We're Ryan and Katherine, and we flew to Alaska and back in Spring 2024 with our dog Magic 🐶.
In May and June 2024, Katherine and I (and Magic) took our 1984 Mooney M20J on a flying 'road trip' from Orlando, FL to Alaska via the Alcan Highway through Canada, and back to Orlando via the US West Coast, totaling over 9,300 nautical miles. Lots of photos and details about the flights linked below.
We are Ryan, Katherine, and Magic!
We bought the Mooney in early 2021 with the intention of making serious cross-country adventure flights with our dog Magic (a Cavalier King Charles). Since then, we've been planning and taking long cross-country flying adventures, such as our flight all across the western US in 2021, our tour of the Northeast US in Summer 2022, crossing the Rockies and landing in Leadville last summer, and touring the Midwest and Great Lakes states last autumn. Making a big GA 'road trip' has become our annual tradition.
Long jumps on the way north, including stops in Omaha and Fargo. Touring the Canadian Prairie via Winnipeg, Saskatoon, and a scenic stop in Banff.
We head into the Canadian Rockies to tackle the remote wilderness of Alaska Highway from Dawson Creek to Whitehorse, deep in the Yukon Territories.
Our first taste of Alaska, including a week in Juneau. Kayaking, whale watching, and more!
A scenic flight to end all scenic flights up the Alaskan coast, including flybys of Glacier Bay and the spectacular Columbia Glacier. Staying in McCarthy and a Denali flyby before camping in Talkeetna.
Running back down the Alcan from Tok Junction to Dawson Creek again, during a tight weather window.
The scenic journey home via Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, and Page, Arizona, including the gorgeous Antelope Canyon..
This was the big one. I have been dreaming about doing this flight for years, and I have been seriously planning it since around November last year. I would fly my Mooney really anywhere in the Lower 48, but you really don't just decide to fly to Alaska one day. My trip preparation began with hunting down a copy of the often recommended, but long out-of-print and rare, Alaska Airmen's Association 'Logbook' - "Flying Your Airplane To (And In) Alaska", which is an amazing resource. (Which I have dutifully scanned as a PDF and keep in my ForeFlight Documents Library) Then I began consuming as much Alaska flying-related content as I could find. One of the absolute best resources was Ted Waltman's brilliant fly2ak.com website. He also has a few fantastic webinars on YouTube that talk all about the various routes, weather considerations, etc. I even wrote to him and corresponded a bit via email. Listening to Ted talk through the Alcan route and some of the harder bits really gave me the confidence that this was doable.
It's hard to really talk about how to begin planning this trip without enumerating these...
My FAA Wings Seminar presentation on flight planning to and from Alaska with an emphasis on safety, presented in November 2024.
This is N374SM, our 1984 Mooney M20J.
November 2023 to late May 2024
Ordinarily this wouldn't merit its own entry, but for a trip of this magnitude, it does. Aside from the research I mentioned above, there were a number of MX items to address. Most significantly, my engine was consuming an unacceptable amount of oil, and had developed a case through-bolt leak. Due to the age (installed as a factory new engine in 1994 to convert to the -A3B6 and never overhauled) and the other issues, I made the decision to have a major overhaul done in December 2023, replacing almost everything firewall forward. I feared that this would push out the date for this trip excessively (you don't want to take a very freshly overhauled engine on a trip like this without a lot of time on it!), however I found a shop that turned the engine around in only 30 days. I am happy to report it looks and runs great, and does not leak a drop of oil and consumes very little. I did the breakin flying as quickly as possible (only around 10 days) and ran another entire oil change worth of flying as we made a short trip to Cleveland to see the Solar Eclipse. Fortunately, everything was working great, and I managed to get around 50 hours on the engine. Oil analysis, filter inspection, and borescope all looked good. So I felt ok to proceed with the real trip.
I also began the process of acquiring some necessary parts that would be installed at my annual. I elected to have my annual performed early so that I could have it out of the way (it would have come due end of June and potentially rushed us home), as well as giving me another opportunity to have the engine looked at in detail post-install. At the annual, I decided we would replace the (sick-sounding) electric fuel pump (last replaced 25 years ago) with an overhauled core I had sent to Aeromotors. I also bought an Artex 345 406MHz ELT, which is mandatory for flying through Canada, as well as simply a good idea over the remote emptiness of the Alcan!
Finally, I acquired my Iridium GO! satellite phone, tested it, got a second Verizon eSIM, bought a Crashkit survival kit, and assembled a handful of other emergency and survival supplies. We also got together and tested our tent camping gear, with a focus on being compact and lightweight.
