchorage to Tok Junction and on to the Lower 48 states. Mendeltna was in the high plateau country around Lake Louise, an area that I would later come to know as well as I knew the backs of my own hands.

Three of us had planned the cold weather, snowshoe assisted hunt. The other two were Gene Hock, my friend since high school days, and then Assistant Right-of-Way Agent for the City of Anchorage, Alaska. The third guy in the party was Bob Moore, Gene’s boss at city hall. All three of us had a wealth of hunting experience behind us.

That river is a VFR route in Alaska – but what happens when you can’t see the mountains?

My companions had planned to drive up the night before the scheduled hunt itself, but I had neither the spare time nor the inclination to drive the 165 miles to the hunting area we had picked out. My pilot logs show that I had a total of 30 flying hours by then, a handful of those on skis, so the flight between the mountains didn’t put me off at all. And so it went, my hunting partners leaving Anchorage well after dark on a Friday night – Anchorage enjoys only about five hours of daylight at that time of the year – and I expected to preflight an Aeronca Champ at Merrill Field on the following morning.

Saturday morning was bright and sunny as I made my way to the aircraft, N7448B, and began my preflight chores. After having later earned my private pilot certificate, I would see this same airplane crashed halfway between Anchorage and Big Lake, as a gravel strip named Goose Bay. It was perfectly vertical, with the nose buried and the tail pointing skyward. Both passengers had been killed, of course.

En route to the hunting area we had selected, my route would take me to Palmer, about fifty road miles north of Anchorage, and thence up the Matanuska River to Sheep Mountain and on to Mendeltna. I didn’t get quite that far.

Beyond Palmer, and following the river upstream toward the great Matanuska Glacier, I noticed a very low stratus layer ahead. I was by then flying below the highway which was just off my left wing. Impressive mountains were quite near on both sides, and I noticed that there were at least two separate layers of stratus above me. I could see that the lower level shrouded the glacier ahead, obscuring most of it. I could also see that, if I continued beneath the lowest level, I would soon fly into the face of that glacier right at its moraine. I wasn’t fond of that picture. I decided just to climb above the lowest level and proceed between layers. Did I mention that I had only 30 hours under a seat belt at that time? I had already climbed to an altitude that would seal my fate when my mental alarm bells went off, telling me that I was then making a fatal mistake! I circled around and descended to get below the lowest level again and have another look.

I took the time to look at the Anchorage Sectional Chart, were I discovered a route that might save my bacon. I was flying at about 550 feet MSL, and knew there were mountains off either wing rising above 6,000 feet on the left and above 8,000 on the right. The mountains rise sharply from the lowlands at the point where I was flying, and my little flight path had been pressed down to less than two miles wide.

I knew that, at the very foot of the Matanuska Glacier, there was a small radio tower just off my left wing, and atop a small, sharply pointed piece of rock. On the back side of that rock was the Glenn Highway that led to the Alcan Highway itself.

It would be a squeeze, but if I could skirt around that little radio tower off my left wing, I’d be over the road and just five miles or so from the Sheep Mountain strip. That strip, according to the old Alaska Airport Directory, measured 2,200 x 80 feet, and was silt and gravel. The REMARKS column states: Caution advised as airport has severe gradient dropping from SW to the ENE. Hill 200’ higher than strip 800’ NE. SW is favored approach. ENE end rough with small gullies across runway. Charter service available. ACS telephone available. Boundaries marked by 55 gal. drums. With the earth covered with a blanket of snow, it was hard to read all that from the air, but 2,200 feet was certainly more than enough for an Aeronca Champ on skis.

Not a long runway, but it will have to do.

I made the strip – just barely, I admit – and settled down to a smooth landing. I missed all the gullies. I hoofed it up to the lodge building and wrapped myself around some hot, black coffee and a generous piece of homemade cherry pie. That gave me time enough to gather my wits about me, and I was soon ready to harness up, start the little ski plane, and scoot on up the road to meet my friends.

The ground here rises from the 2,700 foot MSL strip to the plateau itself at around 3,500 feet MSL. That 800 feet of vertical space seemed enough to me, and I plunged ahead even as the ground around me rose and rose. I was surprised when I slammed into the clouds before the ground beneath me leveled out. All I could see was the black-painted back of the spinning propeller.

Those were the days long before any instrument training was included in flight instruction leading to the PPL exams. My goodness, we hadn’t even heard of the 180 degree turn that would get us out of scabby weather. IMC hadn’t even been coined, but that’s where I found myself. In IMC weather clear up to my earlobes.

I rolled into a quick right turn, certainly at more than a standard rate of turn, since the wings were approaching 90 degrees to the earth. And I didn’t notice that my right foot was still pressing the right rudder almost to the floor!

I had been flying at about 50 feet above the scattered black wintertime spruce. When I dove through the overcast, all I could see was the snow-covered earth and a few dangerously close Sitka spruce. Thank goodness for the Champ’s effective ailerons. I was just able to clear the spruce trees and head back to Sheep Mountain Lodge and another piece of pie with good, black coffee.

Did I learn anything with that flight? You bet I did! I learned that I had just dipped into the box of good luck, robbing two pieces of luck from my box of experience.

My first decision to avoid flying between layers was a good decision, and was lucky in and of itself. And though the ground sloped upward from Sheep Mountain onward, and I honestly thought I could make it on to Mendeltna. I learned to never, never fly on when you don’t know for sure that you will make it. “I think I can” applies only to little locomotives…

I also learned that a 30-hour wealth of experience does not a bush pilot make.

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Mort Mason

Mort Mason soloed on Friday the 13th (April 1956) on an airplane with skis, in a 20-knot crosswind at Lake Hood, Alaska, in a serious snowstorm. Since that day, he successfully completed his Private License check ride on March 4, 1957. His ASES, Commercial and Instrument Rating followed. Mason says, “My logs, not always attentively kept, now show 18,000 flying hours as PIC. About 16,000 of those hours were made while flying the Alaska outback, just another of Alaska’s long list of ragbag bush pilots.” He’s had two books published by Voyageur Press: Flying the Alaska Wild and The Alaska Bush Pilot Chronicles. His latest book is "What It's Really Like: Flying the Alaska Bush."

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