Winter Planning for 2012

The big plan for 2012 trip -  Here is all the planning that took place before the 2012 trip.  Dave eat sleeps and drinks gold mining and planning.  He’s the planner and organizer and George is his supporting advisor.  Their system seems to work.  I insisted the guys have some structure like a cabin for protection from the bears and it was worth dipping in my savings to make this happen.  Dave had a 12 x 16 cabin package shipped to McGrath.  It turns out they had about 7,000 lbs of equipment and supplies shipped.  The plan is to fly into Anchorage and drive to Wasilla with their food supply packed on dry ice.  They then will fly out of Anchorage on Penn Air to McGrath and then get their stuff to their site. 

Here’s what really happened:  They arrived in Anchorage and found a Cosco.  They were like 2 women shopping calling me on the phone telling me what kind of deals they were finding.  5 dozen eggs for $8.89.  They were so excited to find those kind of prices in Alaska and I can imagine them doing a little “over shopping.”    They found cookies, chips, Doritos… you get the picture.  They drove their stash to Wasilla after packing the meat on dry ice.  Then drove back to Anchorage and took a Penn Air flight to McGrath.  They then hired 2 bush pilots.  The pilot with Tanner Air loaned them his pick-up to retrieve the cabin package being stored and brought it back to the airport.  The Tanner Air plane was a 207 Cessna.  He would be making 7 trips from McGrath to their site 60 miles away to deliver their supplies.  The guys couldn’t go on the delivery trips because they had to take the seats out to accommodate the goods.  Now for the second bush pilot, Ken, who has a small “tail dragger”.  This is the one with the vice grips on the door and also the one where the door flew open as they landed.  Not a Cadillac but a very seasoned pilot.  42 years flying and had participated in the Iditarod race 18 times.  I would have felt safe with him too.  Ken made 3 trips out to the site with even more supplies.  Remember they had to have the bigger plane to get the tin, plywood and 2 x 4’s out there.  They had to cut the plywood in half to even fit it in the 207.  Now that pilot had to fly to the site alone and unload all of this by himself.  You have to understand that Gold Fever is pretty powerful and as the guys will tell you; a lot of fun.