A Day Below Zero
Time: 0600, Location: home, Temp: -9°F
Alarm clock rings. Sam is at the bedroom door. I was the last one up with him last night, so it's Aubrey's turn to change and feed him.
Check the weather for flying. It's above -20°F the fog is holding off, and the wind is mild, so I plan to fly.
Meditate for five minutes. Vital for the ability to focus in the cockpit.
Workout. I have to load and unload airplanes, so it helps to have a strong back.
Practice Spanish. Porque me gusta aprender.
Write: This.
Tell Aubrey and Lacey I love them as they head out.
Time: 0700, Location: home, Temp: -11°F
Aubrey's leaving for work. The cars have been on a timed preheater since 0500.
Feed the dogs. Sam loves to help and is spilling less every day.
Get dressed to go outside. I plan my outerwear by degrees below freezing. Today's outfit consists of 19 pounds of wool, down, leather, and fur.
Sam gets to wear the beloved fur parka his grandmother made for him.
Rue (my dog) gets booties and a jacket.
Peak (Aubrey's dog) goes naked because he loves the cold.
Time: 0745, Location: home, Temp: -11°F
We're all dressed and ready for the dog walk. To save time, I'll walk the dogs as I take Sam to daycare.
I grab the sled and get Sam situated. Now I have dogs in front and a toddler in tow. If you're wondering why the dogs don't pull the sled, it's because they're bitches.
Time: 0801, Location: 1 mile east of home, Temp: -11°F
The novelty of riding a sled has worn off. We've got a block and a half to go, but Sam's done. He cries the rest of the way.
Time: 0815, Location: home, Temp: -12°F
Start the car and let it warm up. Grab my lunch. Head to work.
Time: 0838, Location: Spernak Airways, Temp: -12°F
Arrive at work. My airplane's in the warm hangar instead of outside. Today's gonna be a good day.
I fly a 1978 Cessna 207 StationAir II, commonly called a sled. She has a gray and white paint scheme, a tattered tan interior, untrustworthy instruments, and a vivacious six-cylinder engine. Nicknamed "The Silver Bullet," she can haul anything that fits in a 2003 Chevy Astro Van, including people, mail, chips, and beer.
Preflight the airplane by checking systems, lights, fuel, and oil.
Hop in. Start the engine and let it idle for several minutes to warm up. Check flight controls. Check engine system and peripherals.
Time: 0900, Location: Spernak Airways, Temp: -12° F
Park airplane. Cover engine to keep the heat. Open doors. Load cargo. I have two destinations on this flight, so cargo is separated using an FAA-approved 300-thread count bedsheet. In addition to cargo, I'll have two passengers out, and two back.
Go into the office to dispatch. The office is a squat, dilapidated building with chipped white paint. It features three battle-torn green leather chairs, numerous handmade signs, and no computers. But, far from giving pause, the antiquated structure inspires nostalgia for the time of cowboy bush pilots traversing the wild expanses of The Great North with nothing more than a paper map, a compass, and a thermos of hot, thick coffee.
Time: 0920, Location: Spernak Airways, Temp: -13°F
Walk passengers out to the airplane.
Walk around checking all doors, and the fuel and oil caps are secure.
Hop in. Passenger brief:
“My name's Jon. We've got about twenty-five minutes wheels-up to wheels-down to get out to Tyonek. Emergency exits are the doors, they operate with the handles. Keep your seatbelts on the whole time in case I do a barrel roll. Survival gear in the nose in case you want to try camping along the way. Emergency locator transponder in the tail and a remote for that on the dash, great for crank-calling the Coast Guard. Fire extinguisher in between the front to seat I use on unruly passengers. No smoking, drinking, puking, or vaping. There's a passenger briefing card right in front of you if you get bored and want something to read. Any questions?”
There are no questions.
Start the engine. Get the weather: calm winds, good visibility, and high ceilings.
Call for clearance to taxi:
"Goood morning Merrill Ground! Spernak niner-two-uniform, bravo, two-fife, Ship Creek, and the deviation."
Merrill Ground responds with instructions, advisories, and a cheery greeting of their own.
Time: 0929, Location: taxiway kilo, Temp: -13°F
I stop short of the runway, switch to tower frequency, and request a takeoff clearance.
Traffic advisories, departure instructions, and current winds are listed before I finally hear the beautiful phrase, "Spernak niner-two-uniform, cleared for takeoff two-fife."
I taxi out onto the runway and smoothly apply full power. The Silver Bullet roars to life and pushes us rearward in our seats. The power torques us to the left, but I've ridden this pony before and am ready with a corrective right rudder.
