Brian is our Chief Pilot and has one week to fly around Southern Utah, some Idaho backcountry, and then fly his Maule back to its new home in Eastern Pennsylvania. We had talked for some time about hitting some of the world-class strips around Hanksville before the Maule headed for points East. That time had come and the weather was windy and unsettled around Utah. Our trip would be a noon Monday departure from U42 and a return the next day around the same time.
I began making preparations and clearing my schedule. I called the Tuff-Sheds in Hanksville to make sure they had rooms… confirmed. The other Hotel in Hanksville has accomodations that would make your skin crawl so I’m happy we get a shed. More on the Tuff-Sheds later. We blast off.
I think I spy an airstrip with a turn-around at the end... maybe.
Hanksville is the Utah version of Alice Springs. I’ve spent a little time in the Australian Outback but not nearly enough. I’ve watched a few documentaries on the Outback and watched the film "Alice to nowhere" and I just see Hanksville. Doesn’t matter really because Hanksville is our local Outback “outpost”. In this red rock desert of Southern Utah is a town of green fields, farms, junk, rock formations and characters from another time warp (I’ve met those two brothers that Galen speaks about in his FLY UTAH book). One wonders why the town is even there… its tough to make a go of anything in these parts.
And its hard to speak of Hanksville and flying without discussing Lavar Wells. He is the de facto airport manager, resident well digger and home grown bush pilot. He’s actually the grandfather of backcountry flying in Southern Utah. He was backcountry before backcountry was cool. Soloed before he was legal. His father built a few of the strips out there that we enjoy. Great story teller too!
I called Lavar before we left U42 and asked if there was any fuel or a courtesy/airport car that we could borrow. He replied “no one wants to fill up the truck with gas so we haven’t got any and we used to have a courtesy car if you could call it that but I moved it over to Manti so I could have wheels when I go over there each Saturday…what a courtesy “ he said laughing. He told me to give him a shout when we land and “ I’ll make sure you’re not on foot”. Fair enough.
We had a beautiful flight down and checked out Cedar Mountain and Mexican Mountain strips but we had both been to those and decided to use our time checking out some new ones. We passed over the San Rafael Reef, one of my favorite landmarks, and followed it to Goblin Valley. From there we could see HVE- Brian was so excited by the scenery around he overflew the strip and did some low flying in the canyons near the Airport. When he was done I told him to overfly the pink house in the valley below the airport and perhaps we’d raise ol’ Lavar and he would pick us up without a call.
After landing we begin to unload and notice there’s not a stitch of wind. Its 3:00 pm and a little warm but we became excited at the prospect of doing some evening flying in CAVU conditions. We then see a big Buick or Lincoln roll into the airport and out walks Lavar. Brian has never met him before but recognizes him as an old timer with a weathered grin. Lavar brings his land yacht around to the plane to give us front row service. We tie down and ask him if we could buy him lunch for his efforts. He had just eaten so I threw out the next best thing. “How about we buy you a milkshake?” I asked. “Yeah we should do that”.
This was a ruse of course to spend some time with the man. Show him a little respect and hear some of his many stories. Someday Lavar will be gone and his stories may be lost too.
We're happy that he's part of our Hanksville experience. Lavar drives us slowly into town and stops at the only stop sign to consider his options. “Your never in hurry in Hanksville”. No one coming for miles in either direction so he cautiously pulls out and turns left toward Stans. The man likes his shakes straight vanilla. Raspberry for me.
Lavar spoke of his Dad and the 172 he bought with 300 hours in 1957. “We used to go everywhere in that thing… church in Loa, highschool games in Escalante.. you know before all of these roads were paved you could go anywhere you wanted in an airplane” “didn’t need a car.. didn’t want a car, we had an airplane” He talked of his Dad’s crash in the Dirty Devil river near the strip.. 45 years ago. “ His prop separated about 15 inches from the hub and he had to shut it down…quick.” “ he put it in the river and walked out…about 40 miles.. (laughing) overnight”. When I asked how they got it out he almost sounded surprised by my question “ well 4 men and 4 horses that’s how… and a wagon to lay it on” “they went up the river and pulled it out”. He told of his Dad rescuing 2 men that had rolled their pickup up on Notom bench at midnight years ago “ he had a fellow go out and shine his headlights down an old strip out there but he shined it down the downhill direction so pops landed downhill with a tailwind and had to slam on the brakes… dad always said he would have flipped a tailwheel plane that night but his nosegear saved him,” he laughed. I asked him about his late night deadstick landing in Richfield last year and he was surprised I had heard anything of it. “Well one of the mags come off and was laying in the bottom of the cowling and the other one was missin’ so I kept the airfield on my left side and came around and landed”. Sounds good to me.
Brian asked him about the winds in the canyons and what strip was the scariest? “ Well that would be Sand Wash… you know... if there’s a South wind blowin’ up that canyon you know… it gets spooky… that wind will come up and take the airplane right out of your hands (laughing) .. you’re a passenger at that point”. Indeed. Lavar lost count after 13,000 some odd hours of flight. Redtail used to make him track it. He did admit to having “between 4 and 5 hours of multi”..
Lavar ran us over to the ‘Whispering Sands Motel’ or the Tuff-Sheds as the guys in my motorcycle club like to call them. Just don’t let the proprietors hear you say that or they will correct you at once.. “Cabins”! Pictures will tell the story. We check in and then run over to Lavar’s pink house where he gives us the keys to his white Ford pick-up, ours for the next 20 hours. As we tell him thanks he replies “Okay… have a good life” which left Brian and I somewhat confused… Maybe he sees a couple of bafoons heading into the canyons ready to make a life-altering mistake?
