EXERCISE WHOOPER FINN: FIELD REPORT NO. 13

The flight towards Coldfoot had a familiar theme; as we headed towards the foothills of the Brooks, the turbulence intensified to the point of violence being inflicted on us. We landed at Prospect Creek to wait out the worst conditions. This was a gravel runway, which although quiet when we landed, became busy throughout the day. It served as a pickup and drop-off point for small bands of intrepid tourists who travel this far North to cross the Arctic Circle, and then head South again. Others were flying in to Bettles, a fly-in wilderness resort, 50 miles from the nearest road.

We were visited by some of the engineers who manned a nearby pumping station on the Trans Alaska oil pipeline and spent some time talking about their work. The pipeline transports oil from the fields around Prudhoe Bay to the shipping point on the southern coast at Valdez (remember the Exxon Valdez?). The pipeline itself is a major work of engineering, and hot oil is pumped through the insulated pipe, which rests on a cradle that allows it to move around. This takes care of expansion, as the outside temperatures vary from +100 to -80 degrees Fahrenheit, but it also allows for earth movement, through earthquakes or shifts in the permafrost. The pipeline is buried where possible, but a large part is above ground. The elevated sections of the pipe rest on stilts that act as cooling radiators, thus keeping the permafrost frozen and preventing any subsidence.

By 8.00 p.m. the wind died down sufficiently to complete the journey. Flying across one of the lakes we noticed a large object in the water, about halfway out. On closer inspection this turned out to be a huge bull moose, which dwarfed a small bulldozer that was parked at the edge of the lake. The antlers on the moose were as big across as the blade on the bulldozer! We circled round it once and then headed to land at Coldfoot.

We came to think of Coldfoot as base camp for our attempt on the 'Summit'. The whole place consisted of a gravel airstrip, beside an outpost of the Alaska State Troopers, and this was located beside a gas station and garage as well as a motel and restaurant. The Dalton Highway runs through here following the path of the Koyukuk River and the oil pipeline. Perhaps someone with a sense of humour called it a highway, for although it has been open to the public since 1995, it is little more than a rough track in places. Normal conventions of road construction seem to have been largely ignored for the sake of the most direct route over mountain and valley, regardless of slope. It is locally known as a 'haul road', and the large trucks supporting the oil industry travel up and down it year round at full throttle. They spew out vast quantities of dust and rocks in their wake, and assume the right of way on account of their size and speed. The groundcrew now thought the Alaska Highway was a picnic compared to this, as the dust came into the van as if it was pressure hosed. The rivers are full of fine silt, a product of glaciers grinding rocks into flour. Scratch the surface to build a road, and when it dries it gets everywhere.

That will be one of my lasting memories of the Arctic, the heat and the dust. It was 100 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the day, as the sun was always high in the sky. It was hot in the early morning and got even hotter during the afternoon. It was still hot at 10 p.m. The heat generated strong thermal activity, which translated into severe turbulence, especially near mountains. This restricted any flying to 'night-time' between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m., when it cooled off with the sun lower in the sky. During our two and a half weeks in the Arctic we saw no darkness. It affected our body clocks, and in the end it became difficult to tell whether it was 4 a.m. or 4 p.m., a truly strange phenomenon.

We met Curt Bedingfield, the Alaska State Trooper for the area. He had an interesting job, as he patrolled an area of some 100,000 square miles, containing less than 10,000 people, using a specially adapted Piper Super Cub and a pickup truck. He was the only policeman for an area 20 times the size of Northern Ireland, and his duties encompass that of enforcing the rigorous Laws of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, which controls the hunting and fishing in Alaska. He flies the Cub about 700 hours a year in the course of his duties, Summer and Winter, and his helmet was scuffed and marked from striking the metal structure of the aeroplane in the extreme turbulence he often encountered in the Brooks Range.

He advised us to avoid Atigun Pass en route to the North Slope if possible, as it takes its toll of unwary pilots and their planes in poor weather. He was aware of at least a dozen aircraft and their occupants who had failed to make it through. This was confirmed later by the groundcrew, who reported much aircraft debris along the pass and numerous crosses on the roadside.

Our flight to 'the summit' followed the courses of the Koyukuk and Dietrich rivers, northwards through the Brooks Range to Chandalar Shelf. The Brooks Range runs West - East across Northern Alaska, separating the central plain from the Arctic Ocean. These mountains rise to over 9,000 feet in the East and although this was not high by the standards of the mountains we had already flown through, they separated the moist and highly changeable weather of the Arctic Ocean from that of the drier Alaskan interior. The runway at Chandalar Shelf slopes uphill towards the foreboding entrance to Atigun Pass. The shelf lies about 500 feet above the rest of the river valley and required a quick climb to gain sufficient height to approach for landing. The mosquito welcoming party was there to greet us as we waited for the groundcrew. I should point out that there are no facilities at these places, just a gravel strip laid down close to the highway. No refuelling capability, toilets are 'al fresco' (take your chances with the mosquitoes!), and rarely any sign of human life. There were no buildings, but as compensation the scenery was spectacular. Without the groundcrew we would not have been able to make the flight, as regular fuelling stops were very often beyond the range of our aircraft.

