Alaska.

I never did write much about our Alaska trip back in 2009. It was a crazy time in life with work being busier than I can ever remember. Among other distractions there was big changes in my life.

The entire trip was some of the best times in my life yet if you asked me to pick one thing out of the trip that was the highlight of the trip it would have to be what occurred in this story.

There is a back story. Well in advance of the trip we had to choose the things we would do in our excursions. I don’t remember all the details but by the time I got around to picking what we would do we didn’t have many options.

Fly Fishing was definitely on my list. But on the day that this occurred the options I wanted  were no longer available. The only option left was the most expense of all of the options. That option was to fly in an old de Havilland Beaver to the top of Denali.

Gloria had already chosen what she wanted to do that day so that left me and the girls. So I signed us up to do this together. It was approximately $300 per person for a 1 hour flight. I shrugged at the idea of spending this kind of money for such a short period of time not knowing what I would see. Little did I know it would be on my top 5 of things I’ve done in all my life. Right up there with swimming in the Great Barrier Reef or walking on the Great Wall of China.

I had two youngsters with me, one that didn’t like to fly much. Which is a little odd because she flew so much with me as she was growing up. Being a pilot with an airplane she really had no choice but to come along with me most of the times we flew together.

So the building up to getting on the plane was stressful for some, suspenseful for others. None of knew what we were about to do. There was some speculation that we would not make it to Denali at all because of the frequent weather that is almost always around the mountain. The people at the airfield said that the flight could even be cancelled if things got real bad.

So it was everything from “it’s not happening” to “it could be clear”. If it didn’t happen there were no refunds. We didn’t have any time to do it again another day so we were either going to go or not but we all knew we had one chance.

It did happen!

The plane was a de Havilland Beaver (DHC-2) with a Pratt and Whitney PT6 Turboprop conversion. It was very quiet. We flew with K2 Avation out of Talkeetna, Alaska.

I flew in the co-pilot seat to and from Denali. Pure bliss. The entire time. All of it.

The Date is July 17, 2009. It’s just one of those days that will stay with me a lifetime.