As usual, I broke ground just ahead of the Sun, and began admiring the pink colors of the Boulder Flatirons and Front Range peaks farther on. Passing Jeffco I received my first jolt of turbulence. So early in the day? This better not set the tone for the day, foreshadowing the constant need for tight lap belts and headset shaped bruising!
My first destination of the day was the same as planned, Salida. I elected to loosely follow Hwy 285 up into the South Park area, where a gorgeous undercast covered all but the pointiest rocks jutting up from the plain. I’ve always loved this area, and on less cloudy days tend to drift over the pair of charted private strips inhabiting the area, as well as the intriguing paved runway that remains uncharted. Today I simply aimed at Trout Creek Pass and motored on.
If you’re high enough to cross the high plains out here, you’re already higher than Trout Creek. It just isn’t that tall, as Colorado mountain passes go. So having a bit of extra altitude, I cut south early over the south ridge and dropped into the valley for Salida. The runway itself isn’t terribly special—long, paved, and only somewhat sloped. But locals know all about the huge downdrafts on final for 24, and how rising terrain to the west makes departures that way tight. With all that in mind, I made a high approach to 24, landed long, and lazily taxied to the other end for a downhill departure. In no-wind conditions, this was a breeze! [drum hit]
I pointed south again for Poncha Pass, which went without incident. It’s not an overly high pass either, but does narrow a lot at the bottom. I elected to stay high up on the right side just in case. Granite Mountain Lodge passed under my wing, but for the life of me I couldn’t find it. Not that I’m likely to be invited, but a guy can dream. I hugged the west “wall” of mountains around until crossing over the top of a Louisiana-shaped ridgeline northeast of Saguache.
Saguache (which I pronounced “Sah-watch” on the radio, apologies to those who know better) might be the best kept gravel strip I’ve had the pleasure of landing on. Plenty long, wide enough, and perfectly graded. I almost regretted putting tire marks on it! It even has digital AWOS, which is pretty impressive. I didn’t see a place to park airplanes, but a rough doubletrack off the east end led to the main road, so one could conceivably go explore town that way. Google maps showed a pizza joint with good reviews, but I still had a lot of avgas to burn and finite daylight to do so.
Twenty miles later I visited Leach. It seemed to me like the quintessential duster strip—run down farm equipment scattered about, easy access from local fields, an Ag hangar with cool paint. What stood out was a set of grandstands between the ramp and the runway! Evidently this airport does double duty as a drag strip some days. It was deserted at the moment, so I left before I got run down by something that could actually catch me. Shortly after I passed over some very sandy, circular, farm fields. I’m not sure their crops were just underneath, or perhaps the roots don’t mind in the sandy dirt? Perks of being a pilot, I can let farmers handle their own business.
Alamosa was another short hop away, and I curved overhead to check things out before entering the downwind. There appeared to be a crossing dirt runway, so I called up the folks in the FBO to see “if there’s any reason I couldn’t give it a try.” They called back to say the thing had been “un-certified,” which was a long enough word to stay my curiosity. Instead, I gave runway 20 its latest mediocre touch and go, before turning west.
Monte Vista immediately made up for the lack of interesting landing surfaces before. This wonderful airport has a fine collection of 3 (maybe 4?) runways, only one of which is paved. After an inspection pass, I elected to use 34, and waved politely to the farmer looking up from his horses under final approach. Pillow soft sand met me at 0 AGL, and I rolled onto the ramp for some gas and a bathroom break. I was pleasantly surprised again by a well-kept, if empty, pilot shack with all the essentials. This included a “sleep room” (with no curtains) and a twin size bed for waiting out thunderstorms and the like.
I took off from Monte Vista much heavier with gas but pleased—the day had gone swimmingly thus far, and the best part was just ahead! Creede had been on my radar for a long time, as it ticked all my boxes. High elevation? Check. Surrounded by mountains? Check. Scenic mountain trails begging to be explored on foot and by air? Check! I was doing great on sticking to my plan, following the road and rail up past Del Norte, Wagon Wheel Gap, and nearly had the airport, when I was distracted by a jeep road off my right wing. I’ll just take a sec and check this out… Before I knew it, I was up over Halfmoon Pass, Oooh-ing and Aaaah-ing over San Luis Peak, Wheeler Natl. Monument, and the long, long plateau that would be oh-so-landable if it wasn’t Forest Service land.
