I know this is far from off airport, but I landed my first grass strip today. It felt good!!!

Just a day VFR flight around the Mid Ohio Valley. Took off from Parkersburg, WV (KPKB) Landed at Hales Landing, and was the first time that I landed on a grass strip. Went well! We flew up into Ohio and hit Noble County (I10) and then back to Parkersburg to end the flight. Was a little gusty today, but not too bad.

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(Finally.....in HD!)

Grass airstrips in the Cherokee 140 can be a real thrill... We have a local one at home on a farm of some friends we can use, maybe 1400ft long?

Suffice to say, on a hot summer's day when the grass is long, with 3/4 full tanks and two POB.... you have used 4/5th's of the strip and find yourself racing at serious ground speed towards the Willow trees, lagoon, and barbed-wire fence at the end before the main oleos extend for the first time. Seat-chewing stuff.
The local resident of the strip is a bright yellow Maule, which lives in a hanger partially buried into the hillside. It can probably land twice on that strip with room to spare

Don't undersell your first grass experience! Well done.

I think first grass is a little like first solo--always memorable. My first grass experience was bringing the 182 into Kamiah, ID, a 3000' strip at 1200' elev. after flying over the mountains at 12,000'.

http://img.airnav.com/ap/00201.jpg

At the time, the airport had been mowed only about 3/4 of the length--the north end was still about 2' long. I was there to pick up my pard after he'd been guiding on the rivers for 3 weeks, and he surprised me by bringing a couple of his customers with him, to fly over to McCall. With the extra weight, I was concerned about getting off the ground, although the density altitude wasn't all that bad, probably less than 3000' or so. So we taxied into the tall grass and began the take-off roll from the end. Later at Idaho Falls, we spent some time clearing the grass out of the belly antennas, and later at home, we cleaned the greenery off the prop!

I flew into Kamiah several times over the next few years, to pick him up each summer, but frankly I don't recall any time other than that first time.

Cary

New Martinsville, WV (75D) is also a nice destination. I flew into it a couple of times when I lived in Charleston.

It was a little exciting coming out of there I must admit. We were airborne quickly enough and started climbing well, but when I started the left turn out we lost a little airspeed and gave up a little bit of vertical lift component, cause we were right off the poplars past the end of the runway and descended a little bit.....or.......my second thought is that we caught a little bit of a downdraft off of that ridge on the right and shoved us down? It was kind of windy......