My buddy and I spent yesterday exploring several sandbars on NW Washington's Stillaquamish River. This one we call Dogleg, due to the turn required during climb out while going west. This sandbar is very very smooth and long, over 1500. It is a great candidate for someone looking to expand their skills and experience. If one is looking for more challenging conditions, there are multiple "alternate" takeoff and landing areas all on this same sandbar.



Jughead

Looks like a great spot!

Here is one of the landings there.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibbsBgBig-8

Stared at the sunglasses on the glareshield the whole time wondering how they weren't sliding off. Convenient little divet for them to sit in.

Most of our sandbars are still under the high water from the spring freshet, surprised yours 50 miles away aren't the same. That must be west of Arlington?

I'd say it deserves the dogleg name.. thats a hell of a turn.

What engine is in your 170 in that?

-Asa

Jughead those gravel bars were lots of fun, have been wanting to do this for a while.
Here is a video of one of your landings in Dogleg.

The rocks there must be packed down pretty well. I see you are running some pretty small tires, but didn't seem to sink in hardly at all.

Here is the I5 gravel bar take off

Awesome! Looks like a great spot. Is it road-accessible? Could it be a good camping spot where cars and trucks can't access it?

Jimmy Dulin would be proud of that last takeoff.

Jughead Landing I5 gravel bar.

Good use of rudder only to make minor alignment correction on short final and got to love that low ground effect on takeoff.

Flyhound wrote:The rocks there must be packed down pretty well. I see you are running some pretty small tires, but didn't seem to sink in hardly at all.

Flyhound, I am running 8x6.00's at 15PSI for these sandbars. Yes, they are quite firm with as much rock as they have.

Jughead

Zzz wrote:Awesome! Looks like a great spot. Is it road-accessible? Could it be a good camping spot where cars and trucks can't access it?

Jimmy Dulin would be proud of that last takeoff.

Zzz, two of the three we played on were NOT road accessible. Dogleg would be great camping because the upper part has sand, brush and lots of firewood. BCP campout anyone?

Jughead

This is awesome. Where is this on the Stillaguamish? I've always wanted to land on some these sandbars I'm flying over, I was just looking at a couple on the Okanogan I was thinking "I could get down on that". I've just never done it before. Very cool.

GoCougs wrote:This is awesome. Where is this on the Stillaguamish? I've always wanted to land on some these sandbars I'm flying over, I was just looking at a couple on the Okanogan I was thinking "I could get down on that". I've just never done it before. Very cool.

GoCougs, This is on the Stillaquamish River, just north of Arlington. There are also some usable bars on the Skykomish, Snohomish and others.

My fault, spelling error. I meant Stillaquamish. The videos are great. Thank you for sharing.

I-5 is self-explanatory but where is the Dogleg gravel bar?
I flew over to Arlington today for lunch at Ellie's and afterward flew the Stilly from I-5 upstream past the confluence of the north & south forks. Didn't see anything that resembled your video, didn't see any tire tracks either. There was one esp good looking bar but it had some pedestrians on it.

hotrod180 wrote:I-5 is self-explanatory but where is the Dogleg gravel bar?
I flew over to Arlington today for lunch at Ellie's and afterward flew the Stilly from I-5 upstream past the confluence of the north & south forks. Didn't see anything that resembled your video, didn't see any tire tracks either. There was one esp good looking bar but it had some pedestrians on it.

Hotrod180.

Dogleg is 5 miles NE of the airport. There are three good bars just was of I-5. we landed the western most one on the south side of the river. The one 100 yards further east on the north side is also good. The one with the people on it was probably the next one to the east, on the south side of the river. It has a Fishing Access parking lot, generating regular pedestrian traffic.

Your description's about right for the bar with people on it.
At 5 NE from airport, Dogleg must be on the north fork of the Stilly?
I think I've got it spotted on satelliteviews.net, right across the river from a grassy meadow ("Trafton Trailhead Park").

http://www.satelliteviews.net/cgi-bin/g ... pe=airport

I see a bridge just downstream of there which matches the bridge you can see in the video after the dogleg.
I didn't get that far upstream yesterday, I turned around just short of where the powerlines cross.

Hotrod180,

You are correct, that is the North Fork. I didn't realize that, sorry. Looks like you found it.

Jughead