September 7 was the day.

Almost exactly four years after I returned from my first trip across the eastern U.S., I took off from 28M to do what I had dreamed of doing since I was a kid: flying a 170 across the country and camping under the wing.

It was a very difficult four years, with Covid, a slowly dying O-300, and bills upon bills after we decided to upgrade to an O-360 and a new panel.

All that was forgotten when I pushed the throttle forward and the MT propeller, powered by 194 horses, pulled me and a fully loaded Whiskyblue into the morning sky.

Needless to say, I was a little nervous, scared: how would this brand-new-pilot-seat-forward machine behave on a longer trip, away from the support at home base?
Sure, Greg (bigrenna here on BCP, from bushwagoneast) and I had flown a lot, looking for squawks or clues to them, fixing and adjusting everything we could think of, but still....

Since many of you bcp members had recommended spending much of my time out west, and Greg had made his "gentle" push to get there as soon as possible, who was I not to take that advice.

After waiting out a series of showers and thunderstorms in Pennsylvania, my first day ended in Upshur County, West Virginia, where a friendly fuel manager offered me a back room with a couch for the night.

Patience!

For the next two days my urge to head west as fast as possible was slowed down by excessive humidity.
It wasn't until 11 a.m. that the sun had dissipated the dense fog and lifted the low-hanging clouds enough for me to feel comfortable enough to take off.

In the afternoon I was able to enjoy the cloudscapes for a few hours before increasing shower activity forced me to make an early landing.

On day 4 I even had to retreat after an early start. Apparently the cloudbase hadn’t read the forecast and came down rather than going up.
I was getting squeezed between a lowering overcast and slowly rising terrain.

More patience!

Improvement came two hours later and I still made it to South Dakota.

Getting closer !!





from the porch in Viroqua, WI



heading out...




... but no cigar.




Chamberlain, SD

I watched the few videos you posted, looking forward to the whole story.

BCP needs a like button

Lookin good so far. Keep the pictures coming.

First goal achieved - I made it to Montana!

There are no mountains where I landed, but there is a huge hangar with room to spare for Whiskyblue and my tent, and a bar within walking distance with cold beer, huge hamburgers, and the local high school football stars for company.
Can anyone guess?
Yes, Winifred, MT, a village of less than 200 people and a football stadium with red AstroTurf that can be seen from miles away.

No morning fog or low clouds in SD gave me an early start.
After a fuel and lunch stop in Beach, ND, I arrived here in the afternoon.

Since the part of my trip that was supposed to get me to my destination quickly was now pretty much complete, I decided to relax a bit and stay two nights.
The extra time and a quiet ramp would also allow me to do the 25-hour oil change.

And the chats with the outfitter, who flew his Super Cub out in the early morning and late afternoon to scout for the upcoming hunting season, were an added bonus.



Lunch break, Beach, ND



First time up to 10 500ft, this time to avoid the bumpy thermals below cloudbase.



Relaxed breakfast



The only game in town on a Monday night

Thanks for sharing your adventure . Beautiful 170 by the way . My Dad had one when we were kids and I would love to own one like yours some day .

Flying cross country is such an amazing experience. Stopping in at small FBOs, meeting new people, seeing new places. Fantastic. I've crossed the middle of the country (from the divide to the Mississipi) three times so far along different routes. I'd love to do more of it and travel further. Safe travels!

Good looking plane. I look forward to the next installment. Hopefully, you'll find better places to pitch your tent than inside a hangar on a concrete floor. Although that would be a good place to hide if thunderstorms were visiting the area!

Anticipation was building when I taxied out for an early take off from Winifred.

So was my adrenalin level.

After all, this day was supposed to be the beginning of the backcountry part of my trip.
Well, the beginning of my backcountry-flying, that is.

I had an invitation to stop by at a private strip of a Skywagon owner north of Missoula and wanted to get there by mid-morning.

After a fuel stop in Choteau I climbed into an increasing headwind.
When I scanned the sky for the best route towards my destination, the clouds gave it away: wind and mountains = mountain wave!

