AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2018 - 82

FERRY ROUTE, BY THE NUMBERS
Flight hours: 35
Distance: 3,450 nautical miles
Lowest cruising altitude: 1,000 feet in southwest Alaska
Highest cruising altitude: 13,500 feet over the
Rocky Mountains
Slowest groundspeed: 48 knots
Fastest groundspeed: 135 knots

82 | AOPA PILOT February 2018

MY OWN TERMS

Sitting at the kitchen table in the
lodge, Ferguson talked about his
Husky's idiosyncrasies, techniques for hot starts, tire pressure

preferences, and fuel consumption at various power settings. He
filled me in on places to stay in
towns along the way, camping sites
(Watson Lake is the best), and refueling options. (They'll give you
an ice cream cone when you stop
in Mackenzie.) His Husky is IFR
equipped, with a Garmin GNS 530
and a six-pack, and I brought an
iPhone running Garmin Pilot and a
few paper charts.
Ferguson filled the rear of the
airplane with survival gear: tent,
sleeping bag, camp stove, bug
repellent, bear spray, a rifle, freezedried food, a satellite messenger,
and a first-aid kit. I brought a personal locator beacon and a battery
pack that could recharge my electronic devices-and even jump the
aircraft battery in a pinch.
Judging from the forecast, I
expected to stay put for several
days before beginning the flying
marathon. But the morning of my
second day there dawned sunny
and cool with light winds, and
Ken Strickler, chief pilot at Alaska
Rainbow Lodge, said the weather
looked favorable for the first leg to
Anchorage and beyond.

SMALL WORLD MAPS

Alaska Rainbow Lodge on the
Kvichak River is closing for the
season, and its three float Beavers
soon will fly to winter maintenance in Wasilla, about 250 miles
away. I'm about to begin a far longer journey in lodge owner Chip
Ferguson's Husky A-1B, taking it
on a 3,450-nautical-mile odyssey
through the incomparable Lake
Clark Pass, over the "Trench" in
British Columbia, eventually bringing it to Ferguson's native Texas.
"This route will amaze you,
challenge you, and totally wear you
out," said Ferguson, who has made
the seasonal trip several times in
this airplane. Pressing business and
family matters prevent him from
making the journey this time, and
I jump at the chance to make the
solo flight because it will take me
on a route I've never flown before.

The Trench is a 600-mile-long
route through a steep-sided valley that reaches from the Yukon
Territory all the way to southern
British Columbia. It's a visually
stunning pathway in a nearly direct
northwest/southeast line between
Alaska and the U.S. mountain west.
The other routes for light general
aviation aircraft flying between
Alaska and the Lower 48 states
are the coast-which is harsh,
forbidding, and almost always
cloudy-and the Alaska-Canada
Highway, a seemingly endless ribbon of asphalt that's mostly on the
Canadian prairie.
"The Trench is way more interesting than the highway," Ferguson
said. "There are things to see every
minute in the Trench. Mountains,
valleys, fall colors, wildlife, and a
few glaciers. It's not dramatically
shorter than the highway route, but
there's so much more to see. It's my
favorite way to go, by far."
AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2018

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