When I was 18 years old, I got my pilots' license in Palmer. Ever since then, I've wanted to fly the 30 minutes down to Girdwood to go skiing rather than take the 2 and a half hour drive around the mountains. Girdwood is the location of Alaska's only significant ski resort and one of my favorite places on earth. A few weeks ago, when Alaska was first starting to feel like spring, I set aside my overly pragmatic disposition and fulfilled the dream. It's funny it took me this long to do it -- I must work too much.
My buddy from elementary school, Andy Miller, flew down with me and we skied our brains out until we could barely walk, in blazing sunshine and corn snow. At mid-day we stopped for a $16 hamburger at the grill on top of the mountain, and sat in the sun for 30 minutes chatting with some close friends who had driven down the night before. We called it quits around 5 p.m. and headed for the plane.
This is where things got interesting. I had been looking forward to the flight home all day because some clouds had plugged the pass and I wanted to go the long way home towards 20-mile and the Knik. We said our good-byes to our friends who had dropped us off at the airstrip, loaded the cub, and climbed into the calm evening skies. We had been airborne about 10 minutes when I suddenly began to realize that I was not feeling well. I figured I had over-exerted myself shredding the corn, and my body was making it known now that I was sitting down.
I continued to head back toward home but was feeling increasingly ill. This was a very odd sensation for me because I typically never feel anything when I fly because my body/brain is distracted. Usually the pilot's seat is the cure-all for anything that ails you. It's one of the bitter-sweet things about flying for a living -- you get good at compartmentalizing and leaving all psychological, emotional, or physical baggage on the ground, there is no room for it in the cockpit. That's why it was incredible to me that I was feeling significantly putrid. I almost asked Andy to hand me a sick-sac, but decided the sight of it may push me over the edge, plus it sounded like too much energy.
As we descended around a snow-squall and into the Knik drainage I was watching the ETE tick down from 9 minutes to 7 minutes and it felt like the flight would never end. I was not unsafe, I was just really uncomfortable. When my tires hit the ground and I pulled up in front of the hangar, I told Andy he was going to have to unload by himself because I was headed for the bushes...I won't go into details but long story short it was that doggone $16 dollar hamburger that was the culprit, and my body spent the next 7 hours extracting it from my system.
It's funny -- I felt fine on the ground before takeoff, but so ill in the air. I've often said you could cut my arm off while I'm flying the Cub, and I don't think I would feel it until I got on the ground. I'm not so sure anymore, maybe it was just paybacks for all the poor biologists who have sat in the back seat puking and trying to take notes while I circled some lone moose tucked up under a spruce tree. Whatever it was, one thing is for sure...beware of $16 hamburgers. It must be the extra bacteria that's expensive.
Matthew Keller is the owner and operator of Blue Ice Aviation. He was born and raised in Alaska and his office is the cockpit of his Super Cub. His goal is to transport everyone into Alaska's vast wilderness. See more of his videos and writing at Blue Ice Aviation.