We then head up to the airport. Brian mounts his new GoPro 4 on the wing and we blast off into a calm, clear sky.
First stop, Dirty Devil. Rather than try to explain the place, I’ll just say it is magical. One of the coolest places I’ve ever been. They say if you camp there you can hear 7+ echoes off the walls on a calm night. We do 2 landings and get out and soak the place in. Smooth runway this is.
I wished we could have camped here at least but it was time to head over to Happy Canyon.
I had hiked up the Happy Canyon Narrows a few years ago as others have http://www.bogley.com/forum/showthread. ... ppy-Canyon but the strip is 6 miles up the canyon from the slot. Brian overflys the runways and sets up for a nice landing to the North. The strip is bumpier than we imagined with a good sized hill in the middle. Brian doesn’t shut down and decides to leave the plane idling as he has had some battery issues recently.
We walk around and explore the place for 20 minutes. I wander over to the cabin and take the required photos. Vandals cannot access this place and the cabin interior looks mostly untouched except for the weather. There are lots of cowboy/mining collectables inside here but I’m happy to report that the place is intact from another era . Backcountry pilots are good stewards! I walk into the small bedroom and notice an old 12 volt battery and pull it out in the sun to take a photo and realize that I had just “disturbed” something so I place it back and take a few photos only.
Outside there is and old gearshaft that my Dad would ogle over so I take its picture too. We leave the cabin and its contents as we found it. Hopefully it stays that way as its really a cool place. Brian is back at the plane fussing with his GoPro as it came off its suction cup in flight so I take a few more photies, walk the strip and we soon take off.
We climb up and over the Big Ridge and soon locate the Simplot strip. We hadn’t planned on landing here but it looks inviting enough so we make a low pass. We note recent tire tracks and the strip looks nice enough but we decide to pass and head over to ‘Below Bucacre’ strip in Hatch canyon. Brian filmed this low pass and I’ll try to upload it here when I get it. Edit: Here it is below-
Hatch Canyon is one of my favorite motorcycle haunts because it is so pretty and remote. We’ve never seen another sole out here and tonight is no different. We look for BB but it takes some squinting and multiple 360’s to find it in the shadows. It jumped out at me when I rode thru here for the first time a few years back. It had fresh tailwheel tracks on it then and Lavar said people use it still (he says its 1,000ft useable) but we decide to do another low pass and carry-on. Talk about remote and gorgeous.
We both wanted to see the Poison Spring Airstrip and found it right where it was supposed to be. It had fresh tracks on it as well. It looks rough. I notice a road leading up to it and other roads or rather mining tracks that I haven’t seen on my bike but many of them have sections that have completely sluffed-off the cliff walls and remain impassable. Too bad, I thought.
We wanted to see Angel Point but the Gorge is so beautiful we meander around for a while. Over to Angel Point we notice 2 large puddles on each runway. We do low passes and a touch and go but the sun is setting now and we need some go juice for tomorrow. Green River has abandoned the fuel business and Canyonlands is further away so we take a Westward heading and point it to Loa, 38U, Wayne Wonderland Airport to be more specific. This takes us over the top of Hanksville again and then Capital Reef NP and over one of my favorite towns, Torrey. If you have ever had that feeling when flying that you are the luckiest person on earth and no one – anywhere – has it better than you... then you know what our flight was like. Brian makes me fly this leg and I’m not paying much attention to the airplane. Looking down, I’m thinking there is so much more to Capital Reef as we fly over than I or anyone on the ground has ever seen. Wow! Canyons and Chasms everywhere and most of them look inaccessible.
We realize we need to turn and burn @ 38U as it getting noticeably darker as we fly. My photos make it look like there is more light thankfully but the reality is we don’t want to fly over hostile territory at night. Fueling goes well and Brian put some reserves in the tips and we blast off before the Mosquitos carry us from the earth. Our takeoff is lethargic as we are now almost 3,000ft higher than HVE and full of fuel but we are soon airborne. Thousand Lake Mountain and Boulder Mountain make room for us between them. The mountains were said to be mis-named by accident on early maps and before they caught the error, names stuck. Boulder must have a thousand lakes if you’ve ever flown over. Thousand Lake would be the Bouldier of the two.
Two Sentinels watching over the ramp at Wayne Wonderland
Flight back to HVE is equally as magical as earlier. Clear and smooth as glass, killer scenery. Who has it better?
The runway lights at HVE are actually boundary lights around the runway so you have to split the difference in between and look for the pavement. There was a whisp of light so it wasn’t a big deal but I’ll have to remember this in the future.
We tie down in the dark and say hello again to Lavar’s 172 and head out. This was his Dads old 172, the one that was wrecked in the Dirty and rebuilt. It was sold years ago. Apparently, a few years back Lavar gets a call from a couple in Florida who would like a guide to fly with in this country and they show up… in his Dad’s old plane! Lavar cut a deal with them, bought it and re introduced it to life in the West. Another good story. http://rc.runryder.com/helicopter/t343054p2/
We head over to Stan’s for a burger and study some maps and make plans for day 2. Brian and I realize we had had more fun than we imagined we could. What a day.
To be continued…
Just kidding. Utah has room for thousands and if you want to be alone.... we got places for that too.
Outstanding TR.. You are on top of YOUR game. Thank You, Loved It.
