A small solar job at the Box Y Lodge in Wyoming, thanks to tail winds less then hour flying versus 3 hour drive THEN the last 30 miles on a snowmachine (no vehicle access at all in the winter except for snowmachine and now ski plane).

The same tail wind that was good at first was bad at the end, as it was spilling over a 10K ridge at a 90 degree angle and I was going into a canyon right on the other side. Seeing the wind blown snow spray curling over the top as I went over was a pretty good heads up to expect some turbulence, but once through that it smoothed out into glass smooth air at about 500AGL . The ranch is at 7K. Coming at it from the east, the Grand Tetons are at my 9 about 50 miles away: The canyon, at 7K, the far pasture clearing is the LZ, so plenty of room. This place reminded me of some of the fly-in camps in the Frank Church, friendly people and expensive food! I got comped though.....About 30 miles out of Alpine Wyo., it for sure has that wilderness feel.

Work done, it was time to see if I was stuck or not, I failed to lay down some get out tracks first, and I was on 24" of fresh powder (this place had over 500" last winter) but a slight push to break the ski bond freed things up and the takeoff was easy.and rather then fight my way up and then back over that same ridge I came in over, I kept it low and flew the canyon out to Alpine, a little burbly but better then the other way, more fun anyway. It got much tighter in a few places, but in a slow flyer/tight turner like the S-7 I always had the turn around option. Once out in the relative flatlands, the obligatory landing by an old farm building photo! This has been THE year to have the wheel skis, once back at my place at 5400' I needed them (the wheels) as hardly any snow at my place

Work? Where's the pictures of work? Looks like all fun.
Thanks for the great pictures and story to go with it. Access by ski-plane is a must in that location although one could make the argument that, had you gone by land, you needed a snowmachine as a business deduction for your income tax !

Beautiful pictures courierguy! On a scale of 1 - 10 (ten being most) what would say your fun level was on that trip!

Thanks for sharing. I went to Google Maps and put the little man on some of the blue dots along the way from Alpine to the ranch. Some really beautiful scenery for sure.

Skystrider wrote:Beautiful pictures courierguy! On a scale of 1 - 10 (ten being most) what would say your fun level was on that trip!

Let's just say that (after previously selling them a couple of thousand bucks of equipment at a 20% markup) I told them I would make the flight over and do the install (no heavy lifting, "screwdriver work", about 2 or 3 easy hours, with all the coffee I could drink) for free. Win/win for all of us! It was nice getting into some deep snow,all the big storms have been east and north of my country, this was about 80 miles away and they had plenty. I've been all over this part of Wyoming, but not this little slice of it, it's really tucked away up that canyon

C.G., looks like you're flying on Datum air skis.... tell me about them? I'm thinking about putting the 2500/3000 on the Tundra and didn't know, till now, anyone flying on datum. Thanks much, BCT

Fantastic work, you have to love your job. Fly safe.

Courierguy - Do you have any job openings?

The Box Y lodge? There's got to be a joke in there someplace.
In the meantime thanks for keeping us updated, looks like some good flying, I mean work...