After many circles and pictures, I tore myself away and coasted into Creede from the north. I was just in time to watch a friendly Cessna make their departure, back the way I had come. I took a minute on landing to scope out the pilot shack and facilities, before blasting back off to the West. Like Arnold said, I’ll be baack!
The valley curved south, and in my climb I followed it. My plan was to follow an old dirt road on the chart up and over to the Piedra River area, passing by Pagosa Peak and some others on the way. I certainly passed that way, but it was peak to peak navigation since the road was entirely snow covered…duh! At this point the sky was showing the beginnings of puffy Cu’s, but the bumps here weren’t any more severe than what I’d flown through thus far. I descended into Pagosa Springs with no traffic and no problems for a relaxed no-flap landing.
Crossing some bumpy ridges, I finally caught sight of Durango and its smaller airport, Animas. I’d visited DRO plenty for work, and it was characteristically busy with helicopters, fixed wing instruction, and airliners. Overflying the approach end at 2000’ gave me a comfortable bit of elbow room before dropping into the pattern with a Maule and Cessna at Animas. This began the windiest, bumpiest part of the day for me. I slipped onto final for 19 and was having a grand time watching the ground on the approach end come up to meet me when I noticed the wind sock was straight out. This doesn’t pose a problem most of the time--the Stinson has fantastic aileron and rudder control at low speeds, and I happen to enjoy practicing crosswind landings. The bigger problem was the mechanical turbulence. I was full aileron early, and glued the tail down way ahead of normal just to avoid a close inspection of the local flora.
Another quick refuel led to my meeting with a friendly Maule pilot, who was fresh off a trip back from AZ. Him having bush tires and a big engine, I asked if he’d been to my only remaining question mark of the day—Dove Creek. He remarked that the last time he’d been in, the weeds had been tall enough to grab his wings, which gave me some pause as I’d left my lawn mower home this time. I thanked him and departed, only take off in the squirreliest winds I can remember since buying my airplane. Dancing off of both rudder stops, eventually resorting to brakes! I haven’t had to use brakes on takeoff since I was getting chased out of Rock Springs, WY by a thunderstorm. Despite it all, we stayed straight long enough to get airspeed, and I climbed out for a downwind departure to the west. Here I saw what the locals must already know. The reservoir west of the airport is perfectly situated to funnel west winds across the narrow, tree bounded runway and hangars. Add in the steep drop to the highway east of the field, and you get conditions like tap dancing in a tornado. I think I’ll save this one for calmer days going forward…
Passing Mesa Verde National Park, I sighted Cortez. I didn’t have any real thoughts about the place, and still don’t. The folks in the FBO were nice enough to give me a wind readout since the ASOS was down, but otherwise it was a short straight in to the south before pulling a U-turn back north towards Dove Creek.
I was relieved as I approached to see that I was still passing the traffic on highway 491 below. With the winds as they were, I was having to crab towards Blanding just to get a northerly track. It was around this time I made my first call on 122.9, and was surprised to hear a voice from above. A gentleman ferrying an experimental way up high was evidently paying attention to his ADS-B, and called to ask what I was up to. He told me he was headed east, and we both lamented the sorry state of scenery in Nebraska.
My first pass over Dove Creek revealed the XL weeds, thankfully growing just in select sections of the runway. By landing after the first 300’ and staying right of the centerline thereafter, I could avoid them entirely (this ended up being true for landing either direction). I also noticed the surface transitioned to dirt on the south side, which was rather full of gopher holes. I’d have to taxi carefully. The remainder was a bumpy mix of medium to high grasses. Since my prop wasn’t green after, I’ll have to assume they were within height limits. I picked my spot, glided down to it, and rolled down to taxi speed. So far so good. Taxiing on the west side kept me away from the tall plants, and I made it all the way to the dirt taxiway turnoff before rolling over a gopher pile and bonking my head on the ceiling. Dangit.
