A TRIP WE HAVE ALWAYS DREAMED ABOUT
As seen in STIO’s Mountain Town Journal
The day started early, driving down the hill in the dark to my airplane parked at the local airport. My friend Jake and I had a plan: to find the wildest lake across Alaska to skate on. It’s a difficult task because you need two weeks of cold, clear skies to lock up the lakes in ice. In Alaska, that rarely happens due to what feels like endless storms in the fall. On this day, we were lucky enough to have a high-pressure system move in, which allowed us to set up camp over the south-central region of the state.
By the time I pulled up to the plane, a Cessna 120 built back in 1946, the first sign of light started to appear in the sky. With the plane plugged in to keep the engine warm, I started pulling off the wing and tail covers that help keep frost off the airfoils. The plane started up on the first try, a good sign for the day. We taxied over letters painted on the ground that spelled out BIRCHWOOD, with the skies now turning pink overhead. Taking off and heading south, I passed over Anchorage on the way to a town called Soldotna. The sun began to rise from behind the peaks bordering the city, and the skies transitioned to orange- a perfect start to the morning and a sign for what was to come.
As I arrived in Soldotna, Jake was waiting for me. Jake, being a much more experienced pilot and owner of a super cub (an airplane set up for off-runway/backcountry landings), was the perfect accomplice for this adventure. I hopped in to his plane with him. As one of the best bush pilots in Alaska, he had an idea of where to go and where he “thought he could land”. I didn’t question it. From Soldotna, we would cross over the last road before flying over the inlet and heading south down the opposite coastline, slowly getting deeper and deeper into the uninhabited coastline. After flying past a volcano that towers over the surrounding mountains, we turned up a valley and started climbing in altitude. We popped above a glacier, so expansive that it disappeared into the horizon. A mountain of rock, that was most likely a nunatak at one point in time, met the toe of the glacier with a set of perfectly frozen ponds at the top overlooking the ice field below. Jake found the only place he could land—the “smoothest” hundred feet on the glacier below—and made the softest landing he could.
After tying up the plane to ice screws set in the glacier, we hiked off the ice onto solid ground and started climbing up the mountain looking for the ponds we flew over. Before noon, we ended up at the shore of a beautifully perched alpine lake, with six inches of the clearest ice you would ever see—or not see. Stepping out on the ice, we felt like we were floating as every detail of the floor of the lake was perfectly visible until it turned blue and the sandy bottom disappeared into the depths. With the glacier in the background and mountain tops peeking out of the ice, it was all perfect.
I’ve played ice hockey for 20 years of my life, and nothing beats the sound of your skates cutting through a frozen lake. To get the opportunity to go out via plane in search of a beautiful place to tie up the skates, step out on a frozen lake, and pass a puck around with your friends has always been a dream of mine. I have talked about it for years, hoping to get the perfect weather window. What was once a dream is now one of those special moments in our lives—it teaches us to be grateful for what we have, the places we’ve been, and where we are now. To me, a good adventure brings that insight—a chance to look back on life and find happiness in the moment. This was one of those adventures.
After a few hours of skating around and enjoying the moment, we packed it all up and hiked back to the plane. With smiles on our faces and a feeling of contentment, we took off down the glacier. Staring out the window all the way back, I spent a smooth flight home taking it all in, grateful that Alaska still gives me the opportunity to get lost in the wilderness.