Janna Swales contacted me Sep.2007 and related her challenging hike, together with Colin Beairsto, to the crashsite..
 "Let me tell you about my C47 crash hike that took me north of Haines Junction... It seems like aeons ago now, but it was mid June, last summer.
My plane crash friend and his dog and I made our second attempt to reach this WW2 crash after a failed attempt last summer. I left from Teslin on a Thursday after work, and the three of us started hiking on a Friday morning. A lovely Friday morning.
Our hike began with an 18 kilometre mountain bike ride, first up-up old ATV tracks, and then steeply down into Marshall Creek. At Marshall Creek we cached our bikes and some delectable snacks as a treat. We began hiking up swampy Marshall Creek, skirting the marshy, submerged ATV track for long sections by following moose trails, before reaching the upper drainage. Colin was using my bivy sack; I was using my hammock. We camped in the upper Marshall drainage and prepared ourselves for the three thousand feet of elevation gain that would occur immediately when we started out the next morning. We had a great camp that we had used the year previous. A perfect sheltered spot that housed the hammock under two close growing pines, and comfortably cradled the bivy in a little nest of thick pine needles.
From the scouting of the previous year we knew that the bush was pretty thick and the slope was pretty steep to arrive at the meadowy traverse that we were gunning for. But we also knew that there were three or four fingers or tongues of rock slides that descended low into the brushiness, and we aimed for those and hit them early on... Although the steepness was tiring, those rock slides transported us up the slope in euphoric time as we mocked the brush to either side. As we neared the ridge the brush gave way to alpine beauty, short shrubby heather and flowers and grassy meadows. We chatted and laughed our way up and along further despite the drizzling weather and low foggy cloud. We had the UTM location of the crash and lots of walking time. No problem!
No problem, until we came to a cliff... This was a surprise cliff that didn’t show as a cliff on our topographics or our aerial photos...
It was foggy or cloudy enough that we couldn’t see through the abyss to the pass on the other side of the valley. We couldn’t see the bottom of the cliff. We couldn’t see the top of it rising to our right either. It was socked in as they say.
 We decided to stay put for a time and wait for a break in the weather and an extension to our views. So we while away the time with some Landyager sausage. Our patient plan worked to show us views of a passable route under the base of the upper cliff, and above the lower snowfield. That successful route led us to a pass that was the entry to the Ruby Range. But the Ruby Range doesn’t allow visitors easily via that route. It was a 1500 foot descent to the next valley bottom over another snowfield, a walkable snowfield where a slip would get a person to the bottom very quickly and would very quickly maim that person in the welcoming bosom of rocks awaiting. I hated it! With every step I knew that I would need to return via that route, and with every step I envisioned that rocky bosom.
We had seen glimpses of the plane through the clearing clouds from the top of the pass. At the pass the plane was visibly many hundred of feet above us, the descent to the valley bottom presented us with a 2500 foot climb, albeit an easyish one, steep yet meadowy and clear of brush.
The climb was broken into three phases, there was the first initial steep part of about 1500 feet, phase two was an uphill meadowy traverse, and the third phase was the final assault of about 1000 feet to our destination. It was cold up there..."
Well done Janna, bravo !!  |
These photos were taken by John Jennings, a local pilot and aviation historian.
When I travelled the area I made it a point to visit the wreck. Unfortunately, I found the helicopter of Trans North Air unavailable. So we walked over to Sifton Air and found they were willing to put a Cessna 205 to our disposal. Though this charter was cheaper, it proved to be more difficult to take photos of the wreckage, as it is located under the rim of a mountain. The fly-by cannot be made in a straight line, so Kate (our pilot) flew in the direction of the DC-3 and had to make a hard break to the right to avoid crashing against that mountain.... It left me with only a split second to make a picture.