Once refuelled we were ready for the assault on Atigun Pass. The wind was light, and the cloud base was above the mountaintops, so it seemed as good an opportunity as we would get to attempt to fly through. Another 2,500 feet of altitude was required to take us to 5,500 feet before entering the pass itself, and this was achieved by a series of shallow climbing turns as we approached the entrance.

Rock walls rose impressively on each side as we began a slight turn to the right to follow the shape of the valley. The road rose up to meet us, and an immediate left turn was required to avoid a sheer rock wall in front of us. As we slid over the crest, the van and the trailer were parked at the summit. I fired the wing-mounted camera a couple of times, in the hope of a good shot, but my concentration was focussed on flying the pass. There was just enough room for a 180-degree turn for an ultralight, but larger aircraft have come to grief when they suddenly found their path blocked by low cloud. This was not a place to push your luck, so I descended to follow the contours of the valley and in a moment was below the groundcrew.

The scenery was immediately different. No longer could trees of any kind be seen, and the valley floors appeared to be covered in lush green grass. It was not long before we left the mountains behind, and we were flying over miles of rolling green hills. This was tundra, quite a change from the forests on the southern side of the Brooks. Our destination for the night was a strip called Happy Valley and I had another memorable moment as I flew due North trying to comprehend that it was 1.00 a.m. and we were flying directly into the sun which was still high in the sky!

The person who named the Dalton Highway obviously named Happy Valley. As the aircraft came to a stop we were besieged by a black cloud of hungry mosquitoes, more than we had ever seen before. We couldn't even take our helmets off they were that bad. We unpacked the bug shirts and quickly pulled them on. Without them life would have been impossible. Jimmy and the rest of the crew couldn't believe their eyes when they arrived and saw the numbers of flying insects. The mosquito proof screen tent was erected and we slept in that, under a second layer of mosquito netting. There were literally thousands on the outside, a few hundred in the tent, and only a few inside the personal mosquito netting - they were quickly dispatched. In the morning there were slightly fewer, but untreated skin was an immediate invitation for a bite.

We departed for Deadhorse and Prudhoe Bay early in the morning. The weather remained good, but changes could occur quickly, and without warning. As we approached Deadhorse we could see a white line on the horizon, our first glimpse of the pack ice. Prudhoe Bay itself had an island of floating ice, and the shoreline of the Arctic Ocean was covered with small ice floes. Apparently the pack ice drifts on and off the shoreline throughout the Summer, and we were fortunate that it was still quite visible when we flew over the Ocean.

Unfortunately the oil industry was not very scenic, and the production buildings, the pumping stations and storage facilities as well as the miles of bright silver connecting pipes, came as a shock to the eyes.We photographed Prudhoe Bay and its surrounds before landing at Deadhorse to refuel and find lunch. The Flight Controllers had never seen an ultralight and we were given a very warm welcome. They were even more surprised to hear that we had come from Florida. As it was Independence Day (4 July), a public holiday, there was little activity around the airport. However we did manage a lift to the Prudhoe Bay Hotel for a pleasant lunch. The television in the corner was relaying images of Northern Ireland as we sat down to eat. It is hard to think that what happens in Portadown is relayed across the world in minutes, and even up here, within spitting distance of the North Pole, there is no escape.
The weather briefing indicated that thunderstorms would be likely by the evening so we resolved to return as quickly as possible. We had made remarkable progress in getting to the Arctic Ocean, and were about to pay the price for such good fortune. The wind increased to 20 knots as we took off and headed back to Happy Valley. The ground crew had followed us up to Deadhorse, but had declined the $20 fee to view the oil production facilities and the Arctic Ocean. The oil companies own all the access to the Ocean and make any tourists brave enough to make it up there pay for the privilege. The return to Happy Valley was without incident, and we stayed there long enough to let the wind subside. We decided that to return through Atigun Pass would be asking for trouble and decided to take Curt Bedingfield's advice and return through Sag Pass, some 10 miles to the East.

