N322MX and N1669 on the ground at TalkeetnaJune 14, 2008
We woke to overcast skies and a slight drizzle, packed our camp and headed to town to find some food. We ate at a small inn filled with all sorts of tourists and climbers and folks just passing through on the only road from Fairbanks to Anchorage. The shelves were full of books and old National Geo’s. We picked through and pulled a few from the 60’s and 70’s and spent the better part of breakfast thumbing through stories and photos of Alaska and trading tales with the other half-dozen or so folks with whom we shared the table.
It was still a little drizzly and we weren’t in any hurry to go fly in the rain so we made our way to the airport and stopped in at the Flight Service Station (FSS) for a weather briefing. Flight Service Stations are located throughout Alaska and the lower 48 and their function is to provide detailed weather information for all pilots - commercial and private. In fact, it’s an FAA requirement that every pilot, prior to taking off on any flight must obtain an official weather briefing for their route of flight. Doesn’t matter if you’re flying a 747 full of paying passengers, a 737 full of cargo or if you’re just going to take a Cessna up for a few practice touch-n-go’s; you’re required to get a briefing first and the folks at the FSS are who you call. They’re fully fluent in all the NOAA weather data available for their area and have local knowledge of the weather trends as well. At least they do in Alaska.
In 2007, as part of a cost-savings initiative the FAA decided to outsource the weather services in the lower 48 and much of that local expertise was lost. I remember clear as a bell the day I called to get a briefing for a local flight out of Boeing Field and found myself talking to a friendly gentleman from Lockheed Services stationed in Georgia. Georgia?!?! The briefing he gave me consisted of what he could read off the computer including winds aloft, temps and dewpoints and the en-route forecast. It was a standard briefing. What I didn’t get was any tips about how the weather was likely to be expressed locally around the foothills of the Olympic Mountains and the Cascades or in the marine areas of the Puget Sound lowlands. The folks I used to talk to at FSS in Seattle had intimate knowledge of our local weather tendencies which the friendly gentleman in Georgia did not.
This fabulous new FAA initiative was not implemented in Alaska, however, and we were able to walk into the FSS at Talkeetna and get a real briefing. Looking at the radar screens, there was a low pressure system parked over southern Alaska and a corresponding marine layer along the Gulf of Alaska generating conditions similar to those we’d flown through along the coast near Cordova. There was a high pressure system to the north of the Alaska Range and the weather cams at Windy Pass showed clear passage. After talking to the FSS weather man, the decision was easy - Steve and Alan would head north through the pass and then follow the Nenana back to Northway. Since the weather was fairly stable, they decided to get on their way. We said our good-byes and watched them take off north heading out for the rest of their Alaskan adventure.
It would take Steve and Allen another four days to get home. After Northway they followed the Al-Can until just before Whitehorse where they hopped a pass to intercept the Cassiar Highway. Following the road they wove between the Cassiar and Coastal ranges south through BC to Prince George, then south to the Fraser River. They followed the river until it met the Sound and they were home by the weekend.
We decided to head back to Anchorage where we’d make a business call, visit a couple friends, and maybe even get a shower. The trip back to Merrill Field was uneventful, the overcast layer obscured the mountains and there were light showers along the way. We parked amid hundreds of light aircraft, most of which were taildraggers with big tires.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get much of a sense of Anchorage except to say that there were roads and traffic and buildings and street signs and street lights and lots of people and lots of noise and cars rushing around. It was like any other small city, though not very tall and very well insulated. I suppose it’s a measure of how easily we’d become accustomed to the lack of civilization that we found Anchorage so jarring.
After taking a little time to visit with some customers there, we took off again to find another friend who lives in the neighborhood. Mark lives out in Palmer, at the far eastern end of Cook Inlet up the Matanuska River a few bends. We had the GPS coordinates for his house so we flew out to look for him. We spotted his house and circled around a few times before joining the pattern to land at Palmer. Mark met us at the airport and took us home to a warm house, a warm meal, a few games of squash, showers, clean laundry and a comfy bed for the night. It was a nice break from our travels and the next day we woke clean, refreshed and ready for the second half of our adventures.
Palmer NOTAM: caution - moose on runwayOh, one other thing... remember that Citabria from the Trench Route? Well, as we were tossing our gear into Mark's truck a car drove up and there was the friendly Citabria pilot we'd met Mackenzie. He'd managed to avoid all that weather that held us up in Teslin and Whitehorse and made it back to Palmer safe and sound. Small world, even in Alaska.
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