The Liberty Gazette
April 4, 2023
Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely
Mike: In the spring of 1979, my friend Dennis and I made a weekend camping trip in the Southern Sierra Nevada. I rented a Grumman American Tiger from my flying club and flew over the city, desert, and mountains, from Fullerton to Kernville, in about 90 minutes. It would have been a five-hour drive.
Leaving Los Angeles’ crowded and complex airspace behind, we traversed a mountain ridge and a small corner of the Mojave Desert. Edwards Air Force base, where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947, was just east of our route. We slid above a nice mountain valley with the waters of Lake Isabella welcoming us. There, in a flat spot on the east shore, was Kern Valley Airport.
Lake Isabella is fed by snowmelt from the peaks of the High Sierra. The Kern River, noted for some of the toughest rapids of any river in North America, fills the lake to capacity during spring runoff. For months, the south end of Kern Valley’s runway was under water and unusable. A new runway was under construction further up the shore where it wouldn’t be flooded (that runway was completed a year later, in 1980). When we landed, the lake was already lapping at the pavement. We’d stay only one night, otherwise we’d be stuck.
Dennis and I rented an old, beat-up Ford LTD, unloaded our camping gear from the plane, and after checking out some of the hamlets scattered about the valley, headed up-river to a forest service campground. After setting up camp, we dug out our dinner. Dinty Moore Beef Stew. That’s when we discovered that neither of us had brought a can opener. I don’t remember what “Plan B” was, but we didn’t starve.
As the shadows grew long, Dennis wandered off along the bank of the river. A while later, I followed. I found him sitting high up on the bank mesmerized by a beaver building a dam on the opposite bank. As I approached, I whispered, “Hey Dennis.” He answered, “shuuu!” and excitedly pointed to the beaver. I again tried to get his attention, and he repeated his “shuuu!”
“Dennis!” I finally pressed, “You are sitting in poison oak!” His head popped up, he looked around, and jumped. The beaver paid us no mind and kept on gnawing at the vegetation.
Fortunately, Dennis didn’t break out in a rash. The following day after loading the plane for departure, we had some trouble with the left brake. It got stuck after I had set the parking brake the night before. With the help of all the pilots hanging out in the local airport diner, rocking the plane back and forth, the brake finally unlocked. On takeoff, as we crossed the end of the runway, we could see that in just one day, water was already edging up over the asphalt. Had our brake taken longer to jar loose, we’d have been grounded for some time. As it was, ours was the last plane out.
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