Ted Huntley operated Alyeska Air Service and to my knowledge he founded it.  I also knew Dr. Frazier.  Both men and Ted’s family were personal friends of our family when I was growing up.  I don’t remember Dr. Frazier being married. Knowing Ted’s profile as I do, I suspect he is the second person from the right in the photo.  When Ted wasn’t flying folks up to the Chugach Mountains he was a pilot for Alaska Airlines flying jets from Anchorage to Seattle.

Although I never got the chance to ski with Alyeska Air Service my brother and I did get to fly with Ted and his son Ben from Merrill Field to Girdwood one weekend.  It was in the Super Cub in the photo on the ALSAP web site.  It was probably around the 1968 – 1970 time frame and turned into a scouting mission to check out landing sites around Girdwood.  First we sort of bounced landed on Raven Glacier.  The wind had been blowing and there were ripples of windblown snow, probably 12 to 18 inches high, that we landed perpendicular to so we could land into the wind.  If my memory serves me it seemed we landed tail wheel first in order to drag it to shorted our landing distance.  After bouncing to a stop and a quick check on the snow conditions we had to pack out a strip to take off since the ripples prevented us from getting enough speed before we were bounced silly.  Next spot that day was to buzz the top of Max’s Mountain.  I don’t know if Alyeska Air Service ever landed there.  Finally we headed over to Portage Lake and landed on the ice.  That one was pretty uneventful.  Ted eventually got my brother me and to Girdwood where my parents met us at the airport to take us to our cabin.

Dr. Frazier was an anesthesiologist in Anchorage and when he wasn’t working or skiing he did manage to make it a habit to climb mountains.  He stayed at our cabin in Girdwood a few times, always sleeping on the porch in his sleeping bag.  It was too hot in the cabin for him.

Also just got a glimpse at the article on Raven Glacier.

I skied it twice.  Once with Keith Tryck as a part of a promotional film that was being done for Alyeska.  The second time was with John Dillman.  The first time we only skied the glacier and flew out.  John and I skied all the way back down to the Double Muskey.  I remember that day, the road was hard packed and we just cruised along, never polling and ate lunch!

I'm pretty sure both times, Al Curtis flew the Alyeska Air Service Super Cub.  The landing was challenging to say the least. The landing site was on top of a small knoll (in the postcard, it's right under the word "Alyeska").  As I recall, it was a full-power landing, uphill with a requirement to stop exactly on the top of the knoll.  As you can see in the postcard pic, there's a significant cirque behind the knoll with almost no room to go around.

The first time, with Keith, we landed and unloaded (you can imagine two of us, 6 feet plus, crammed in the back of the Cub with skis).  We had to help Al turn the Cub around in the deep snow and then shoved him off downhill.  We expected him to firewall the engine to get off but to our surprise, he kept it at idle as he disappeared down the slope!  Moments later he appeared putting along just fine.

The camera crew was flown in to the base of the headwall and when the signal came, Keith and I started off in the most glorious deep power.  It got so steep that he and I were literally getting airborne on some turns and pushing gigantic amounts of snow with each turn.

We could hear the film crew screaming up at us in delight at what they were seeing.

Later, when the film guys had been flown out, it was Keith's and my turn.  The only problem was that the poor Cub didn't have enough power to haul all of the weight off the glacier.  So Al and Keith decided it would be best if I got out and pushed....!

That worked out pretty well until it was time for me to get back into the plane.  I distinctly remember being glad I had a strong belt on since that's how Keith got me crammed back into the back seat.....

We've always wondered where the film ever got to.  VIA (Visual Interpretation Assistance) out of Seattle somehow blew out of the contract with Alyeska before the film was completed.