Rainy Pass Lodge is in the Alaska Range and is one of the checkpoints on the Iditarod race. They were going to be there when all the mushers came through, so they were very excited.
A week before their trip Mike Haney and I flew up for a practice trip. Greg Fischer and another co-worker accompanied us in Greg’s 185 (N185KA). Greg flies up to Rainy Pass all the time and is very familiar with the pass and the lake.
When we arrived at Puntilla Lake (6AK) I did a couple passes checking out the lake strip with Greg talking me through the approach. The weather wasn’t too bad; a bit bumpy, but I wasn’t beyond my limits and so it was a good challenge. There is a large bump in the middle of the runway and I had to land long to avoid that. The landing was pretty good. We stopped, had some coffee and cookies, and got ready to go.
Take off was a little more interesting. The wind was probably about 10 mph and it really blew us around taxing. I had a hard time figuring it out, still being new to skis, and so Mike and I were all over the lake. Mike exclaimed he was going to paint “Arctic Cat” on the side of the plane once we returned. At takeoff I went first and was just about at takeoff speed when I hit that bump in the middle of the runway. That launched us and Greg was on the radio telling me to “keep it off!” That I did staying in ground effect for a little bit to pick up some speed, and then we were off. Of course later I came to realize that all the staff at the lodge were listening to our radio chatter as I taxied all over the lake and through the take off.
The next weekend was the trip to take Mom and Dad up. It was a gorgeous day and we had a very nice flight in. On the way home I tried to fly over the Yetna and see some of the teams coming up. But, being solo and a bit navigationally challenged, I didn’t want to spend too much time in the Iditarod traffic, so I headed back to Lake Hood fairly quickly.
The next trip out there was on Tuesday. I went up to Big Lake and picked up my aunt Susie. We were just going to go up for a visit. The weather was beautiful but very windy, which led to a pretty exciting trip. Flying up the pass it got a bit bumpy. We made our first pass over the lake… you could see the wind blowing snow off the hills and all over the lake. Pilots were talking on the radio – Iditarod Airforce pilots, mind you – about the conditions at Puntilla and the gusty variable winds. They were claiming 10-15 knots but the pilots all agreed it was a lot rougher than that. Anyway, during the first pass Dad picked up the ground radio and gave me some input. Another plane came in under me and landed on the lake, more directly into the wind, rather than the runway. He told me to do the same thing. I made another pass… each pass was a ride… really bumpy, updrafts, downdrafts, heads hitting the ceilings. Luckily Sue had been in a plane wreck before, so she seemed to be doing okay. Anyway, rather then try a tight pattern, which was my first two passes, I went out a ways and took a long final in. That helped… I was set up okay although airspeed was jumping between 100 and 60 with intermittent stall warnings – that can wrack the nerves. Anyway, we went for it and made a pretty decent landing of it.
Take off was thrilling, also, but not as bad. We took off on the lake again, trying to go into the wind. The lake has a lot of wind drifts and is a bit bumpy. So, we put full power in and went for it. Bumped over a few small ones, hit a big bump and took a long bounce, but weren’t at flying speed yet. I let it come back down gently, but let it gain a bit more speed. The next big bump we hit was it, and we were airborne. We roared over the dog teams and gained altitude, heading for Big Lake. On the way out of the pass I was showing a ground speed of 150 knots… typical is 105… that gives you some idea of the wind. As you can see from this picture, the snow being kicked up on the ground was blizzard like.
After that trip I was a bit nervous to head back out. Mom and Dad actually got weathered in on Wednesday and Thursday morning I kept my eyes peeled on the weather sites. Finally I got a call from Steve Perrins at the lodge and he said the weather was great, winds weren’t strong, and there was blue sky. I brought the lodge up a newspaper and some horse feed, picked up Mom and Dad, and delivered them safely to Big Lake. They had a great time out on the trail and I had quite a bit of fun, and learning, flying.
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