Marc's Public Blog - Flying

2012/06/27 Flyout Group Mountain Flying trip to Colorado

π 2012-06-27 01:01 in Flying, Nflying, Ntrips, Trips

Kieran and I rented a C182 G1000 at Palo Alto and flew with Scott Stauter who was there to keep us safe :) Just as luck would have it, most of the autopilot was dead on departure though. That kind of sucks for a TAA, but oh well...

FOG/Flyoutgroup trips are typically organized by Dan Dyer from San Carlos Flight Center, and trips can also be found on the yahoo page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FlyOutGroup/ or http://sancarlosflightcenter.com/fog/ .

Day1: Palo Alto to Sedona and Durango

Our first day, Kieran did the first leg to Sedona. We flew direct doing over high Sierras peaks, at peak level. This was the closest to peak level I've ever crossed, but since the weather was nice, it was not an issue.

Our route went close enough to Vegas that we overflew it, and then lake Mead and the Hoover Dam:

Old Town Las Vegas

Sedona Airport

From Sedona, after lunch, I took over for the leg to Durango:

Nice little runway at Durango

Landing in Durango had a special meaning to me since I had been there a few years earlier commercially when I went to Silverton during snow season. With the distance, in good weather, I could have actually made it there in one leg probably as fast as it took me to fly there commercially considering that it requires going to SFO and then changing planes in denver, but it's unlikely that I'll ever be able to fly there in the winter, especially around a storm like I did back then, but eh, it's still nice to be able to pretend :)
We checked in Durango, and I walked around a little bit before joining the rest of the FOG team for dinner:

It's a long train ride to silverton: 7H return (or more than twice as slow as driving)

Day2: Durango to Eagle Country/Vail via Telluride, Gunnison, Alexander Field, and Leadville

Our second day was the day for highest altitude airports in the continental US. We had to get around TFRs due to the multiple fires that were in Colorado.

we saw a lot of fire fighting crafts

We first landed at Telluride, the highest commercial airport ($6.20 a landing, but you can also buy a shirt to take home :). It's a nice airport that almost looks like an aircraft carrier, then we eventually headed for Leadville, the highest airport in the US.

Telluride

Gunnison

Got a bit of rain on the way and flew around mild weather

Leadville, the highest airport in the US

Yes, I also got the T-Shirt :)

The previous year, some planes were barely able to take off Telluride. Despite our plane being close to gross and very high density altitude (about 12,000ft, off the takeoff performance charts in the POH), we actually took off without problems, even if our climb was obviously not stellar. In my limited experience, the much newer C182T we were flying just had more oomph than some older C182s, including the carburated one I flew to Mammoth a few years back.

A bit more weather started in the early afternoon.

Hi TSA, how I so didn't miss you during this trip.

After landing in Eagle County, close to Vail, we drove to Glenwood Springs, where we had our hotel for 2 nights.

They had a huge naturally heated pool right next to the hotel

I used the rest of the day to hike hanging lake trail along beautiful I70 (thanks to Scott for driving me there and back).

Day3: Local Flying from Eagle County: Aspen, Granby County, Walden-Jackson County, Steamboat Springs

On the 3rd day, we went local mountain flying off Eagle County. Like Durango, I had recently flown to Aspen earlier this year commercially, and it was nice to land there myself (putting aside the hefty $31 landing fee).

More local exercises and fire fighting from Eagle County

Aspen Airport

Local Aspen Race Track

Snow was very scarce for such altitudes in June

We did a pass by leadville

Back to Eagle County

Back in Steamboat Springs for the afternoon, I went to the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park up the cable car and took advantage of the view up there, the few rides they had (including the highest roller coaster in the world, altitude-wise), and a visit of the nice caverns they have up there.

Hotel Colorado, where we stayed

The caverns were a nice 70mn tour (they were a great place to use my firesword flashlight):

this is unofficially called bacon :)

Day4: Eagle County, overfly of Aspen Mountains, and Grand Canyon towards McCarran Las Vegas

On the 4th day, we departed the area and Kieran flew over Aspen so that I could take pictures of the ski slopes while I wasn't flying:

Snowmass Mountain

that's a pretty sad looking half pipe without the snow

Highlands Mountain

Aspen/Ajax Mountain and the town of Aspen

After leaving Aspen, we went on course for the Grand Canyon Airport

Grand Canyon Airport

Chilling at Grand Canyon Airport before our next leg

I flew the next leg through the Grand Canyon and to Vegas:

West Grand Canyon Skywalk

Rich gamblers bring their own private 747 to vegas

We parked walking distance from our hotel, the MGM

While I was pretty exhausted due to multiple too short nights in a row, I only had enough stamina to see 2 shows, Copperfield and Terry Fator (there are many other shows in Vegas, but I've already seen them), and I went to the Wynns for a good buffet between the 2:

desserts are the best part :)

David Copperfield is obviously getting older, but his show was still good. Terry Fator's ventriloquist show was good.

Day5: Sky Combat Ace Flying off Henderson, and flight back home via Death Valley Furnace Creek Airport

That morning, I got up early and went to Henderson for dogfighting and acro with Sky Combat Ace.

After the fun, Kieran and Scott came to pick me up by flying from McCarran to Henderson, where the flight was shorter than their time on the ground :) and after that Kieran flew us to Furnace Creek (Death Valley) airport where I also did a landing in order to have landed at both the highest and lowest (-200ft) airports in the US.

Departing Henderson