Wow, just wow. From taking your daughter hunting to the incredible scenery. Thanks!

Pete

BC really is a wonderful place to live and fly. Now I want floats!!!

daedaluscan wrote:BC really is a wonderful place to live and fly. Now I want floats!!!

And I want a set of Tundra tires and some skis. There's a lot to see either way. I'll have to ask you about the strip at the Bridge Glacier.

Not backcountry flying really but I took the whole family for Sunday lunch in the Gulf Islands. Thetis Island Marina for some pizzas, and fish and chips. We're enjoying a very nice streak of clear and crisp weather here.

Nice!!!! Looks like getting up to the dock took some skill.

I used to fly to BC all the time. I even dated a gal in Victoria for a spell. It was just a 30 minute flight to CYYJ from my home base at Apex (8W5) in Washington. As the years dragged on, I was having more and more hassles with the FAA over my 3rd Class medical, so I switched to Basic Med while I could. Now I can't fly to Canada any more. It's a real heartbreaker because there are so many great places to fly there. It isn't bad south of the border, but I miss having the option of going north. Danged bureaucracy!

I still enjoy your posts and think wistfully about the good-ol'-days. Customs was a lot easier back then too. Sigh.

180Marty wrote:Nice!!!! Looks like getting up to the dock took some skill.

Just kill the motor early, get the left wing tip past the piling, full left rudder (while watching that left wing tip), when the left float tip gets a few feet from the dock give it full right rudder and glide into place. They're fairly widely spaced pilings. It's a very sheltered spot.

Flyhound wrote:I used to fly to BC all the time. I even dated a gal in Victoria for a spell. It was just a 30 minute flight to CYYJ from my home base at Apex (8W5) in Washington. As the years dragged on, I was having more and more hassles with the FAA over my 3rd Class medical, so I switched to Basic Med while I could. Now I can't fly to Canada any more. It's a real heartbreaker because there are so many great places to fly there. It isn't bad south of the border, but I miss having the option of going north. Danged bureaucracy!

I still enjoy your posts and think wistfully about the good-ol'-days. Customs was a lot easier back then too. Sigh.

But think of how much safer we all are now with these extra rules.

Been doing plenty of flying lately but I haven't been taking as many pictures. Here are a few though from two weekends ago. I took the family up to Fire Lake to beat the heat. We had the place to ourselves and the lake was very comfortable for a swim. Even the air temperature was pleasant up at 3500 feet.

I took a couple of the kids over the mountains and over to the family lake cabin. I stashed an old ski boat up there so we could fly in and waterski. Usually we've go an old Jeep there to launch it with, but the Jeep wouldn't start (as Jeeps will do) and we ended up launching with my brother's Toyota mini-van. It launched fine, but pulling the boat back up the sand launch at the end of the day was a challenge. Anyway, flew up at dawn, skied for the day with my brother and his family, and flew home after dinner and back to work.

Fraser Farmer wrote: It launched fine, but pulling the boat back up the sand launch at the end of the day was a challenge.

Haha it can be very exciting. I for one love the anxiety of potentially sinking your vehicle and seeing to float away downriver.

Haha it can be very exciting. I for one love the anxiety of potentially sinking your vehicle and seeing to float away downriver.[/quote]

The great part is all the people that show up. Always so full of great advice, and they all have perfect 20/20 hindsight.
To be fair a couple dudes who came to watch helped me give the rig a little push and out she came.

I haven't been hitting enough new spots or taking enough pictures, but here's one. Was up at Gun Lake a couple weeks back. Had a massive wildfire this summer and burned most of the cabins on one side of the lake, including my buddies. My Aunties house was spared being on the unburned side. So we flew up to inspect the carnage and do some measuring for construction/permitting for my buddy. He may be on the burned side but at least he still gets a view of the unburned side of the lake. The water was still crystal clear, surprisingly enough.

No guns in Gun Lake? Heard the local grizzlies put the run on the firefighters camped around Downton Lake in September. Don't know if that was partly why the big burn at Gun.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/mobile/persistent ... 997?cache=

Karmutzen wrote:No guns in Gun Lake? Heard the local grizzlies put the run on the firefighters camped around Downton Lake in September. Don't know if that was partly why the big burn at Gun.

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/mobile/persistent ... 997?cache=

The cabins had all been burned prior to the bears running the firefighters out of the area. So probably some additional acres of forest burned as a result but no additional cabins. Pretty ridiculous though, we have no shortage of bears and it can't really be that large a number giving grief, you'd think at that point just zap them and get on with your work. However, as a cynical fella I know once said, there's good money in semi-effective fire fighting. Bunch of guys getting paid to commute to Lillooet and back. No doubt they've got OSHA and Worksafe and HR guys nosing in on this stuff.

Been doing a bit of flying but not really back country stuff. It's been 4 years since I flew wheels last, and I'm not feeling sharp enough for off airport ops yet. New wheel and tire combo too.
I was flying around with the kids on the coast and they asked to drop in at Texada, so we did that.



And we flew up to Princeton and said hi to an Uncle who lives up there

Fraser Farmer wrote:

Those kids are getting bigger. I bet you’re glad you have that 185.

Zzz wrote:

Fraser Farmer wrote:

Those kids are getting bigger. I bet you’re glad you have that 185.

They sure are. The 180 wouldn't do the job anymore, the 185 just barely sometimes. My buddy got a Beaver for hauling his family but the operating costs on that bird are keeping me from giving that upgrade any serious consideration.

After your second set of ABW, you flinch a little landing on pavement. Your home strip is grass, right?

Karmutzen wrote:After your second set of ABW, you flinch a little landing on pavement. Your home strip is grass, right?

The home strip is grass, but I'm not running out of home these days. Between the drought last summer and the cold snap this winter, the majority of my hay fields died. I'm re-seeding all my fields right now, so no landing there. I'm running the plane from my hangar at Pitt.

The tires are Airhawks, so pavement is no biggie. You do feel them though when you first touch and the pavement grabs those heavy tires and spins them up to speed.