Well, old (soaring-) habits never die: a bit of meandering and I had found a line along which the atmosphere added perfectly smooth 1000fpm to my climb rate.
Much of Nature’s gift I couldn’t use since cloud base on the upwind side of the range was around 10000ft and I was on “final glide” altitude already.

When I turned north along the Swan Mountains, looking up at Fisher Peak, I suddenly realized:
Can you believe it, I’m flying my Cessna 170 in the mountains of Montana!!!



Early launch in Winifred



Looks like mountain wave to me



More wave clouds: lenticulars and frayed rotor wisps


Fisher Peak and George Lake

Exactly one week after leaving Cranland Airport, I took off for my first real flight into the backcountry.

We had briefed a flight of two to the Bob Marshall Wilderness, where my guide in his Skywagon would take me first to the Chinese Wall and then to Schafer Field.

I had never heard of a Great Wall of China in the U.S., let alone seen a picture of it.
Imagine my surprise when we turned the corner and I was faced with that gigantic rock face.

And then Schafer, the perfect spot for my first landing on a strip in the mountains.
Not only because it's easy to get into, but even more so for it's beauty.

It took only this flight of a bit over an hour to confirm that this was the part of the country where I wanted to spend a big chunk of time during my adventure.
Thanks guys, I appreciate you highly recommending to come out here.



In the Bob Marshall Wilderness



Facing "The Wall"



Along the Chinese Wall









Chatting with the resident rangers

Good stuff !! Keep it coming ! Looks like a great adventure

My boyhood dream of an adventure trip across the USA in a C170 was sparked by a book about ferrying one up to and flying in Alaska.
One day I would fly into the wilderness myself and land on small runways in the forest, I fantasized, because that seemed to me to be one of the greatest challenges and adventures of aviation.

And just now, more than sixty years later, I had landed without much difficulty on the strip at Schafer Meadow in the Great Bear Wilderness.
Ok, on this beautiful and calm day it was probably deceptively easy to land there, I thought.
Throw in a bit of a crosswind and the usual turbulence triggered by thermals, and it might well have been a different story.

So when my friend suggested that for a real wilderness experience I should camp at Meadow Creek (0S1) I felt a lot of apprehension.
After all, the notes for 0S1 on the RAF airfield guide advised: ”Recommended for experienced pilots..”

Perhaps I ought to be building some experiences at less challenging strips first and return to Meadow Creek later?

OTOH, I didn’t see much risk in flying over there and checking it out.
So that’s what I did.

During pass one I determined that the strip was in good condition, and pass two confirmed that the wind favored the recommended runway.
I decided to give it a try.
The approach was straightforward and - thanks to the excellent slow flight characteristics of the Cessna wing with the Sportsman cuff - the landing spot on.

Then I got out and looked around.

What a place!

My childhood fantasies had become reality!

140eagles wrote:My childhood fantasies had become reality!

Its amazing when childhood fantasies come true; alas for me, not so much...

Great thread Wolf. Keep em coming!

Greg, it's OK to change fantasies as we move through life; OR, just add a few more.

Congratulations! Great story and pictures, keep 'em coming!

I felt it for the first time at the campfire in Meadow Creek: my backcountry vibe.
This feeling of being far away from civilization (cell phone reception included), in solitude (which doesn't necessarily mean loneliness), surrounded by the beauty of nature.
It resonated even more strongly with me here because it was associated with flying to a place that is best, perhaps even exclusively, reached by airplane.

This was what I hoped to experience when I set out on my trip.

Now I was primed to get more of it.

I had made a list of places recommended here on bcp, on the RAF site and on various fb-groups, but I wasn’t sure at all if those endorsements were based on a similar interpretation of the term “backcountry”.

Since Ryan Field, MT, was on top of that list, and closest to Meadow Creek, I headed there to find out.


I landed long, parked Whiskyblue and set off on foot to explore the place.



