Marc's Public Blog - Ntrips

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

Furnace Creek

It was a slow climb from -220ft to 14,000ft to cross the high sierras, but we made it and we had limited headwind.

And that was it, after 5 days of great flying and lucky good weather, we got home.

A big thanks to Dan and the organizers, as well as our CFI, Scott Stauter.

2012/06/05 Galapagos Land Excursions and Snorkeling with Galaven

π 2012-06-05 01:01 in Diving, Ntrips, Trips

This post is part of our Trip to Galapagos, with land visits and diving.

We spent our first 8 days in Galapagos on the Galaven which we boarded as soon as we landed in Baltra Island, north of Santa Cruz. Almost every day we had 2 land hikes and two snorkels, some of which were actually almost as good as dives when sea lions come to play with you, or seeing iguanas swim, boobies dive for fish, and more.

As soon as we arrived, we went for our first snorkel and land excursion: the first land excursion on the small island of North Seymour north of Baltra was arguably one of the best ones.

Day 1: Seymour Island

Their Seaguls look pretty

Seymour was a great island for blue footed boobies, and they even did their love dance for us, which apparently not everyone gets to see. We got lucky:

The blue footed boobies were awesome :)

A few cute sea lions

Frigate birds are nasty, but they look funny when the males

babies are fuzzy though :)

Even the doves look cool :)

Many marine iguanas too:

But the more impressives ones were the big fat land iguanasrescued from Baltra Island:

beautiful animals

Day 2: Genovesa Island

On the second day, we went to Genovesa for 2 land hikes. It was also a very good island too:

more blue eyed doves

masked boobies

this juvenile was happy playing with its stick

Two more cool videos from there, boobies preening and a juvenile playing with a stick:

On the rocks, many birds, and owls that were hunting for food:

Found by the water:

For our snorkel, water was crappy, but we saw a few things and a sea lion came to play with us at the end:

bad picture of a hammerhead

During the afternoon, we hiked another portion of Genovesa:

Day 3: San Salvador Lava and Rabida Island

The 3rd morning, we started for a lava hike on San Salvador just across from Bartolome:

The snorkeling there was good:

Here's a video of a marine iguana swimming:

The afternoon, we went to Isla Rabida, nice red sand and beach. It looked a bit like Kawaii in the Hawaii Islands:

After that, we went for a quick Snorkel:

Day 4: Port Ayora/Santa Cruz/Charles Darwin Research Station

On the 4th day, we went to Puerto Ayora to pick up new passengers and visit the Charles Darwin Research Station.

They have the famous Lonesome George, the last of its kind:

Unfortuntely, the poor thing died 2 days after we got home, so its race is now gone from the planet.

As well as other tortoises:

The afternoon, we went to El Garrapatero Beach:
The cacti grow really high up there because of drought, all animals try to eat them to get the water out of them, so as a defence, the cacacti grow even higher

baby marine iguanas

Puerto Ayora is a nice little town:

Day 5: North Santa Cruz: Dragon Hill and Bachas

The next day, we cruised around Santa Cruz to the north side to see Dragon Hill and Bachas. I spotted some dolphins from the dingy:

Dragon Hill was a nice little hike:

the cacti have hairy thorns to protect themselves from climbing tortoises trying to suck up the juice from them.

many crabs on each rock

The next land hike was on Bachas, also in North Santa Cruz:

ghost crabs clean the beach sand

We also finally got lucky and saw some flamingos:

The snorkels were also decent:

Day 6: Floreana

The 6th day, we went to the old island of Floreana. It has one of the oldest mailboxes in the area. People on passing ships would put mail and would look for other envelopes that were already there, and see if they could help deliver some of them. In that tradition, this is what we did too :)
On the way there, we got a dingy ride to see sea lions and birds. Some were quite happy to see us and would come to our dingy.

playful biting even

We then went to the historical mailbox and lava tube. The mailbox is cool: you put your mail and look at other people's mail and take some of it home and try to get it delivered for them:

There was also a nearby lava tube:

The snorkel from there was great. Sea Lions came to play with us, and we saw several turtles too:

During snorkeling, sea lions came to play with us, and we saw some turtles feeding:

In the afternoon, we went hiking and snorkeling by Sting Ray City:

During snorkeling, we saw scorpionfish:

Day 7: Espanola

On the 7th day, last but not least, we got to see Espanola, the most popular island in Galapagos:

they had piles of iguanas

did I mention piles of iguanas?

you're so cute :)

Espanola won on the amount of birds, especially Albatros that can't be found anywhere else:

Those lovely masked boobies kill their brothers to get all the food

friends :)

They also had a blow hole:

The afternoon we went to Gardener Bay:

puppy was happy to see me

The snorkel wasn't bad:

Day 8: San Cristobal

The last day, we arrived at San Cristobal, the end of our trip. In the morning, we went to see the interpretation center, which has nice trails we used the next day when we came back on our own time.

The afternoon, we went to a tortoise habitat:

And that was it for our Galaven trip. After that, we stayed in St Cristobal 2 more days, waiting for our next boat, the Aggressor, to go diving.

Galaven itself was a good enough boat to get around, we had a good itinerary with them (i.e. got to see the better Islands), and the guides were good, so good times were had. We definitely got to see (even under water) many things we wouldn't have seen on a diving boat. It was well worth the trip.