WASILLA -- Cliff Hudson, longtime Alaska bush pilot and one of the state's mountain flying masters, died Friday at 84 at the Palmer Pioneers Home after a long illness.
Hudson flew steadily from his arrival in Alaska in 1948 to his retirement in 1995 and was known as a meticulous and careful pilot. His family said he had never wrecked a plane despite thousands of hours in the cockpit, sometimes in frightening weather.
Hudson was born in Malott, Wash., and served two years in the U.S. Army. He came to Alaska in 1948 to join his brother, Glenn, who had started Hudson Air Service in Talkeetna two years earlier. Glenn Hudson died in an airplane crash north of Talkeetna in 1952 and Cliff Hudson took over the business.
Just two years later he was involved in a rescue for which he later received a U.S. Air Force medal. Sixteen airmen were flying in a C-47 from Elmendorf Air Force Base to Fairbanks in February 1954 when their plane disintegrated in midair and crashed near Kesugi Ridge, killing 10 airmen. Six men parachuted out of the plane and survived.
Hudson was the first pilot out looking for the men after hearing about the crash but was unable to land. He and rival pilot Don Sheldon went back the next day to pick up the men, who had spent the night outside in minus-35- degree temperatures. Hudson received the U.S. Air Force's Exceptional Service Award, the civilian equivalent of the military's Distinguished Service Medal, in 2000.
Then came the climbing days that put Talkeetna on the map. Hudson and Sheldon figured out how to land on the mountain in part to satisfy the clamor of people wanting to go there, said Chuck Hudson, Cliff's son.
"In the early days, people were trying to hike in," Hudson said. "Trying to take off from Talkeetna to go to the mountain was really difficult."
Those intrepid climbers battled nearly 60 miles of mosquitoes, river and creek crossings, bears and other dangers, then faced daunting, crevasse-crossed glaciers.
Joe Horiskey, a climber and co-founder of Rainier Mountaineering Inc., said a sign in the Fairview Inn reads, or used to read, "Fly an hour or walk a week."
"Nobody would be climbing that mountain if it weren't for the pilots," Horiskey said.
Horiskey's company runs between nine and 12 expeditions each year, with between six and nine people on each. They've flown with Hudson Air since their first trip to McKinley back in 1972, he said.
"Cliff was like a father and a friend and a business partner all wrapped together. He was an expert pilot. I can't tell you how many times he flew our parties in and out of that mountain successfully," Horiskey said.
In the early days, he said, climbers relied on pilots to know when they were ready to return. It was before the days of cell phones, he said. But Hudson had a system.
"He'd give us a car battery and he'd cut a couple willow boughs," Horiskey said.
The battery powered a rented radio, which was stashed in a snow cave. The willow boughs were used to string the wire, "then we'd just hope we could reach Talkeetna."
In addition to the rigged radio system, pilots frequently made flyover checks on their climbing parties, Horiskey said.
Ollie Hudson, Cliff's wife, said he was the first to pay for a radio operator to spend the climbing season on the mountain, directing traffic in and out. Later, other flight service companies chipped in to cover those costs, she said.
Ollie kept books and dealt with clients for Hudson Air, a job she still does, though the family hopes to sell the business. She said throughout her husband's career, her Main Street home was open to all sorts of clients, from pilots to a foreign ambassadors Hudson flew around one day. A crew from "Good Morning America" flew with him, as did popular author James Michener, when he was researching his book "Alaska."
"There have always been happy and fun times," she said.
Ollie added that Cliff wasn't always just a pilot. He was a riverboat captain of sorts, as well. In the days before the Talkeetna Spur Road connected the village to the Parks Highway, the only way in and out was by air, boat or train.
Find Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 907-352-6709.
By RINDI WHITE
rwhite@adn.com