When I arrived at "center stage" I realized that I had indeed come to a different "backcountry".
Not better, not worse, just one with an entirely different vibe.

If you qualify Meadow Creek as backcountry, version "wilderness", this could be version "country club".... LOL, what with flush toilets, hot showers, wifi, sprinkler system on the lawn,....
The RAF has indeed done an outstanding job to make Ryan Field an attractive destination.

I was there off-season and only shared place and facilities with a couple who had flown in in a Husky.
We got together for dinner and had a wonderful conversation, something I much prefer to a big party.




They left the next morning and I spent my second night in one of the cabins.

Next stop?
Back to the "wilderness", I think.

After two weeks of traveling, my morning pack-and-go routine was practically on autopilot.
Occasionally though, typically during preflight, my thoughts would wander and interfere: what if xxx gets damaged, stops working, breaks…., what could/should I do for preventive maintenance?

Almost 3000 miles away from home base, on my first extended cross country trip, it's probably normal for me to be a little nervous from time to time..
After all, I don’t have 10+ years of airplane ownership under my belt.

To alleviate some worries Greg (bigrenna here on bcp) had provided me with some contacts just in case.
One of them was close enough to my planned route into Idaho that I decided to stop by: Stene Aviation in Polson, MT, home of the Sportsman STOL wing cuff.

Great decision!

Willie gave me a tour of Stene's large hangar and the planes they were working on, took me out for lunch and more stories about his life in aviation and recommendations for places to visit.
Back at the shop he had his mechanic assist me with the oil change, and finally he himself cut up the oil filter, inspected it and gave the oil, and thus the engine, a clean bill of health.
Thanks Willie!!
One small worry to cross off the list before heading out into the Idaho backcountry.


A quick peek in Willies private hangar: his dad's pristine 185 on amphibs and a friend's SIAI Marchetti SM 1019.



First landing in Idaho: Moose Creek

Idaho, Idaho… you have to go to Idaho!

That recommendation came up wherever I asked for places I should visit on my adventure trip across the country.
And the multitude of photos of those famous strips on the internet sure looked tempting.

But when I watched videos of the approaches and landings at some of them, my enthusiasm was dampened.
It looked as if you needed experience and piloting skills that I didn't (yet) have.
There was no way I was going to risk ending up in the trees on a misjudged approach or go-around, or bending the gear on a botched landing.

For this reason, I chose Moose Creek and Johnson Creek as my first destinations.
Since both are in canyons and therefore require a much tighter approach than the places I had visited in Montana, I would still be climbing up the learning curve.
But with a super powerful O-360 climbing shouldn’t be a problem, right….LOL





Moose Creek - another Wilderness experience, shared by a sister 170B


Since I didn't arrive in Idaho until mid-September, the peak season was already over.
Wherever I landed, Whiskyblue was the only airplane in the pattern, which gave me the luxury of flying approach and landing without having to take other traffic into consideration.

This was especially evident when I got to Johnson Creek; I had never seen a photo of this place without a single airplane parked.





A pretty unique photo opportunity, I suppose...

It wasn't loneliness but a less than promising weather forecast that drove me out of Johnson Creek.
Three days with low clouds, a high probability of precipitation and the snow level dropping down to 6000 ft ?
No, thank you!


Out of Johnson Creek


I went to Cascade to refuel and spent some time at the FBO modifying my plans.
While I was mapping out possible routes in foreflight, a gentleman looked over my shoulder and started giving me recommendations.
He obviously knew the area very well.
Finally, he suggested we go out for lunch together. We went to his favorite restaurant where he told me story after story about his flying in Idaho.
I had met Idaho flying legend Ray Arnold!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhhb43Cpnko


Of course I had to check out places he mentioned and chose Garden Valley and Warm Springs.


Garden Valley





Warm Springs

I had breakfast with my wife and Ray Arnold a few years ago. Really humble guy with great stories and sound advice.

Idaho is a pilots paradise, I bet you are glad you decided to come west.