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Well it was a pretty laid-back afternoon. I can count on one hand the number of people I saw in Burwash the several hours I was there, and when I met the fishermen they were exhausted. They had lost a little bit of their gear between yesterday morning and this evening, but nothing too important. It wasn't a total loss for them, however; when I saw two of them carrying their cooler I knew it was a good weekend for them. Apparently the fish were biting at everything that moved, and the guys had loaded their cooler with better than 50 pounds of trout, including a 35-pounder. They would have taken more, but they ran out of room in the cooler. Anyway, after we loaded I did the preflight and we got ready to go around 7:30. Here I am just before the prop started turning.  Since we were loaded pretty heavy, I decided to go down to the end of Runway 10 to make sure I'd have enough room. Burwash has a mile-long gravel strip, but it's still better to be safe than sorry. And away we go...    Climbing was a nightmare... for some reason it was a lot tougher than it was when we left Whitehorse. We ended up taking about 15 minutes to climb 5500 feet, and I still managed to overheat the oil. However, once we finally got to 8000, the sights were worthwhile. I had decided to fly straight over the mountains and follow the Whitehorse NDB. We didn't pick up the signal right away, but it was no big deal. I just headed out on an ENE heading and caught the signal head-on about halfway there. Thankfully we were heading east, as the sun was slowly setting in the west, which was captured in several of these shots. It was kind of hazy early on, but things cleared up as we neared Whitehorse.  This is a glacial lake called Sekulmun Lake.  A peak between Sekulmun and Aishihik Lakes, marked without a name on the sectional.  Speaking of Aishihik Lake, here's a sunset shot of me after I had passed over it.  More... no words for these, just enjoy. Most of these capture the sunset, but I did remember to catch the dark blue sky in front of the Beaver for a few.        The last shot shows the two Whitehorse area airports. The one just off the left wingtip is called Cousins. It's your typical Yukon airstrip: mile-long gravel runway with no lights, ATC, or automated weather. The bigger patch is the town, at the right of which is Whitehorse Int'l. Once Cousins came into sight I knew it was time to start descending... I had been cruising at 8000, and the airport is at about 2300. A Beech had been flying an IFR into Whitehorse about 10 minutes ahead of me, and I heard him get cleared to Runway 13R. That was nice since I could pretty much fly straight in instead of having to enter on downwind. I followed the NDB until I saw the runway lights and came on in. It was a bumpy ride in, there was a pretty respectable crosswind and it was pretty gusty.    Looks like I forgot to push the prop and mixture levers forward... oh well. Hasn't ever hurt me too bad before.  Oh... that's probably not good... probably should have let the flaps down a little more... Had to taxi all the way down the runway since CYXY isn't the best-designed airport out there, and Microsoft certainly didn't help by putting signs in the middle of Runway 1/19, which is not quite halfway down 13R/31L and I'm sure used as a taxiway in real life. Turned off at the end and got a decent shot of the runway at this "big city" airport.  Taxied all the way back down towards the other end of the airport and parked it near that Beech that had flown in ahead of me.   I shut it down, the men fetched their truck, and we unloaded. They paid me the other half and offered me a 4-pounder they had caught this morning. I politely declined since I have no way to keep it cool and I'd rather not stink up my plane. I'll be staying here in Whitehorse tonight, Juneau's a bit of a haul from here and it's getting late. Besides, I need to take a look at that float when it's a little brighter outside. The water rudder looks OK other than having a scraped-up bottom edge, but I should have a look at the insides to make sure it'll hold for the trip home. Definitely no water ops until the mechanic takes a look at it in Juneau. This was a good trip, one that required a little extra planning. It was also nice to go somewhere I hadn't gone before and come back with some nice shots.
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