Soon after takeoff it was apparent that there was quite a lot of lightning around as I could hear it crackling in the headphones. There was a large shower to the West covering the entrance to Atigun, and as I watched it, I saw a bright bolt of lightning strike the ground about 5 miles away. The thundershower was tracking slowly across our path as we entered the valley that led to Sag Pass. It started to rain as we flew through the valley, and every so often we hit a patch of turbulence where the valley opened up. We arrived at a point where the valley forked into 5, and navigation was critical to select the correct entrance. Pick the wrong one and we would fly up a dead end. The GPS wanted to lead us up the one valley, but wary of our previous experience at Watson Lake, Steve was very careful to point out the right way. What Curt had failed to mention, however, was that (hidden under printed information on the map), Sag Pass was as high as Atigun Pass at 5000 feet. The map gave the impression that the whole thing could be flown at 3,500 feet. As we turned a corner, the valley suddenly got smaller, and a lot higher. This gave us something to ponder as I climbed another 2,000 feet in light rain. The small lake at the summit reassured us that we were in the right pass, and as we flew over the top our ground speed increased by 15 mph. The weather improved on the south side of the Pass, and we landed back at Chandalar shelf sooner than expected. We had enough fuel to make Coldfoot, so decided to leave the groundcrew a message. The balloons we normally used for this purpose burst for some reason, so we improvised, tying the message to a large white plastic container with a blue ribbon. The container was placed in the middle of the entrance to the runway.

The tailwind increased as we flew further down the valley and we made good speed towards Coldfoot. Suddenly, we were hit by severe turbulence, the airspeed was all over the place and I couldn't work out what was happening. As suddenly as it appeared, it stopped, but the ground speed dropped by 30 mph as we flew out the other side. We had just flown through a place where the air rushing down the valley met an opposing stream blowing up the valley! We made an uneventful landing at 1.30 a.m., and tied the aircraft down beside Curt's hangar to await the arrival of the rest of the crew.

By 3.00 a.m. they hadn't appeared, so we suspected something must have gone wrong. We reckoned that if they missed the message they would backtrack to our pre-briefed alternatives, so I telephoned Flight Services to ensure that they would get the message that we had arrived safely. Unfortunately they were having problems with the truck. They had a flat tyre, and after changing it they needed to backtrack all the way to Deadhorse to refuel and find out what had happened to us. On the return journey they struck a rock in the road and damaged the transmission. They were stranded about five miles South of our favourite place, Happy Valley.

A passing bus of Amish tourists gave Gary a lift to Coldfoot where he relayed the bad news to us, and we arranged the recovery. The Coldfoot recovery truck was off the road and the next nearest recovery was from Fairbanks, a round trip of some 26 hours and 900 miles. The bill for the tow recovery and repairs came to US$3,900. $2,700 was for the tow alone. At one point we thought that the tow truck was going to need recovery itself as it lost the muffler and the power steering, due to the road conditions.
All this took time, and we eventually left Coldfoot 2 days later.

The return to Fairbanks was not without its trials, and I had a horrible landing at Five Mile Point, where we had arranged to collect fuel. The breeze was still very active, swirling over the surrounding trees, causing all sorts of nasty rotoring winds. It didn't help that the sun was shining straight down the runway at the time. I think I landed three times before the aircraft came to rest. The next part of the flight was dogged by thick smoke from forest fires out to the West. In the end I climbed up over the smoke band at 7,500 feet to get clearer air and make best use of the tailwind. The cold was soon biting at us, but there was no real alternative, and it was with some relief that we finally arrived at Bradley Field, a small private airstrip South of Fairbanks. Despite the time being 1.00 a.m. Bill Oldfield, our host for the next day or so, was waiting for us by cutting the lawn. That certainly stirred up the mosquitoes, but Bill and his wife June looked after us very well. We had a great time there, a marked contrast to the welcome from the International Airport.

The trip South was made memorable by a distinct 'miss' in the engine. It happened only once, but grabbed our complete attention, as we were about 10 miles from the nearest road, over scrubby forest and marsh where there was simply nowhere to land. A quick diversion took us over the highway, and we followed it all the way to Delta Junction, where the fuel system and plugs were inspected to no avail. A quick test flight revealed nothing untoward and we proceeded to Northway. With about 30 miles to run, after an hour's flying, the problem recurred, this time a very distinct 'cough'. We sneaked into Northway after sticking to the road like glue, at 1.00 a.m., the usual time we finished flying in the Arctic. However, it was now becoming noticeably darker as we headed South, and that would be the last time that we would fly this late.

In the morning the air filters were cleaned and the spark plugs changed. The dusty conditions had taken their toll and the filters were very dirty. A long test flight indicated that the problem had been solved, and there was no further coughs or splutters, much to our relief.

The flight to Whitehorse began well, with a steady flight to Beaver Creek to clear Canadian Customs. This was a painless affair, carried out over the telephone. The only piece of information that they needed for their files was Steve's date of birth. As he was using the washroom at the time, I had to shout through to him for confirmation, surely one of the oddest situations in which to clear customs!

