1) VFR over the top (there were some pretty big holes by the time I got to the airport). FA forecast the tops to be around 16,000 feet though, and that means no VFR cruising altitude over the top, plus a loooooooong climb.
2) VFR scud run. Baaaaad idea - AIRMETs for mountain obscuration, and MEF just west of POY is 12,600 feet and I sure don't want to be too close to terrain anyway. The peaks resulting in that MEF were a fair distance south of the direct route, but Windy Mountain and Indian Peak were close, and stand 10,262 and 10,923 feet respectively.
3) IFR. Unfortunately, that means either climbing past the OROCA of 15,500 feet or taking a detour all the way up to Billings. To top it off, there is an airmet for icing above 12,000 (which is still below the MEF - That means icing all the way to the surface in the highest terrain!)
4) A roundabout VFR trip through some valleys. Not too comfortable with that just yet, mostly because I've never done it and I don't know exactly how winds and terrain are going to mix just yet. I did, however, spend some time on the phone with my mountain CFI discussing it, as I'll need to cross some terrain to get to her airport regardless. She told me a "trick" that I'd actually thought of myself already - Visualize it as if you were in a river with rapids, and that's what the air is doing.
With the ice, IFR really wasn't an option. So, I departed VFR and began climbing like crazy. I saw a VERY large bird soaring around while I was in the climb. I passed maybe 40 feet above him climbing through about 7,000, but the majestic brown creature was large enough that I'd give us about even odds in a collision! He even paused his patrol of the ground long enough to lift his head and look me right in the eye. Wow.
After a while, I realized that it was going to take forever to get on top even if I could make it, so I decided to go with option 4 - The roundabout valley trip. I descended back down to 8500 and noted that I still wasn't below the level of some of the clouds in front of me - Not good, since I would need to make it through Colter Pass at 8066 feet. I picked up the Yellowstone River and headed for the mouth of the valley. When I got there, I stayed above the level of the ridges and made a steep turn just to be sure I could get back out if I needed to. I completed it with room to spare, so in I went, still with a bit of apprehension.
It couldn't have gone better. I trimmed for maneuvering speed and set power to maintain altitude. I flew on the downwind side of the valley (read: the UPdraft side - I still don't understand the terms leeward and windward!), sometimes only a hundred feet or so from rock walls, sometimes higher than the terrain to my left (the close side). There was a nice flat area at the bottom just in case, and to top it off, the clouds began lifting once I was inside.
The variety of scenery was incredible. Sometimes I was next to a sandstone-colored rock wall, sometimes flying over trees on an extreme slope and seeing them closer than I could by any other means, sometimes seeing a thick carpet of trees on a flatter area below, and sometimes the trees had been consumed by fire and were lying down scattered in all directions. There were gentle slopes, cliffs, grass, snow, and even a private airstrip. All the while, the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone River meandered beneath, and after a while was joined by a small road. The air was smooth, I was getting excellent groundspeeds (not sure if that was just a tailwind or if being on the "updraft" side helped it along too), and the stark differences in my surroundings from one second to the next were simply awe-inspiring. Flying that close to the ground, whether it was vertical or horizontal or somewhere in between, gave me a "Super Cub moment" where I felt the grand aura of true flying, just going where my wings took me and enjoying "low and slow" of an entirely different variety.
The valley widened considerably prior to Colter Pass. I saw and heard motorcycles a few hundred feet below on the road just before I got there. It wasn't much of a "pass" in the sense that I think of when I'm ground-pounding - Just a slightly narrower high point before the road started down, certainly not as bad as it had looked to me on the sectional earlier in the morning.
I felt better than ever after making it through the pass - The weather was getting better and better, the plane was quite happily performing where I was putting it, with no unexpected downdrafts. In fact, the air had helped me climb despite my level attitude, so after the road beneath went downhill, I had some pretty good terrain clearance and elected to take a shortcut over a fairly high but fairly flat area. This area was completely covered with trees except for the walls of the narrow canyon below. I believe I was just east of Mount Washburn.
And boy, what a stroke of luck that shortcut was. Up ahead, I saw the river I was following once again disappear into some terrain, with both sandy-colored and reddish hues on the canyon walls.