What I did not expect as I considered shutting down to stretch my legs was a large black dog sprinting toward me. No person wants to turn a dog to pink mist with their propeller, so I let my Lycoming do the talking. A quick blast of high-rpms was enough to turn the dog around, where he rejoined his buddy in defecating in the grass. I opted then to spin myself around and continue north, dodging gopher holes and weeds until out of ground effect and the cattails’ reach. I hope to come back this way one day and give the strip some love, but I’ll have to find a solution for the local canines first.
An uncomfortable moment occurred while climbing out however, as full power+Vy+best power leaning was suddenly resulting in -200fpm. This is all well and good while negotiating high mountain passes at 2000’ or more AGL, but at 300’ I was less comfy. In hindsight, this must have resulted from the strong west wind sliding into the nearby canyon of the Dolores River. After a long 3-5 seconds, I passed back into rising air and went on my way.
Dolores Point had been crossed off the list for visiting as soon as the winds came up, so I cruised around 70nm over to Westwinds. I say “around” because I was for some reason incapable of holding a heading during this section, and wandered a good 15 miles downwind. I’ll go ahead and blame it on being attracted to the tallest landmark in the area, which in this case inhabited the ridgeline east of Hopkins Field (I’ve visited here a few times on adventures towards AZ, NV, etc).
Westwinds appeared to be a fly-in community built on the Moon. Grey sand and rock everywhere. With a hefty crosswind out of the north, I elected to land west and depart east, although in hindsight it would’ve been more fun to use the crossing north/south runway. Blake field looked…not interesting. I made a very expeditious wheel landing here without so much as putting the tail down. Headed east from Blake are approximately one gazillion private fields, and I made a solid effort to identify the charted ones. This probably resulted in a fifty percent success rate.
North Fork came into view before too long, and I was amazed to see it was cut out on top of a plateau! So fun! With the same strong, gusty wind being straight down the runway, all I had to do was enjoy the elevator ride down final. I had a similar experience next door at Crawford, although a parallel grass runway made things even better. This one felt even more like landing on an aircraft carrier due to the proximity of the houses and downward slope to the West. It was after taking off, as I was looking back to get a nice view of the drop-off, that I realized I had just done it—every airport in my state. Now I just had to get back!
What I haven’t mentioned since Pagosa were the clouds. They’d been building all day, but the afternoon sun had conspired with the wind to build large, mountain-shaped clouds full of rain and death where I had planned to go. Plans A through C involved the I-70 corridor, Steamboat to North Park, or just flying the Wyoming border. All of which were now covered in radar returns and virga. Thankfully, Gunnison was within reach, and with it a path back to where I started at Salida. Now hold on! I thought to myself as I crossed the Black Mesa head east You’ve been flying for two and a half hours, and a little elementary math says you’ve got to get gas! So I looked at Gunni— holy smokes, seven bucks a gallon!? I redid my math, this time with a calculator and some less general numbers. Landing with exactly one hour of fuel. Perfect, thanks massive westerly winds!
I tightened my belts and split the difference between Monarch and Marshall Pass, earning some real knockers of turbulence but saving ten minutes of gas. A quick coast into Salida to refill showed me a whole different world of performance compared to the morning. A wind sock at full extension had me in slow motion down to the runway, and putting double chocks on my Stinson’s tires. I did take a minute before gassing up to poke my nose in a hangar with another Stinson inside—this being a -3 with an O-540 up front. Very nice. Some cheap fuel later, I was departing 24 into a stiff headwind before turning northeast for home.
Aside from the usual bumps and some virga, I didn’t have much to worry about until passing Jeffco again. Tower called it “light to moderate rain” but I just called it a nice bath. With a few less bugs attached, I landed back home and closed the hangar on another adventure.
9 hours in the seat, ~550 miles, 14 new airports. Next up…?