The next leg to Burwash Landing started out all right, but as we entered the valleys it was clear we were up against a stiffening headwind. By the time we reached the airfield the wind was 22 gusting to 30 knots. I have flown in strong winds, but was not looking forward to an approach into a field surrounded by trees. This tends to stir up the wind even more and makes handling the weightshift very tricky near the ground. I was not to be disappointed and about 30 feet off the runway the aircraft lurched and rolled in the choppy air, having to be fought on to land. A second pair of hands was needed to steady the wing once the wheels were on the deck and we taxied to a stop in the lee of some small trees. This was the typical wind condition at Burwash Landing, something we had fortunately missed on our way North. The wing was tied down firmly as the wind increased to 35 knots and was left fluttering in the strongest gusts. We retired to the Lodge for the afternoon in the hope that the wind would abate. By 10 p.m. it had slackened a little and the decision was made to fly on to Haines Junction about 60 miles away, which would leave a shorter flight to Whitehorse the following day.

The take off was a short affair into a strong gusty wind. The gusts eased off 1000 feet above ground, but the bad news showed on the GPS; we were only doing 20 mph against the wind. At this rate it might have been touch and go if we would have enough fuel for the 3-hour flight. There was nothing for it but to try for more favourable winds at height, and we were at 9,000 feet, just below the cloud base, before the ground speed increased to 50 mph. We endured the biting cold as long as possible, before the lowering clouds forced us down. At least by now we were past Klune Lake and the Klune Mountains, the massive bulk of which funneled the winds so dramatically. We were not safe yet, and the approach to the airport took us through some vicious turbulence in the katabatic winds spilling down from the glaciers.

Surprisingly, the wind at the surface was calm, and we camped overnight at the edge of the airport, ready for an early start the next morning.Conditions were much the same the following morning; quiet on the surface and turbulent in the faster flowing stream above. We had a bumpy flight to Whitehorse, and decided to wait as the forecast indicated that the wind would swing round to a tailwind, and in any case there were thundershowers to the south. We stayed overnight in the airport camping area, as the RCMP hangar was closed on Sunday.

As usual, the forecast wasn't quite right and we had a slight headwind for the first part of the flight. The morning scenery was spectacular with a clear view down the entire 70-mile length of Teslin Lake. We rendezvoused with the groundcrew at Teslin airstrip, to fuel up for the flight to Watson Lake. The Flight Services office was manned by Kim Dolen, who shared the duties with her mother. She also held the job of Town Librarian, and was being checked out to drive the local ambulance, as a volunteer. She made us a welcome cup of coffee while we waited, but we needed to push on in the best of the weather. Conditions had been perfect when we had landed at Teslin, and as we took off it was clear that the tailwind had arrived. It started slowly at first, but I noticed a sudden increase in ground speed as we turned the corner into Little Atlin Valley. This is a large U-shaped valley, and the venturi effect had us zipping along at 80 mph. Adjoining valleys added more wind to the airstream, and as we progressed the turbulence became quite violent at times. I became quite concerned, as I knew that the valley tightened even further at Rancheria and that it was going to be a rough ride. Ground speed touched 100 mph at one point as we passed overhead in the twisting confines of the valley. It was all I could do to keep the aircraft upright at times and pick the best line through the severe shaking we were getting. This had to be some of the worst turbulence I had ever experienced, and the feedback forces through the bar were horrendous. I noted the wingtips flexing down at one point in the momentary negative g-forces. The ride was so bad that Steve was almost throwing up in the back, but he knew this wasn't a good idea as the prop was behind him!

We finally cleared the valley, but the turbulence followed us all the way to Watson Lake. I almost kissed the ground after we landed and it took an hour for the adrenalin to subside. It was clear that every flight on our way back from the Arctic was getting more difficult. I had hoped to fly all the way back to Edmonton, thus avoiding packing the aircraft into the trailer, and preventing any damage on the rough roads. The weather forecast indicated even stronger winds aloft than we had already experienced, and the cap was placed on the whole affair when wet snow was reported falling across our intended route.

There was no alternative but to pack everything up, as Steve had to be in Edmonton in the next few days to catch his return flight. As we travelled South by road it was clear that the weather would not have allowed us any further progress South. Severe thunderstorms had rocked Fort Nelson, the high passes were covered in low cloud, and fresh snow had fallen across the whole of the Eastern Rockies.

We had flown 15,000 km; the van and trailer covered more than 30,000 km over some of the roughest roads in North America. We had achieved our aim of being the first team to fly an ultralight from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean and had successfully plotted a new route for the migration of the Whooping Crane

On my return to Ontario I spent a day with Bill Lishman and his team going through the research work, and left him a compendium of maps and information on the route. He was pleasantly surprised by the amount of work we had done and the detail in which we surveyed the route. I will be interested to see how much of it survives the practical test of taking the birds along it. I wish him and his team all the very best in their efforts, and look forward to hearing how they succeed.