I finally got around to posting some pics of our August flying trip. We left our home strip in Coquille on a Friday afternoon. We then headed to Grants Pass to Chief Aircraft to pick up some last minute airplane stuff. We departed Grants Pass in 100* weather and made a bumpy afternoon flight across the cascades and eastern Oregon to Lands Inn Ranch. The next morning we headed to La Grande for fuel. The FBO had a great shower that we gladly used. We then made the short hop into the mountains to Reds Wallowa Horse Ranch. We Spent the day hiking and fishing and met some great people from Spokane area and a local farmer from La Grande that loaded up his dog, a 3 week old kitten and his guitar in his C-182 and came up to the mountains for a night away.

Loaded Up


Departing Home Base


Checking out Lands Inn


Lands Inn. Our first night of 8 in this tent.






Reds Wallowa Horse Ranch




To be continued............

That's awesome!! You the man, Highroad. Your the stud! Very cool. Great pics, too. Can'y wait to see the rest.

Way too COOL

I'm jealous! Makes me want a Pacer that much more....must....have....patience.... I like seeing your wife and daughter involved and flying in it too. Gives me hope, we have a 2yr old daughter that loves airplanes, and I can see your videos and pics being like my soon I hope! Thanks for sharing!

I loved hearing your kid! Makes me look forward to the same thing.

"Way to go stud!, I think it's Daddy." Priceless! Thanks for sharing. Good flying, nice airplane, wonderful family. You are a blessed man!

Awesome!! It was fun seeing you guys at the end of the trip.

Well, after leaving Reds, we headed to McCall to get some groceries and fuel. Note to self, do not go grocery shopping when hungry, especially when groceries will need to be caried in to the backcountry via airplane........I used a lot of runway departing McCall, even though I was only half fuel. Interesting thing about our trip was that I was expecting really hot temperatures and kind of bummed that the only time we would be able to make Idaho was in August. The week we were there, (2nd week in Aug.) it did not get over 70*'s and it froze every night of the trip until we got to the San Juans! We flew through some rain and a bit of snow on our way into JC. We had not brought any chairs or a tarp along on the trip as, well, we were camping for 8 nights and flying a Pacer......but pilots leave all kinds of things behind at JC. I asked to take the van into town to get a tarp as it was raining at JC and the caretakers just pointed me towards one of the sheds. We could of arrived at JC with just our clothes and camped just fine with all the gear available! We gladly used a tarp to cover our picnic table and some chairs to lounge in left behind by some nervous pilot that, no doubt was concerned about his/her first JC departure. (I have been there myself )



Density Altitude, What is that?


Hooked a Salmon!, of course I was fishing for Trout!


Swimming, Kind of


Beautiful Trout


Finally got to use that Duck Tape!


Fly out to Cabin Creek


Vines






To be Continued........

Again, that's just too cool!!

Wow, you're Pacer looks beautiful! Nice pics again, I keep checking back here over and over waiting for more!

Nice report, keep it coming. :popcorn:

Word to the Wise:
Do not fly into a back country strip with people you love and live with and then realize that you may have made a mistake.......Then do not ask them to get out while you do a "trial take off" to see how the airplane is going to perform. Don't tell them that if it is too marginal, you will be back in a couple of hours (hopefully) with a couple of supercubs to fly them out. And if you mention, "why don't you go ahead and video".......it will just add fuel to the fire.

My wifes words....."Oh great, so we will stand here and watch you crash and burn and make sure we have it on tape )

Ya, I don't like to admit this, but I should not have gone into Vines when I did. We had just been at Cabin Creek. We parked the airplane and started to hike down to the cabins. I did not like how warm it was getting, so called it quits and headed back to the airplane to depart. It was 70*'s. We came out of Cabin Creek easily, (actually surprised me how quick we were off the ground and how strong we were climbing). I was planning on heading back to JC. As we neared Vines, I thought, I'm going to take a look at it. The airplane came out of Cabin so well.......I did realize that Cabin has quite a grade that really helps on departure but thought that I would be departing down stream at Vines as well and it is 1100ft long........ Well, I make the approach to Vines and about the time I am commited, I realize that this strip is shorter, rougher and flatter than I was planning on...... Well, now I'm on the ground and have to make a decision on what to do. The above conversation with my wife takes place and I leave them with a sleeping bag and some survival gear. At this point, I am hating flying and the fact that I just made a poor judgement call and my family is invlolved. I was confident that the airplane would haul me out in the given conditions, but not 100% sure it would do it with us all on board safely. So I decide to make a trial run. Well, the airplane performed fine and I decided to load them up and depart for JC. We came out of Vines okay, but if I am honost with myself, I put my family at risk (all backcountry flying is risky, but there are lots of ways to reduce the amount of risk). I still get sick to my stomach thinking about the event, but learned a lesson........

Great write up. I love the videos and the commentary!

Thaks for sharing. We all have to learn a few lessons along the way.

Well, from JC we headed back to McCall for Fuel and to get back in touch with the real world (oh wait, I was chatting online on BCP using the JC wireless the night before ) Anyway, we then headed up to felts field in Spokane to spend some time with a few of our friends. From there, we headed over to the San Juans to meet up with a few fellow BCP'ers. It was a bit of a shock going from the Idaho/Oregon wilderness to the "Islands." It was all I could do not to stop at every grass strip in northern Washington we came within 20 miles of on our flight west. I think I could spend a good week or more checking out this great area.

My Mom and Dad had trailered their Kitfox up to Anacordes and we met them there. I flew my family over to Orcas and then came back for their stuff and they flew the Kitfox over.

Idaho Lake.


Ready to take on the high seas if need be


Shuttleing over to Orcas


Camping at Orcas


Mt. Constitution


What do you think she remembers about Friday Harbor?


Landing at Center Island


Good thing we are back at sea level cause after all that backcountry........well lets just say Mom went shopping

"good job daddy, say good job daddy" - "good job daddy" Haha, priceless!

This makes me absolutely jealous! Great trip, great pics, great report and - most important - great family!

Cheers,

Oliver

thanks for all the pics and vids. Looks like some awesome places! Im glad you decided to make sure it was safe before taking the family. Better safe than sorry. And if you couldn't have made it with them and all the stuff you could have taken all the gear to cabin creek or flying B then come back for them...and you'd burn a little fuel off in the process! Either way great decision. Looks like a great time.

Great story and videos Highroad! Your little girl has a future in ATC!

Looks like a great trip! Glad you had so much fun!

Skystrider wrote:Great story and videos Highroad! Your little girl has a future in ATC!

Ya, she is pretty good at repeating things, especially the ones you don't want her too!

piperpainter wrote:And if you couldn't have made it with them and all the stuff you could have taken all the gear to cabin creek or flying B then come back for them...and you'd burn a little fuel off in the process!

Both good options, but all we had on board was survival gear as our camping gear was at JC (A light weight sleeping bag is part of my survival gear). I also had mimimal fuel on board.......
Next time I go to the area, I would like to camp at Vines using Cabin Creek as a shuttle point to get gear and passengers in and out. Probably take 10 gal. of fuel in 5 gal. cans and not fill the tanks so I can add it as I like to keep the weight where I like. I don't like the feeling of wondering if the airplane was level when I dipped the tanks......nice to put 5 gal. in and know without a doubt you have atleast a half hour in a tank after you run the other dry.

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