Not much tree color here yet, and fog has been our nemesis for a while. Yesterday dawned clear though and Washington State DOT is keeping some of its mountain air strips open longer than usual. It worked for me.

Smoky flight, but not as bad as it’s been. Was worse at the southern end of the Central Valley. Flew up the western edge of the Sierras to the Sac area this evening.

Cub is back on wheels, so had to make a quick leaf run with Debbie this afternoon. The Lu came along...

Flew a friend down to Georgia yesterday to pick up an airplane he bought. Plains GA, Peterson field, 4GA5, 230 ft x 3000 ft of nice grass! A good Cub pilot could have landed across this thing!! While my buddy was finishing his transaction, Mr. Peterson drove me around Plains and gave me the grand tour. At 81 he has a long history in aviation... test pilot, aircraft sales, flight training, aircraft refurbishment, and flying Jimmy Carter and the Secret Service around.

kg wrote:

Now that's a beautiful airstrip!!

Put a green at the end and it becomes a fairway

We're on a week and a half tour of Nevada and Utah in the truck camper, towing the Aerotrek A220. Currently camping at a friend's private ranch with good rough strip and even an old spare hangar. Flew over an old cold war ICBM site this morning. Cool to see the fake tanks and SAMs that once fooled Soviet recon. Stopped at Murphy Hot Springs to stretch our legs and enjoy a PB&J. Thanks Snake River Brush Pilots for keeping it mowed and dragged.

Pierre

edit: An Air Force pilot corrected me. That's not the old ICBM site. That is a current bombing practice area set up to simulate a SAM missile site. They drop 25 lb dummy bombs and are scored.

In the "weird things we've seen from the air" file. Above, or at least near, Bear Lake ID., and I am curious if anyone knows what's up with this stream covered with logs? The pond the stream feeds has no visible outlet. It must have a buried pipeline keeping it drained, no doubt feeding a irrigation system in the valley below. For a couple miles or so, the entire stream was covered with what appeared to be purpose cut logs, laid it across it at a 90. I am baffled as to why and wherefore of this, and have never seen anything like it before. Any ideas?

Before I clicked on the picture, I thought it was logs in a pond. I grew up next door to my Dad's sawmill and he used to fill a couple of purpose-dug ponds with hardwood logs to keep them fresh before sawing. But in that picture, the logs are out of the water and clearly placed across the inlet.

My guess is to keep debris from choking that stream. I'll be interested to hear what the actual answer is. Doncha love the sights we see!

P

Karen and I landed right on "Main Street" in downtown Metropolis, Nevada, for a walkabout. While most ghost towns in NV have a similar story--gold or silver strike, rush in, cabins followed by saloons, bank, brothel, church (a minister once told me that the church usually came last, after several saloons/brothels because ya gotta have sinners to sell redemption!)--Metropolis was a very different and very fascinating story.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis,_Nevada

Mexican Mountain Strip.




Cedar Mountain, where I met a couple guys. One with a Carbon Cub, the other I didn't recognize as a Murphy Elite.


They said they were stopping in Green River for lunch. When I told them that the airport is about four miles outside of town, they told me they were landing at the Love's truck stop, which has a strip! We didn't plan to eat there, but landed anyway, just for the photo opportunity!

Pierre you need to hit Dirty Devil before you point it home. Magical!

courierguy wrote:In the "weird things we've seen from the air" file. Above, or at least near, Bear Lake ID., and I am curious if anyone knows what's up with this stream covered with logs? The pond the stream feeds has no visible outlet. It must have a buried pipeline keeping it drained, no doubt feeding a irrigation system in the valley below. For a couple miles or so, the entire stream was covered with what appeared to be purpose cut logs, laid it across it at a 90. I am baffled as to why and wherefore of this, and have never seen anything like it before. Any ideas?

The Bear River is the longest river in North America that does not empty into the ocean. Geologists think it used to empty into Bear Lake which is fed by snow melt and is used for irrigation.

So, my theory is, the logs over the stream (or maybe it's a ditch) have something to do with water conservation, or, it's the world's longest cattle guard.

Could it be to keep the creek in it’s channel when there is snow on the ground? Someone invested a lot of work in the project.

SixTwoLeemer wrote:Pierre you need to hit Dirty Devil before you point it home. Magical!

Thanks for the tip. I just got the Fly Utah ebook en route and it's a little hard to scope out. I missed that one. We're in Colorado for the week (snow!), visiting my son, then we plan to return via a more southern route: Great Sand Dunes, Durango, Page, Zion. From the Lake Powell area I can hit Fry Canyon, Nokai Dome, and Dirty Devil strips.

I saw the commercial helicopter tour route around Zion and was going to use that as a guide. Any other ideas?

Those three are great choices!! I would make sure to fly from Hite to Hanksville, low-level, over the Dirty Devil River Gorge.... so much to see.. Make sure you hit Dirty Devil and Happy Canyon (cant remember if you hit that?) and scout out below buck acre and poison springs too!

Pierre, I am not sure when you are headed back to Utah, but I plan to head that way tomorrow weather permitting. I will probably stay the night in Colorado before heading to Utah to camp at some of the easier strips. Maybe I will see you along the way.

I flew over the Skagit river delta on Sunday. The Tundra and Trumpet Swans are back for the winter. When their migration is complete, we'll have about 12,000 of these buggers in our area along with lots of snow geese. With a wingspan of nearly 7', and weighing up to 20 pounds, you wouldn't want to meet one in the sky!

Thanks for reaching out. We're tied up in the Denver area until Sat. Prolly hit Southern UT Monday.

Great Sand Dunes National Park at Sunset.