A couple minutes later, I saw it - A waterfall! (From what I can tell by Googling, it's called the Silver Cord Cascade.)
Very cool. I circled over it to get another look and continued southward. Soon, Yellowstone Lake appeared behind a ridge and I knew that meant it was time to turn Northwest.
I went pretty much directly to the West Yellowstone airport. It's already claimed for ConUS but I wanted to get it in my logbook because I've driven past it a couple of times and always wanted to land there! So, I did a touch and go there, flew through nearby Targhee Pass, and then landed at Henry's Lake airport, a grass strip which was still unclaimed. It looks like the perfect spot for a fly-in picnic, and has a picnic table ready and waiting for you. The grass was pretty tall, though!
After a short time there, I proceeded north-northwest along the Madison river valley, crossed over a couple of small ridges and Virginia City, and headed towards Twin Bridges.
After making my first call on the CTAF, an automated advisory system came on the frequency and gave winds (which were strong and gusty, making me grateful for the advisory, however impersonal it was), altimeter, and a couple other things and advised to click the mic three times for more info, and four times for a radio check. Interesting. I landed, topped off the tanks, took a ConUS claim photo, and headed right back out - Time was running short to get to McCall before 5 PM.
No time to play around in the canyons on this flight, not to mention that there really aren't any navigable canyons or valleys anywhere near that route! So, I poured on the coals and turned westbound. I turned the oxygen on a few minutes after takeoff. Climb was decent at first, but began getting more sluggish. It was pretty turbulent down low, but there were only a couple of clouds left in the sky so I continued upwards. I was picking up some kind of a mountain wave effect, sometimes doing all I could to stay level and sometimes getting a nice lift of anywhere from 300-600 fpm. Climbing through 13,000 I finally saw my transponder light up and I called ZLC for flight following.
Those two remaining clouds were at about 14,000 feet and after climbing through that the air was smooth. I finally reached 14,500 and asked ZLC if they had radar contact yet. That took them another minute or so. I was truing out at 123 knots, getting 140 over the ground and getting a whopping 15 inches of manifold pressure at full throttle.
I saw a couple of fires burning during this leg. One was pretty far off to the north of my route and looked pretty big. Another one was almost right underneath me, and actually it was several small fires in a small area, apparently with nobody fighting them.
ZLC had asked me to report when I had the weather. I had it on the 496, but terrain prevented me from actually receiving it on the radio. I finally started hearing it about 23 miles out and reported such to ZLC. A minute or two later, they dropped me. I finally spotted the field visually clearing the last ridge, and knew I'd have to use the 182's excellent drag characteristics.
Power back, prop flat, and I was getting a nice 1700fpm descent. Slow down, flaps down, turn final, and land - The end of another great day.Almost.
My reason for being in McCall is to get some instruction at McCall Mountain Canyon Flying. To start, Pete the A&P checked over the airplane. It was pretty much doing a half-hour preflight with an expert (and flashlights and mirrors and screwdrivers), and was very informative. He pointed out a few things that we'll want to fix at some point and fixed and adjusted some other minor things, but at the end he pronounced N271G to be very sound mechanically and ready to hit the backcountry strips tomorrow. Next, I met my instructor. We did some ground school inside, then I took her out to dinner where we continued over some excellent Chinese food. (Mmmm... General Tso's Chicken.) Finally, it was back to the airport and I walked across the street to my hotel. Tomorrow, we do some airwork, performance landings, and then head for some of the same backcountry strips that you've seen in Bob Bement's videos. I can't wait!
Stats so far:
1490 nautical miles
15.5 hours
13 airports touched (KMSN, KANE, 14Y, KBWP, KABR, 6V4, 83V, KGEY, KPOY, KWYS, U53, 7S1, KMYL)
9 ATC facilities talked to (KMSNx2, ZAU, ZMP, KMSP, KANE, KGCC, ZDV, ZLC)
7 airports claimed for the ConUS Challenge (KANE, 14Y, KBWP, KABR, 83V, U53, 7S1)
162.47 gallons of Avgas
6 Sectional charts (Chicago, Green Bay, Twin Cities, Cheyenne, Billings, Great Falls)
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