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

I'm sure glad - Idaho, Montana, Utah, Colorado, I had a blast!

Great TR, Wolf.

Landing on gravel bars is not my thing.
Not that Whiskyblue couldn’t handle it, all she needs are perhaps bigger tires and she’d master everything even a very experienced pilot could challenge her with.
On my trip I just wasn’t into bagging landings in difficult spots.
Of course, all the upgrades and bush mods on my bird take its performance for backcountry flying to a new level and open up access to very challenging strips, but for me they are primarily safety enhancing add-ons.

Case in point: my landings “the wrong way” In Garden Valley and Warm Springs.

The Idaho-Airports app recommends landing rwy 10 in U88 and rwy 02 in 0U1.
In both locations the windsock pointed straight downwind when I got there.


(a Kodiak on) Approach on rwy 28 into Garden Valley


Looking towards approach end of rwy 20 Warm Springs

From above, I looked at the approach paths to land into the wind. Short doglegs on base and final - doable, I decided

With the Sportsman cuff with VG’s I had excellent maneuverability at 52mph, which is about 1.5 vso, and approach and landing turned out perfectly.
Then there was an added safety bonus; if I had had to abort for any reason, the go-around would have been in the recommended direction for takeoff.



When I reviewed my decisions later at the campfires I felt good about them.

I also realized that my experience with gliders in the mountains played a role: I felt comfortable flying close to the terrain and was confident in my ability to correctly assess the local wind conditions.

One of the challenges I faced before and during my trip was finding a balance between making plans and sticking to them, and leaving room for spontaneous decisions.
The “make it to Montana as quickly as possible”- part was a no-brainer. But deciding how much time to allow for Montana, Idaho, Utah - not to mention the option to continue even further West - was difficult, especially since this was my first journey out west.
Sofar I had visited 4 places in MT and was now at my fourth strip in ID.

“Have you been to …?, you should definitely go to … !” were some of the answers I received from my pilot friends after I updated them on my whereabouts.

Now, there are enough backcountry destinations in Idaho alone to keep me busy all summer, but we were already in the last week of September.

I looked at the map, the calendar and the weather forecast - maybe one more place in Idaho?
I rememberd the invitation by the 170 pilot at Moose Creek to come up to Cavanaugh Bay…

In the end decided to move on.
Utah, Colorado and friends to the south were already waiting.

“…promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.” came to mind.


Leaving the Idaho mountains



Logistics stopover in Gooding, ID



First signs of fall in northeastern Utah



Huntington, UT, beginning of my Utah adventures

When I first became interested in backcountry flying and started reading travelogues and watching YouTube videos, the trips into the canyons of Utah seemed the most adventurous, the landings deep down between vertical red rock walls the most challenging.

And now, five years later, I was about to visit one of these canyon strips: Mexican Mountain.
Would I land there?
Maybe I would.
But I definitely wanted to fly there, see it from above and then decide.

A local pilot I had met in Huntington before take-off confirmed that the runway was in very good condition, and the weather was perfect.

As I got close, I immediately recognized the runway from the videos: a narrow strip next to the San Rafael River.



After two approaches to check for wind and up- or downdrafts I felt confident enough and landed.



I had made it into Mexican Mountain!




What a place !

Ah, my plane was hangared in Gooding for a few years. Cheapest gas around!

Landing and camping at Mexican Mountain was the most intense experience of the first three weeks of my adventure.
As I departed and climbed out along the red cliffs of the canyon wall I wondered if the second part of my circuit would provide me with equally memorable moments.




Well, Whiskyblue and I have returned to home base in MA quite some time ago, and looking back, I can answer that questions with a resounding yes.

The topography was different, of course, as were the colors, but the impressions and emotions that hit me in some places were just as intense.



The Ozarks




Richland Creek

That’s awesome, Wolf!

Nice work…. Thanks for sharing the adventure . Good stuff

Thanks for sharing the adventure Wolf. You are living the dream and expanding your horizons. Well done sir!

MW

The further east I got on the second part of my trip, the less I expected the topography to wow me.
Well, yes. I was wrong, sort of.
It was on the penultimate day of my adventure when the man-made topography gave me an unexpected peak experience!







Fortunately, Greg (bigrenna here on bcp) had strongly insisted that I fly up the Hudson River VFR corridor, weather permitting. And the weather did its best not to let me miss the sight of this spectacular urban topography.




Yep, the stars aligned on this afternoon!

Mexican Mountain is the best. I can’t wait to go back. The Hudson VFR corridor is on my bucket list too. Great write up!

Awesome adventure! The stuff I dream about. Still seems like plenty of excitement left to be had if you go looking for it.

Really been loving all your pictures and videos from the trip, looks like it was an amazing!!!! You got a lot better shots of the Chinese Wall in Montana, I was just taking it all in and didn't get a lot of good pictures! gorgeous!

Hey guys,

During my trip I made a whole bunch of videos, which I shared on instagram. I don't know if some of you followed me there, but I figured I should post them on bcp, as well.
Here they are.

As I was heading for the northern end of the Hudson River VFR corridor, an old piece of advice given to athletes in their prime came to mind: True champions retire right after they make it to the top.



Well, this flight on the Hudson was certainly one of the top experiences of my trip, and now I was on the way to my last destination, to my last night out.
The next day my adventure would end, I would “retire” so to speak.
It seems I had followed the above advice without realizing it.



To say I had mixed feelings would be a colossal understatement. I hardly knew what to feel.
Sadness because more than five weeks of flying and living out of my beautiful and trusty plane were about to end?
Satisfaction that, despite all the difficulties along the way, I had succeeded in realizing my boyhood dream ?
Joy of having created wonderful memories that will last a lifetime?

A fellow 170B pilot who joined me for a beer at GBR, where I had landed to spend my last night, put it this way: “It will take you a long time to appreciate what you have achieved”.

And then the next morning, my final departure: one last time to set up the 430 and the 796, one last time to enjoy the pull of the MT prop, one last time to let the CGR-30's help me tweak the mixture, one last time to appreciate all the information displayed by the AV-30’s that fit so well into a 170B panel.
Rather than heading straight back to home base 28 M I meandered about the airports I had visited while learning how to best fly my heavily upgraded bird.
That gave me a little extra time for the final wind-down.

Then I brought Whiskyblue in for our last landing, shut her down and pushed her back in the hangar.

The adventure was over, we had come full circle.

Great stuff, Wolf! You're single handedly bringing back the BCP of old when people actually shared their adventures here.

Thanks for sharing Wolf!