Freedom in the last frontier

But for pilot Leigh Coates, there’s no competition. Helicopters can take you almost anywhere you can think of, and she loves to prove it by landing all over Alaska in a distinct red and white striped Bell 505 nicknamed the Candy Cane Copter. Based primarily in Valdez, Alaska, Coates shows us that helicopters truly are freedom machines.

Her path to Valdez was a winding one. Coates started training in airplanes after a flight over Southern California with her stepdad. Not long after, she earned her private pilot certificate before starting instrument training in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at 19, before, as she describes it, she took a detour.

“I went snowboarding and all of a sudden my life just shifted completely, and I followed this other shiny fancy thing for a while.” She went pro and traveled the world for years before a car accident stopped her from competing.

“So, I said, you know what? I’m going to just up and move to Hawaii for the winter and get away from the snow,” she says. “And when I was in Hawaii, somebody told me about helicopter school…and I was like, fantastic, I’m going to do that.”

After a year of training and a season in Alaska, she got her “dream job” flying tours in an MD 500 in Hawaii but realized that maybe the dream had changed.

“I was flying the same routes every day and telling the same jokes. And I felt like I was losing my flying skills.” She returned to Alaska to fly utility, intrigued by the promise that every day would be different, and this time, the move was for good. Diverse work of long lining, mountaintop installations, flying glaciologists, claim staking, and more kept her captivated. After several years, Coates met the people she would end up starting a business with.

“One of them turned into my life partner, Mike [Williams], and the other is Douglas [Fulton] and he’s just a gem of a human being. I love them both dearly. They both were private helicopter pilots, and they really wanted to learn and grow their skillset.” With that in mind, they decided to buy a helicopter. “[We bought an R44 together,] and I was a pretty experienced commercial pilot at the time, and I said, well, why don’t you let me see if I can break even on at least our insurance payments and things like that and I’ll do a little bit of commercial operations.

“And somehow I ended up doing a ton of work that year,” she says. “And we had this little accidental business that started in Valdez, Alaska, of all places, really changed the course of my life, and I’m sure their lives too.”

That company, VS Helicopters, grew and grew until eventually it was bought by a hedge fund several years ago, and the VS team signed a noncompete. Now retired, in her late 40s, and with a lot of free time, Williams and Coates began looking for a way to enjoy retirement and explore. In the end, they chose a Bell 505, which is a great traveling machine and a sturdy backcountry operator. Funnily enough, the now-distinct paint job was perceived as so ugly at Bell that the pair bought the new helicopter at a discount. These days, Coates’ substantial following on social media tags along wherever the Candy Cane Copter goes, whether that’s around the whole state of Alaska, journeys to and from their winter home in Arizona, or just enjoying the Valdez region, which Coates promises that over a couple days of flying, we’ll fall in love with, too.

In the air

The Valdez Airport (PAVD) is outrageously beautiful. Tucked along a nearly 7,000-foot ridge line, the 6,500-foot strip and view from Coates’s hangar would be familiar to anyone who has ever watched the famous Valdez STOL Demo. And by the way, it’s Val- as in Kilmer and -dez rhyming with these, so says life-long resident Mike. The view from their hangar, which houses their CubCrafters Carbon Cub FX3, is amazing, and Coates and Williams say it’s their favorite summer hangout spot. Across the runway, deep green leads to the tree line, disrupted only by thin waterfalls resting like ribbons down a maypole. To the far right is the beginning of the Valdez glacier lake, and just a hint of a few glaciers clinging to peaks. To the left is the inlet and town of Valdez; a salty and marine animal smell always in the air in this land of extreme tides, and the sound of water—either rushing down from the waterfalls all around us, too many to count, or the tide coming in and out in Prince William Sound, or rain gently falling—is the constant soundtrack.

Coates briefs us for our flight and shows us the hangar while we secure our life jackets. In addition to the 505 and the Carbon Cub, they have a Robinson R44 that’s tucked into the CAP hangar down the way. With 500 hours in airplanes and 8,000 in rotorcraft, Coates calls her time pretty lopsided. She enjoys the challenge of staying proficient in an airplane, but also admits that of the fleet, the airplane is the one “collecting dust.”

The Candy Cane has a few extra bells and whistles to better equip it for Alaska flying. There are bear paws on the skids that help disperse weight upon landing, what Coates calls the cheapest insurance an Alaskan heli pilot can buy, and pop-out floats. There’s also survival gear on board, start sticks just in case of battery issues, a satellite phone in the helicopter, and a Garmin inReach on her person, plus an auxiliary fuel tank depending on that day’s adventure. That, and extensive briefing with passengers and crew, including a debarkation procedure to make sure that exiting the helicopter doesn’t change the center of gravity so much that the tail hits the ground, helps her prepare us for the days ahead.

Almost everything she does is in the backcountry, and the concerns for off-airport flying in helicopters aren’t so different from airplanes. The main goal remains—don’t hit anything.

We depart from Valdez easily, despite easterly winds that Coates warned us might make some serious turbulence. Thankfully, it’s nice enough to fly, and we head out to land in places previously undreamed of by my airplane pilot brain. Our first stop is the Columbia Glacier.

The glacier is not far, and in fact, we’ll only be in approximately 20 or so square miles over the next couple days of exploring. The mountains’ north side is in winter and south side is still in summer. The scale of it is already difficult to comprehend as we quickly hop over to the fast-receding tidal glacier, which looks small but has a face more than 100 feet tall and length over three miles wide. Coates sets us up for a landing on a small, rocky island. The fact that this is only accessible during low tide is the only reason we can land on it—permanent land in protected areas like this are a no-go otherwise for helicopters.

