Today a friend of mine and I landed on this strip near Strawberry AZ. It's brand new, in fact they just finished smoothing it out in August. I first noticed it at work in September, and through another friend contacted the owner, who was happy to let us come up. John and I were the first airplanes ever to land this strip.
The 1600ft strip is located on Hard Scrabble mesa, at an elevation of 6100msl. It is situated NW to SE and has a 7% uphill grade to the south. We had strong wind today from the south so the strip was quite easy in terms of length. Because of the wind we elected to take-off uphill, which worked out okay, but I think I'll always go downhill in the future. After take-off, we both got nailed by downdrafts while flying into rising terrain, not much fun. John has a Helio- courier, and my Maule is no slouch, so we were okay, but my old Pacer would have been in big trouble.
There are cattle roaming, in fact one ran right in front of John as he was taxing out. Definitely something I'll have to watch when landing.
As I mentioned this is a private strip, however the owner is happy to have people land. Stupidly, I didn't ask if it was okay to publish Lat and Long info, so maybe I'll have it for everybody next time.
Because of nearby mountains, there was a lot of mechanical turbulence so I was unable to take any photos from the air, another thing for next time.
Keep 'em flying
Jeff
