Epic Alaska Adventure - Spring 2024
| << Leg 9 - Watson Lake, YT to Whitehorse, YT | Trip Home | A Week in Juneau, AK >> |
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Leg Stats
- Time Enroute: 1.7 hrs
- Distance (direct): 142nm
- Distance (actual): 173nm
- Fuel Used: 14.9 gal
I woke up and checked the weather for the intended flight down to Skagway. Things looked pretty good for crossing the White Pass, with some higher clouds forecast but nothing low.
Things figured to improve a bit as the morning progressed, so we took the opportunity to go walk around Whitehorse a bit.
Upon our return, I checked the WX Cameras, but to my surprise and dismay, the FAA had let their HTTPS certificate expire and the site was broken!
I could find absolutely no way around this on my iPad... fortunately I was able to work around this on my laptop, and the weather cameras showed what I was hoping... beautiful skies in the pass and all the way to Skagway and beyond!
Skagway is unfortunately a prior permission US Customs airport, so I called and inquired about Customs availability. The officer transferred me to a supervisor who (somewhat begrudgingly) offered us a 12-3pm window, but strongly suggested that we go to Juneau instead, since he really didn't have the staff to clear airplanes. (They have to drive down from the White Pass border crossing on the Klondike highway) Ultimately, Katherine swayed my decision to just go directly to Juneau and bypass Skagway because she needed to attend a call in the early afternoon for one of her volunteer efforts, which meant it would be ideal if we were at our hotel for the night. We packed our stuff up and got a cab to the Whitehorse airport. Katherine and Magic waited in the commercial terminal while I prepared the airplane, filed eAPIS, and called US Customs in Juneau to arrange our arrival, which requires some notice, and taking into account the 1 hour time difference between Yukon and Alaska (a difficult wait, knowing I had good weather now!).
Finally, our departure time arrived and we took off on time and headed southeast towards Carcross and following the valleys down to the White Pass.
The scenery starts to get dramatically more beautiful in this area, with beautiful valleys that look like fjords with glassy water and snow everywhere.
My excitement started to mount as we got closer and closer to White Pass...
I kept expecting to encounter weather or clouds, but mother nature was very cooperative on this day, and we passed easily over the completely snow-covered White Pass...
...and into the Skagway fjord... We were over Alaska!
There is an immediate difference in scenery crossing the pass into Southeast Alaska... glaciers and craggy snow-covered mountains everywhere!
We were running ahead of our appointed customs time so I pulled back the power and made a slow sightseeing loop to take in the sights.
We hugged the edge of the fjord heading down to Juneau, listening to the Lynn Canal CTAF and trying our best to stay clear of the numerous flights of multiple helicopters coming down off the icefield seemingly at random. (I did not know the local landmarks enough to make many CTAF calls myself) We called up Juneau tower and were given a regular downwind to land for 26, which offered cool view of the beautiful Mendenhall Glacier.
We taxied over to US Customs (clearly marked!) and cleared without any trouble, the officer was very friendly and welcomed us to Alaska.
We went into the FBO and I arranged a hotel for us, with some difficulty... it turns out that an biennial indigenous festival of some sort was going on this week and hotels were all $300+ a night, leaving only 2 pet-friendly hotel options. Also, I was a bit unprepared because I really had not anticipated getting to Juneau for another few days, so I hadn't studied the upcoming weather closely. We would need very nice weather to fly north along the coast from Juneau... I made a snap decision that, based on the weather, we would need at least 3 nights in Juneau, because the coast would be socked in at least that long. We got a Lyft to our very expensive Ramada Inn, which turned out to be decent and walkable to downtown Juneau.
After a brief walk to get some food and beer to celebrate, we settled down in our hotel to talk to our book club friends (who we were still keeping up with despite our travels).
Monday would actually be a work day for us, and we got up super early to start the day (Alaska being minus 4 hours). Because we had gotten to Alaska in just over 1 week, we hadn't even arranged for our vacation time to begin yet, so Katherine and I agreed to take a half-day on Wednesday and start our vacation then, for one and a half weeks of Alaska and some of the journey home. After a careful study of the weather, it seemed that Friday would be the first window of good weather for the coast, so I went and basically pleaded with the hotel to extend our stay another 2 nights, which they did, after shuffling some other reservations around. (There were no other hotels!) 5 nights is really way too many for Juneau, but I was just happy to be in Alaska.
Leg Photos
Trip Leg Navigation
<< Leg 9 - Watson Lake, YT to Whitehorse, YT
