Six hours on the tach! A long trip to the Porcupine River

A beautiful corner of Alaska is the Canada Border region along the Porcupine River. This is the site of an old Hudson Bay Co trading post that was closed and moved to Old Crow in The Yukon after it was discovered that it was located inside the boundary of the newly purchased Alaska Territory.

In this area, within 10 miles or so of the Canadian Border, the Porcupine enters a fairly deep gorge and the tributaries such as the Salmon Trout cut through this gorge in a series of waterfalls which is unique in Alaskan topography in my experience.

My mistake in making this trip was not familiarizing myself with the current forest fire locations and encampments of the BLM firefighting crews.

The wind was sustained 30+ mph out of the SW and these windy conditions with accompanying turbulence were present right down to the ground. The huge gravel bars for which the Porcupine is famous were even more larger and more prominent than usual because of the extreme dry conditions of the Upper Yukon Valley and the Eastern Brooks Range.

The following photographs show the braided Yukon River, the Porcupine where I landed and took pictures of Arctic Terns (the origin of the name for my airplane) and other features of that large bar. Next are photographs of the huge wild lands fire burning East of Chalkyitsik with smoke being blown to the NE, views of the Colleen River, with very low water, the Porcupine Gorge and fires in the distance burning over a large area of the Yukon Territory, and finally, the landing spot I chose below the Salmon Trout River's entrance into the Porcupine Gorge. Missing are pictures of the large BLM fire fighter's camp at the mouth of the Salmon Trout. The turbulence in the gorge was so great that I had to concentrate on "flying the aircraft" and was unable to take any photos!

Just like everything that goes up must come down, my trip to the NE was downwind, frequently exceeding a ground speed of 120 mph. The return trip was very slow averaging 70-75 mph. Fortunately I have adequate supply of avgas, with 65 gallons on board.