Randy Stagg Video Production - BC Airfield Stories - Tower Ranch Hope Slide Hope

After the Hope-Princeton Highway was completed in 1948, it started to be used as a visual flight route to the Okanagan and southern interior. After several accidents along the highway, usually related to bad weather, the B.C. Aviation Council, along with the Aero Club of B.C. and other aviation interests, looked for another possible emergency landing site along the highway between Hope and Princeton. Tower's Ranch was a resort and motel with a restaurant along the Hope-Princeton Highway near Manning Park. In the 1950s it was one of three main resorts featuring log cabins in that area at that time. Mr. Roy Towers was approached and agreed to the construction of a 2,000-foot gravel runway adjacent to his cafe, motel and gas station on the highway. The unlicensed strip was built mostly by volunteer labor. B.C. Highways Minister (Flying) Phil Gaglardi, a staunch supporter of aviation in B.C. became interested in the project and authorized the use of B.C. Highways equipment to assist in the construction. Flying Phil was present on the opening days May 30 and 31, 1958. Since the opening of the Hope-Princeton Highway through Manning Park, there have been many weather-related accidents due to aircraft using the Highway's narrow confines as a visual flight route to the southeast interior of the Province. One of the most tragic landslides in Canadian history was the Hope Slide, which occurred at 7 a.m. on Saturday January 9, 1965, in the Nic-a-lum Valley in the Cascade Mountains near Hope. The Hope-Princeton Highway was blocked for some time before a more southern detour route became the highway itself. The abandoned one-mile section of the old highway- east of the slide- created a narrow, paved, emergency airfield. Hope is a district municipality at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers in British Columbia. Hope is at the eastern end of both the Fraser Valley and the Lower Mainland, and is at the southern end of the Fraser Canyon. Hope had been selected in 1929 as the site of an intermediate airfield on the trans-Canada airway route from Vancouver to Lethbridge. The site chosen was 3 miles west of Hope at an area known as Flood. L7 - By March 1937, the field was 90% cleared and seeded. Flying Officer George Williamson first landed here on March 3, 1943, in an RCAF Norseman, and also used the field on other occasions. He later remarked that other than the grass often being high, the surface was always good. Sometime after the December 15, 1967 certification of the Boeing 737, it still needed to be certified for use on unimproved airports. Hope was selected as the best available airfield in the region. The initial turf landing area was 5,100 feet by 800 feet. After 1967, the width was reduced to 500 feet. Later, the length was reduced to 3,960 feet. References: Chris Weicht is an accomplished 18,000 pilot and has chronicled the history of aviation in BC. He is of the book series "Air Pilot Navigator". Air Pilot Navigator, Volume 4: Trans Canada Airway is where the story for this videos story can be found as part of the video series “British Columbia Airfield Stories”. Chris’s research included interviewing aviators and their next of kin who opened up their photo albums and often related exploits of flights creating some outstanding historical aviation books. If you would be interested in buying Chris Weicht’s books go to coasteaglepublications.com Special thanks to the Doug Rollins and Geoff Hallett Archival Photos for providing this material. Google Earth Pro Map Data 2022 Google Wikipedia Video: Touch and Go at CYHE Quebec Kilo Linda R Stagg: Host / Script Chris Weicht: Aviation Historian book series "Air Pilot Navigator" Geoff Hallett: Archival Files / BCAM Librarian Randy Stagg: Host / Video Production / Script    / @rvjs100   Playlist: “BC Airfield Stories”