Bear Watch on Baranof

[jt_williams 291]

Bear Watch on Baranof – US Forest Service Cabin Tour

This flight starts and finishes at Sitka Harbor Seaplane Base (A29) and will include landings at 11 wilderness cabins located on Baranof Island as well as stops at False Island, Little Port Walter Marine Station, and Port Alexander.

"Fjords, glaciated u-shaped valleys, cascading waterfalls, and numerous active glaciers might exhibit the feeling of Norway, but in fact it describes the South Baranof Island Wilderness. Starting within 2 miles of the beach the landscape exponentially rises to glacier covered peaks at 4,000 feet. Peaks, though, are not the only things to feast your eyes on. Breathtaking waterfalls exiting hanging valley lakes spill into steep bowlshaped cirques at the end of highway long fjords. It might seem like paradise within this wilderness area but remember outside the bays and fiords 100 miles winds come screaming from the open Pacific Ocean."  

The Tongass Fjords X scenery (payware) will be needed to enjoy this tour.  The freeware Misty Moorings scenery addons listed below are also highly recommended.

Recommended aircraft: Floatplane or Amphibian is required for this tour.  

Scenery:

Tongass Fjords X scenery (payware) will be needed to enjoy this tour.    

RTMM Missing Cabins  Most of the USFS Cabins are part of the PFJ, Tongass Fjords X and SAK Scenery Packages. However, there are over 90 cabin locations missing. RTMM has created scenery locations for each of the missing locations and added them for you in the zip file (with installation instructions and NOTAMs) that you can download below:

RTMM Missing Cabins Link

Little Port Walter (LPW) Marine Station is a research unit of Auke Bay Laboratories located 110 miles south of Juneau near the southern tip of Baranof Island.

Little Port Walter Link

 

Flightplan & Pilots Guide: HERE

 Where & When
Date and time: Saturday, July 27, 2019. 1800 UTC.
Where: AVSIM RTWR Teamspeak - Casual Flights Channel
Teamspeak Server Address: ts.teamavsim.com
Cross-Platform Multiplayer: JoinFS. (FSX, FSX-SE, and P3D).

Multiplayer Experience
If you want to help others enjoy the multiplayer experience, don't forget to enter your aircraft details on the multiplayer spreadsheet (linked here). Your courtesy will save others a lot of time and effort. Thanks!
 

 

 

[Viking01 183]

Looks great. The plan reminded me to install Tongass Fjords again and thanks to Poppet (and Josh who directed me to the great video from Poppet), that exercise worked perfectly. Looking forward to the upcoming flight!

[MM 426]

Agreed, this flight design looks great.

Enhancing the plan,  Jeff has written a wonderful Pilots' Guide. The description of the lakes and bays and their distinctive cabins gives us some context in which we can appreciate the flight. And the splendid film clips of Baranof Island's natural beauty make us want to go back soon.

I especially loved Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins' narrative of his wilderness excursion from Port Alexander to Patterson Bay and Baranof Warm Springs. His writing transported this desk-bound-flyer from his chair to the steep ridges, alpine lakes, glaciers and the encompassing wild and imposing natural environment. "Taken as a whole, wilderness is a powerful thing, not unlike oceans or glaciers. You can enter its boundaries, thrash around for all you’re worth, and when you leave and head home again, much worse for wear, the wilderness resolutely remains, undisturbed."

And the "whale-watching" video. From what I can tell, that humpback whale had such a good time watching the humans that he told all his whale-friends to show up at Warm Springs on Saturday to see the expected flock of human-bearing flying boats. A good time should be had by all. (If we see bubbles surrounding our aircraft, we should be careful.)

[somiller 694]

Looks like a another great flight, and a chance to test skills landing the Porter on floats. Unfortunately I'll not be able to fly along as we'll be out of town.

Enjoy the flight!

[Viking01 183]

Wonderful narrative and great videos. While melting away with 104 (!) degrees outside and 86 inside the winter video was especially relaxing ...lol...

[jt_williams 291]

When putting together the pilots guide I stumbled across the Youtube Channel "Flemming Yachts" which features quite a few beautifully filmed and nicely narrated videos of Southeast Alaska.  I linked to one in the guide but have found another that is worth a watch.  It covers Baranof and Chichagof Islands and has some good whale watching.  

 

Exploring the Inside Passage.SE Alaska. Baranof & Chichagof 

[robrooke 42]

hi jeff,

superb video & what a way to spend three months. you would need to get back to a city to rest your eyes from the fantastic scenery.

looking forward to saturdays flight.

roger.

[spokes2112 179]

Thanks for the flight Jeff -
Excellent route! 
Just have a few screenies for you, the computer was really giving fits on this one.. 
The last half of the shots had everything turned down to keep it alive. 😞 
If wanted, you can see them here.