Well, darn. We're not having much luck so far with the weather. This morning, there's a wall of cloud in the mountains to the North of us, and heavy rain and thunderstorms in the forecast near the border. No thanks!

Since we were all packed and ready to go, we all went up for a quick test flight at our full load. It was good to see how she handled with the new STOL kit and fully loaded. Definitely different, but she flew fine. Did some slow flight and stalls. Now we're really ready to go for tomorrow!

swixtt wrote:o180, sure hope things improve in the weather for you.

what is the name of the Yurt you found? i'm curious for future use maybe.
thx

Hey, thanks! The yurt was here http://www.barefootresort.ca/rooms-rates/yurts/. Pretty swank as yurts go, and right by the beach. Seems like a cool place, but they do have a strict 48-hour cancellation policy.

Hope the weather changes, it is warm, with a few thunder showers here. but there is a lot of ground to cover between here and there. We can usually get from here to Porthill for Customs in about 4 hrs when flying to Idaho.We usually leave early in the morning.Still looking forward to you coming this way. Good not to mess with the weather gods.

some web cam sites that will be useful.
http://www.metcam.navcanada.ca/lb/index ... ng=e&ui=lb
also try BC and Yukon Web Cams
http://www3.telus.net/ruping/webcams/pyrwebcams.html
KenW

If you have a I-phone or iPad download the alaska cam app by skuptech. It has the ak aviation cams and weather for all the most all AK.
DENNY

DENNY wrote:If you have a I-phone or iPad download the alaska cam app by skuptech. It has the ak aviation cams and weather for all the most all AK.
DENNY

This is a must for flying in Alaska. You will use the app a lot when flying up here.

Hope to see you in the Wrangells soon, but don't push the weather with the family.

Don't push the weather with or without the family.....

Patience with weather is key to success flying in the mountains and especially in Alaska. It hurts to burn up vacation time but it still beats the potential consequence to a hasty weather decision.

MTV

A bit of a bumpy ride to Ellensburg, WA today, within striking distance of the border. Should start having some good weather for the next several days.

Making the most out of the courtesy Cadillac!

Glad you guys got out of town.

We made it to Kelowna, BC today! Leaving Ellensburg was pretty sporting. It was blowing 32 gusting 40+knots this morning. Enough to blow my sunglasses right off my face! Kind of sporting in a taildragger.

We stopped in Omak, where oddly it was almost calm, and then launched for the border. Since it was a weekend day we had to go through customs in Kelowna. We navigated between some rain showers and got on the ground before some major rain hit Kelowna.

Customs we're super nice but we had some issues with the firearms form (their end, not mine) that ended up taking an hour to sort out. I ended up getting a ride from an incredibly helpful mounty to the customs office to get the appropriate stamp on my paperwork. Canadians really are as nice as they say!

Tomorrow's weather is looking good. I'm ready for some clear skies!

Cool sign at Omak, WA:


A lake fell on our heads shortly after landing in Kelowna:


No tiesdowns or grass to put your own in at Kelowna, so I tied the plane to a snow plow:

Sunny Okanogan EH!

Glad to see you're underway. Hopefully this big high pressure this week will get you some productive days.

Thanks for the report. Glad to see you got the boarder crossing out of the way and hopefully the wet weather as well!

Nice day of flying today! Camping for the night in Quesnel, BC. Awesome camping on the field with fire pit, firewood, potable water, a gazebo with gas grills, you name it!

Gordon and Vicky from Williams Lake stopped by to say hi in their nice 180! They'd heard through the BCP grapevine that we were headed here. Really nice to meet you!

Tomorrow is Canada Day, and we're planning on celebrating it in Barkerville, where they do the whole thing frontier-style. Greasy pole climbing contests, hammer throwing, etc. Sounds really fun. We'll leave all our heavy stuff here In Quesnel, pick it back up on the way out and keep heading north tomorrow attention/evening.

Tent set up


My son having fun collecting sticks and trying out his mosquito head net. Not need here, just for fun!


Quesnel campsite gazebo


Beers chilling by the wood pile

Way to go OR-180!!

Keep the pix coming. This is where the fun starts. You know you are on your way when everything from here to the Yukon is called Lake, Prince or Fort something.

Stirring up some good memories. Remember, you are doing this for FUN. Cherry-pick your weather and nobody will get scared or ever regret the few mosquito bites it took to get there.

Keep on enjoying those widest of wide-open spaces.

YB

Looks like you're staying in Quesnel for the night again. I don't blame you with how nice the campground looked. That is, not that I'm stalking you or anything. Seems like you guys are having a great time. Look forward to more reports on how the journey is going.

Brett

We had a great time in Barkerville yesterday for Canada Day! I'll put up some pictures soon. We all felt like just taking it easy after landing back in Quesnel and had a nice evening there.

Today we had some initially iffy weather, but then a beautiful flight through the mountains to Fort St John:


We were met at Fort st John by Karen and Dieter, who put us up for the night and fed us amazing walleye fish and chips.

Dieter took me up for a flight in his Super Cub along the Peace river. We saw a couple of black bears and landed on a gravel bar. This is just a quick iphone picture of his awesome Super Cub:


Life is good! On to fort nelson and (maybe) beyond tomorrow.

I see you got turned back just before Fort Nelson. There is supposed to be wild and sevre thunderstorms this afternoon.
Ask Dieter about Toad River and if there is "special ways" to land at Liard Hot Spring. Try your best to get to the hot springs very special.
KenW

Tried to make Ft Nelson this morning. It was decent most of the way, but about 30 miles out the ceilings were way down. By then Ft Nelson was reporting 300ft overcast. It was down to the ground around the airport. Not much to do but turn around and come back to Fort st John!

Looking dicey (t-storms, hail, rain) for the next few days through ft Nelson and Watson Lake, so we might just rent a car and explore on the ground around here. Looks like we'll get another weather window in a few days.

Thanks Ken! Looks like we posted at the same time. We're hoping to check out Toad River. Our plan was to camp there tonight, but the weather had other plans.
We're booking a rental car and will explore a bit and camp for a few days.