Glacial Gyrations
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. James R. Evans lives in Lewiston, Calif., with his wife, Sandy, and a dalmatian and a Border collie. The nearest he gets to ice these days is in his drink.

In the mid-1950s I got a dream assignment to Big Delta (now Fort Greeley), Alaska, as a meteorologist. The small Army post, about 100 miles southeast of Fairbanks, was a grim remnant of World War II. But it had two L-19s, two L-20s, four helicopters, and only five pilots.

Could I get checked out in the L-19 (a Cessna 170 in military configuration)? You betcha! Little did I know that I would scare myself more times flying in Alaska than I did flying 60 missions in the big war.

One fun job was hauling around a geologist named Bill Holmes on aerial surveys. Large parts of Alaska had never been mapped, and Bill was assigned the work in our area.

On one of our survey flights we looked for an airliner that had crashed on Wrangell Mountain, an active volcano. We flew around the peak, climbing higher until we were almost at the top, over 13,000 feet. We didn't see the airliner, but we did spot a prefabricated shelter on a ridge near the summit. It was a cosmic ray research project that had been supported by a Super Cub on skis.

Down below us was a smooth, level patch of snow that extended at least half a mile to a steep drop of several thousand feet covered by jumbled ice blocks. Bill wondered if we could land there. Of course! If a Super Cub could do it, an L-19 could do it.

We landed, and it was exhilarating. The sky was clear, the sun was shining, and the wind was calm. A wisp of smoke was coming out of the peak. We were frolicking in the snow 200 miles from nowhere like a couple of naughty kids.

When we readied for takeoff, reality set in. I didn't know it at the time, but we were right at the service ceiling for an L-19, and we were asking the plane to lug two heavyweights plus survival gear.

We gunned the engine and - nothing. We didn't budge. No sweat, the skis are frozen to the snow. We got out, cleaned the skis, and got back in. Still, the screaming prop couldn't move the plane. I told Bill he would have to get out and push on the wing strut to get us moving. Bill looked apprehensive but got out and pushed.

I got the tail wheel up out of the snow, and we inched forward. Bill scrambled back in and sat down, pushing the tail wheel back in the snow. We stopped.

Bill again pushed on the wing strut until we started moving. As the plane picked up speed, Bill put one foot on the ski and pushed with the other like a kid on a scooter. Finally, we topped the rise and started to pick up speed. Bill jumped back into the plane.

We were slowly picking up speed, but I still needed 35 mph to fly, and the ice fall was just ahead. At the last moment, I jerked on full flaps and popped the plane into the air. We burbled on the verge of a stall but finally were away from the mountain in free flight. Phew!

It was some adventure. I was still shaking when I sat down to supper that night. Bill called and asked if I had the radio on. No. Why? "I dedicated a song to you," he said. "'On Top of Old Smokey.'" Needless to say, the Army never knew how thoroughly we tested the L-19.