At 70mph, the airplane lifts off the ground. This is too slow to climb, so l hold her down, racing along the ground to accelerate.
At 95mph, I release my control pressure and bank right. 92U pitches skyward and gently rolls toward the coast.
With my left hand, I wind my way between the hotels and high-rises of downtown; with my right, I reconfigure the airplane four times in the first minute.
I didn't get the deviation, so I'll be crossing Cook Inlet at 600'. The crossing takes 90 seconds, 60 of which leave us stranded over open water and broken ice. If the engine fails, we'll land in water with only minutes of survivability.
Below, an icebreaker cuts a black gash through the jigsaw puzzle of ice, and three tugs gently push a container ship toward the Port of Alaska.
Once across, I begin curving my way along the coastline to Tyonek. The stark white of 8' of snow blankets a once-fertile tundra. Further inland, a line of black, leafless trees has halted its march to the sea.
Past the now-frozen mouth of the Big Susitna* River lies Mt. Susitna. This time of year, the small mountain catches a pastel glimmer of alpenglow as the sun glides horizontally along the horizon.
Despite its noblest efforts, my airplane's heater can't keep pace with the cold so the temperature in the cockpit is just above zero. My glasses frost over, and my insulated water bottle has frozen shut.
Time: 0954, Location: Tyonek, Temp: -18°F
I land on an upsloping runway of frozen gravel and coast to a stop. Villagers immediately surround the airplane with Ford F-150s, four-wheelers, and snow-machines. I help direct the outflow of chips and pop, then turn to Ernie with the day's mail.
Ernie and I load 300 pounds of Amazon boxes into the back of his maroon F-150 and then head to the post office.
Judy, the post lady, greets us with a big smile and a cheerful, "Good morning, Jon!" And we set to work exchanging packages and junk mail for handwritten postcards and business letters.
After the mail run, I'm back in the plane and heading six minutes up the coast to Beluga. Though it is 34 miles east of Anchorage and disconnected from the road system, the Beluga natural gas turbine provides most of the larger city's electrical power. Its runway, wilderness, and relative proximity to Anchorage made it a hotspot for hunting and fishing. During the summer, many of my flights are loaded to the gills with cardboard boxes of fish, cotton bags of duck, and tarps folded over bear. Today, I'm just flying humans out.
Time: 1015, Location: Beluga, Temp: -20°F
As I near the icy runway, two moose run out from the woods. One of them is a bull with antlers spanning close to six feet across. Together with a cow, he bounds across the runway. I add power and float over them.
Time: 1053, Location: Spernak Airways, Temp: -11°F
Back at work I offload passengers, refuel, and remove the back seats; my next flight will be all cargo.
Time: 1145, Location: Yentna River, Temp: -25°F
I'm 8 miles southeast of Skwentna and snaking my way up the Yentna River. Denali, the tallest mountain on the continent, looms overhead and just out of reach. Flying-saucer-shaped lenticular clouds hover atop the 20,310' peak, painting a breathtaking picture of devastating winds.
The waterway below has been frozen for months and is covered in drifts of snow two stories deep. Far from impeding travel, the frozen tundra unlocks land-based transportation for the citizens of many remote villages. Below, the white surface is crisscrossed with hundreds of snow-machine tracks; evidence of grocery runs, friendly visits, and afternoons of fun. I follow the converging tracks to a short ice runway carved into a river bend.
After dropping off the mail, I head back to Merrill Field for two more trips.
Time: 1623, Location: Cuddy Park, Temp: -8°F
After work, school, and daycare have been completed, we head to a nearby ice rink for an hour of "pass the toddler". Sam likes to go ice skating, but like any 2-year-old, he soon tires of even the coolest activity. Aubrey, Lacey, and I take turns holding the noodly heap upright as the others dance around the ice. Soon everyone is cold, tired, and whiny, so we head for home.
Time: 1749, Location: home, Temp: -10°F
Aubrey bathes Sam and Lacey curls up with a blanket and The Vampire Diaries while I cook seared salmon and scorched rice for dinner. Dinners are a sacred time for the family; no electronics, just catching up on everyone's day, talking about what we are grateful for, and trying to keep Sam's mess contained.
Time: 1837, Location: home, Temp: -11°F
After dinner, we clean up, pack lunches, plug cars in, and feed the dogs. Then, it’s an hour or so of free time before we start heading to bed.
*The ubiquitous suffix "na" is a native Alaskan term for river.