After I got the airplane back from annual, I went over it very carefully myself and made a few test flights to give myself confidence there were no issues. Fortunately there were none, so we were ready to go! I unloaded a bunch of junk I had been carrying and everything I didn't need for the trip, and I loaded up all our gear and waited for the day...
We set out on our biggest adventure yet! A Friday evening flight to Alabama, with a surprise appearance of Fifi, the B-29.
A long leg to our 47th state of Nebraska, and lunch in downtown Omaha.
A short flight through a little bit of weather to visit our 48th state of North Dakota, and an evening in charming downtown Fargo.
Into Canada once again, walking around Winnipeg and enjoying some poutine.
My first experience with VFR in Canada, flying over the Canadian prairies to Saskatoon and exploring the city.
A challenging flight to Calgary to get a rental car and drive into the gorgeous Canadian Rockies to visit Banff National Park. A drive up the Icefields Parkway to Peyto Lake and exploring Canmore.
We fly to the small town of Dawson Creek to officially begin our trek up the Alaska Highway.
We follow the Alcan and finally enter the mountains, with a short fuel stop at the WW2-era airstrip of Watson Lake.
We venture further into the Yukon along the Alcan, with an overnight stop in Whitehorse, just over the mountains from Alaska.
We make the quick hop over White Pass into Alaska, our 49th State! The epic scenery begins, with glaciers everywhere as we land in Juneau for customs.
Weather forces us to stay in Juneau a bit longer than we bargained for, but we make the best of it by visiting the Mendenhall Glacier, kayaking, whale-watching, and more.
The first flight of our epic day touring the Alaksan coast, with a stunning tour of Glacier Bay and flying by some massive mountains and glaciers.
We continue up the Alaskan coast, with a flyby of the spectacular Hubbard and Columbia Glaciers, and making a quick fuel stop in scenic Valdez.
We head into the Alaskan interior and I make my first gravel strip landing in McCarthy, deep within Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. We spend 2 nights in a cabin, exploring the charming town of McCarthy and visiting the abandoned Kennecott copper mine.
We depart McCarthy and enjoy a scenic flight through the Tahneta Pass to the Denali area. We enjoy stunning clear views of the mountain and then pitch our tent to camp in Talkeetna, enjoying the midnight sunset.
We begin making our escape from Alaska, the long way around, north from Talkeetna to near Fairbanks and down for a fuel stop in Tok Junction, where we have a pizza picnic lunch at the airplane.
We wave goodbye to Alaska and rejoin the Alcan route in Whitehorse, and enjoy our return to civilization.
We retread our steps on the Alcan, making another fuel stop in historic Watson Lake.
We say goodbye to the Alcan and the mountains as I fight some challenging weather on the long, rainy flight back to Dawson Creek.
We hop back over the Canadian Rockies and make our way down to the Vancouver area, enjoying the harbor and walking around Gastown.
We make the short, but rainy flight back to the USA to clear US Customs and visit our friends in Seattle.
Weather forces us to take the scenic route down to California via the beautiful Oregon coastline, and a couple nights visiting friends in San Francisco.
A short hop and some gusty winds in Rancho Murieta, visiting with my California extended family and enjoying some card games and relaxation.
A long, bumpy flight over the Sierra Nevadas and the high Nevada desert, past Zion National Park to Page, Arizona. We tour the spectacular Antelope Canyon, visit Horseshoe Bend, and drive to a very rainy Monument Valley.
We start the first of the really long legs home, navigating some rainy weather over the high desert of New Mexico and stop for fuel in Elk City.
We finish our long day in Little Rock, where Katherine and I unwind by catching the new Ghost concert movie.
Our longest flight yet, we head home at last, dodging some intense afternoon thunderstorms and landing back in Orlando to complete our biggest ever adventure!
Ultimately... it basically all went great! It didn't go exactly to plan, but no trip does. Our flexibility with timing meant that I could wait for ideal weather. The Alcan route was for the most part clear weather and no smoke... We had a very easy crossing into Alaska over the White Pass (no low clouds). On the downside, we spent 5 nights (way too long) in Juneau waiting for some sunny days to arrive. But once they did, we had a brilliantly clear sunny day flying up the Alaskan coastline, and very nice weather for McCarthy (the absolute highlight of the trip for both my wife and I) and Talkeetna with totally clear views of Denali! And in the end, we departed Alaska a day or two before we might have, because the forecast indicated we might be stuck for another week. You have to travel when the weather allows.
We have now visited 49 States and 7 Canadian Provinces with our Mooney! It has been fantastic making these epic flying adventures together!
