Note: Several years after I first posted my National Geographic Adventure story about John Graybill (see preceding post) on an earlier version of my website, a reader named Rudy Mallonee wrote a comment describing a remarkable personal encounter with Graybill in his youth. Because I had switched hosting services by this point, it was a long time before I stumbled upon his comment. Very belatedly, I’m sharing the story here:
I grew up here in Alaska and when I was a young man I worked as a heavy equipment operator. I met John in 1970 while digging trenches for the plumbing on a medical building on Lake Otis and Tudor [in Anchorage, Alaska]. John was a plumber on the job. We got to talking hunting and he invited me to go with him that coming winter hunting wolves. So for that winter and the next we flew all over from the Alaska range way out south and east of Petersville to north as far as the Tanana river and west to Tok.
On a January trip back up behind Petersville Lodge in the next valley south from a hunting cabin on Cache Creek, we needed to get out to take a leak. We spotted an old cabin in the narrow valley, and there being a barely visible set of ski tracks on what was room to land on, John says “We’ll land there.” There were maybe two feet of snow over the old tracks and as we touched down there were hard ice ridges underneath the fresh snow. We took a couple of hard bounces and then the left wing dug in and we came to a sudden halt. John had good shock cord in place but no safety cables. At 40° below the shock cord just snapped, causing the wing to drop and dig in as that side collapsed.
I looked up and all the plexigass had broken out of the roof and the tubing was bent down about six inches. We got out and looked the wing over. It didn’t look damaged but the left outer struts of the landing gear were snapped as if cut by a knife and we could move the wing fore and aft about six to eight inches.
So John says “Let’s go down to the cabin and see if we can find anything to fix this with.”
The cabin was in good shape. It must have been someone’s summer hunting place. Alongside was the remains of another cabin that was perhaps what had been a storage shed or shop. We found some rusty pipe, chain, bailing wire and a plank. We went back up to the plane, propped up the wing with the plank, and as luck was with us, the pipe diameter was just right and the strut ends slid right inside. Using the light chain and the bailing wire we were able to lash the strut back to the frame. As we always carried rolls of duct tape, we had also found enough cardboard to more or less cover the opening where the plexigass had broken out and with enough duct tape had it covered back up.
John looked over the engine and prop, declared it to be OK, and said, “I’ve flown worse than this, you stay here and I”ll fly back to Anchorage and send Mackey (another bush-pilot friend) back to pick you up.” This being the first wreck I was ever in, and not sure that the plane would actually get in the air, I said an emphatic yes. I was ten years or so younger than John, and strong then, so I tramped out a runway with snowshoes, and John started the engine and took off. Very near the end of the tramped out runway, I saw the plane lift off with barely enough speed to fly. The left ski was flopping around. Didn’t good, but off John went.
The cabin was well equipped with wood and coal on the porch. I told myself I’d be fine until morning.
Come morning I was up and tramped up to the strip. Stood there on a sunny day waiting for Mackey. Nobody showed up all day. So I spent another night in the cabin, which was well stocked with food and all kinds of survival gear. Again for the next two days no one showed up. The weather was sunny. I then begin thinking that John has crashed and nobody knew where I was. And I had to get back to my business– I had just bought a Chevron station. We’d only meant to be out hunting for the weekend.
My imagination got to me. I was sure it might be next spring before John was found, still in the plane. So, as I knew where Pertersville Lodge was, I started getting some things together to walk back to the lodge. It would be a long way in deep snow and 40° below. I made up a pack from a wool army blanket and packed it full of food and a big meat cleaver. I found a .22 rifle to take in hopes of maybe getting a ptarmigan.
The next morning I walked up to the strip. No sooner than I was off the trail we’d made than I was hip deep in powdered snow. I couldn’t go forward without a lot of effort. So, returned to the cabin, started to examine the gear and found an old pair of wooden army skis and boots. I took off my mukluks and put on the boots which were a bit big, but with an extra pair of socks, I was fine.
It took all day to climb the side of the mountain and as I went over the top at near dark, I could see another cabin on the far side of the valley, maybe two miles away on a mesa 200 feet or so up. My problem was the slope up the other side was steep and the very top was straight up for about ten feet or so. I started up where there was a bunch of brush hanging down far enough that I could grab on and pull myself up, pack, skis and all.
Sweating and tired, I skied to the cabin and found a beautiful log cabin with a sign over the door: “Cache Creek Outfitters.” The door had a light chain through it and the wall. I did’t want to break a window so finding on the porch and using a chunk of railroad iron about a foot long as a hammer, I cut through the chain with the meat cleaver.
The cabin was a beauty. On the table in the corner was a two way radio with a twelve volt battery that was charged up. I called for a few hours until finally a woman from McGrath answered and I explained where I was and she called my folks in Anchorage. They called Don Sheldon in Talkeetna and next morning he came and picked me up.
You ask, where was John? When I returned home I called his number. John answered. He said: “Well, Mackey had some grocery shopping to do, and we figured you were safe and not going anywhere, so we’d go get you in a few days.” After yelling at him for awhile, we both laughed. John had successfully flown back to Lake Hood and landed on one ski with no more damage to the plane. We were still friends years later.