The island is ringed with a necklace of ancient ice. The drip-drip-drip of beached icebergs melting taps over the rushing tide, a light music outdone only by the distant white thunder from the calving Columbia Glacier.

This is as good a place as any for lunch, and Coates busts out a cooler. We all make some open-faced sandwiches while participating in what my friend calls “family holdback” where none of us takes as much as we want.

“Don’t go without in the land of plenty,” Coates says, noticing the group’s reluctance, and encourages us to pile on more salmon and jalapenos to the sourdough, another Alaska staple from its homesteading roots. With lunch under our belts and a block of glacier ice acquired for later, we set off for our next adventure.

The 505 weaves through peak after peak and follows the sound to the open ocean before turning toward a waterfall. I’m still in airplane mode, thinking we’re just taking a look at a lake formed at one stage of the waterfall beside a snowfall-created ice cave—until I realize, embarrassingly late, that we’re about to land.

Coates lands with the tail rotor pointed toward the glassy lake, which reflects the deep green and snowy peaks like a mirror. Royal purple lupines greet us, the unpredictable gift of nature a welcome surprise. Dall sheep dot steep cliff faces above the waterfall bowl, and the red and white 505 pops like sunshine against the natural backdrop.

We bust out our flashlights and follow Coates into the ice cave, scrambling up, over, across, and through the cold and rushing water. If I were a yeti, this would be prime real estate, and the melting ice makes it feel like we’re in a rainstorm as we walk. We make it to the top, and the water roars down. The return journey is easier, following the literal light at the end of the tunnel, and the three of us from the Lower 48 all feel a little more adventurous and cool after our short hike.

We move on, this time in a spiral—up, up, up—and land on a snow-covered peak just above the little lake we just visited. The skids touch down, and Coates settles the 505 into the snow with some encouragement, pushing the helicopter down a little more to make sure the skids have a good grip. Coates says the snow is easier to land on than a rocky peak because it is more even, but she still has to make sure it can handle a heli. It’s a different season up here, and even though summer lingers at sea level, the cold bite of winter is in the air, and dark clouds hang over much of the landscape. Hard as it is to admit, an airplane could never land here.

“As a helicopter pilot, my favorite part of flying is landing. For me, it’s the places that I get to go to,” Coates says. “It’s the ultimate freedom of seeing a mountain peak and knowing that I can take myself there and explore that spot.”

AOPA Director of Photography Chris Rose wanders precariously close to the edge to get some shots, in his element, while my fear of heights is activated, and I remain in a 25-square-foot area for our visit. There’s nowhere on Earth like Alaska, and there’s nowhere on Earth helicopters can’t take you, it seems. The limits are only your skills, not the helicopter’s ability, and the 505, which has an excess of power, superior comfort, and nimble maneuvering, while heavy enough that the bumps on this windy day have been minor, really is the perfect machine for the place.

With the overcast lingering, we head back to Valdez for the night and prepare to regroup tomorrow for one of Coates’ favorite spots, this time with both helicopters and hopefully some sunshine.

The next day

The weather delivers, and today, we have sun. I’m with Williams and Fulton in the 505, and Rose and Video Content Producer Bri Cabassa are with Coates in the R44. Yesterday we did mostly coastal flying, and had the sea as our horizon, but today, we’re nearly all in dramatic valleys, which Coates notes makes the reliance on instruments even more key.

Sunlight transforms the landscape from yesterday’s ominous and forbidding gloom to today’s storybook warmth. We fly up a multi-step waterfall with a meadow at the top, wildflowers dotting a winding stream’s path. The R44 tucks in next to us, and Williams helps even out the skids with some rocks they have nearby, dismantling part of his fire pit in the process. We waited for the sun in this spot for a reason—this landing zone gives us the perfect view of a constant rainbow from the waterfall’s spindrift mist. Remembering the snowy peak from yesterday feels like we were in a different world. Realizing that likely only a handful of people have ever been here only adds to the beauty.

After some fancy flying and photos, we head back to the airport, where we regroup at sunset for one last flight over the sprawling Valdez glacier. In a way, we did save the best for last. The scale of Alaska is laid bare with this frozen river, and I keep sneaking a look at our altimeter. It feels like we’re at 200 feet max, but we’re closer to a thousand. With nothing to compare the massive crevasses to, the mind can’t calibrate this level of majesty.

We fly over an old mine on our way home, considering the grit it must’ve taken to mine these parts, especially when we’re sitting in the custom leather seats of a Bell 505, Williams adjusting the temperature with AC as we turn in and out of the sun, looking down into the past before we set up to enter the pattern, as much as a helicopter has to actually enter the pattern at its trafficless home field in the twilight days of Alaskan summer.

Into the future

While the helicopter life worked out for Coates, she notes that it isn’t for everyone, and when talking to beginner pilots, she’s sure to share the “good, bad, and ugly” of it.

“Flying helicopters, really, there’s two paths. And either you have a lot of money and you can buy your own helicopter, which is very, very rare, or you do it as a career,” she says, while noting that a helicopter career is indeed rewarding. “I feel like I got lucky because I didn’t put a lot of thought into it, but I would recommend someone think real hard about what it is that they want out of a lifestyle career.”

After a few years of retirement, Coates doesn’t want to say goodbye to that career fully. Now that the noncompete has expired, Williams and Coates have both their Bell 505 and R44 on Part 135 and 133 certificates to be able to say yes to the jobs that she wants and “take people out for Alaska adventures.” At the heart of that all is sharing the joy of flight, and the unique way in which helicopters provide it.

“Aviation is just the total freedom,” she says. “It’s magic.”

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