John & Anne Wiley

2010/08/03

Jasper – a couple more

Filed under: Aviation,by Anne,Flying,Has Photos,Nature,NxNW Adventure — Anne @ 04:44

Here are a couple of photos that came out pretty well from my auto-smudged camera.  None of the photos I took this afternoon at Jasper do any justice at all to what we saw.  It was totally awesome.  We hope to go through again on our way back with different lighting and maybe more sun, but as always the photos are a mere fraction of the experience of seeing this from the air.

0146 Blue Swirl Lake at Jasper-b

0146 Blue Swirl Lake at Jasper

…and this one of Mt Robson, which is the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies.  According to Ruben who flies charters here, it is very rare to see the top of Robson, so we were pretty pleased to see how much of it we got today:

0152 Mt.Robson-tallest point in the Canadian Rockies

0152 Mt.Robson-tallest point in the Canadian Rockies

~ by Anne

2010/08/02

Burns Out

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,NxNW Adventure,People,Random,Relationships — John @ 23:01

We almost reached our goal of Smithers today, but a wall of storms rose to meet us at Burns Lake so we’re settling for the night. Here’s our track West so far:

Track West to Burns Lk

Track West to Burns Lk

This has been quite a day, and it seems impossible we woke yesterday in Regina! We slept in the deserted Jasper Hinton airport with permission, and woke early. Since the mountain pass entry into the Jasper park had patches of low cloud beneath a high solid overcast, we rode into town for a delightful breakfast with Pete & Nadine. Not only do we share a love of adventure and flying, but we talked psychology with former therapist Nadine. After a fruitless search of Hinton for the “archetypal cafe” where locals go, we relented and chose Smitty’s (Canadian equivalent of Denny’s) where it turned out there were lots of locals mingling with a biker group that stopped in. Despite the forgettable food, the company was fabulous. Our next stop was a supermarket where the gals got supplies while the guys tapped into an open wifi hotspot and my main focus was online weather info. Back at the airport I filed the daily flight plan and got a weather brief to supplement what I’d seen online and was about to experience first hand.

0198 Climber's Challenge

0198 Climber's Challenge

Minutes after our fond farewell, we became Jasper gaspers. The sheer enormity of the features is truly astounding. I didn’t get many good pix due to the lingering clouds and the smoke from myriad regional wildfires, but I hope you can get some sense of how amazing this place is. I’d been through on the train once, but flying it is orders of magnitude more astounding. Having only heard about it, poor Anne was even more unprepared.

0204 Bird's Eye

0204 Bird's Eye

At the edge of the village the road near a small pond framed a perfect blue bird’s eye.

0221 Unseen Falls

0221 Unseen Falls

High up the steep slope is a raging waterfall that few other than aviators ever see.

Anne’s blogging right now so I’ll close by briefly describing our passage to Burns Lake. We decided to stay high across Prince George and stop at Fraser Lake. Then we noted that the GPS said nothing about fuel or other services there, so we diverted toward Vanderhoot. Descending to land, another pilot kindly informed us that though there was plenty of fuel the only two people who could pump it for us were not available for at least four hours.

Now my personal choice is to always have at least an hour of reserve fuel. Climbing back on course I calculated 90 minutes’ fuel remaining. While that could have carried us beyond our goal of Smithers, it wouldn’t work for me. I asked our friendly local pilot about Burns Lake and he assured us it has services including fuel. It left me right at the edge of my hour reserve and there were plenty of alternatives within half an hour, so we pressed on. Now we started noticing rain showers ahead. Dodging between those while constantly checking and triple-checking fuel burn against time and distance remaining (and reassured by cross-check with my recently fine-calibrated fuel gauges) we hugged closer to the road and at last made it into Burns Lake. With exactly an hour of fuel remaining. After looking at the sky and the internet, talking to the Flight Service weather briefer, and looking at each others’ haggard faces, we decided to accept the kind hospitality of the airport angels here. We’re snug in a borrowed room, typing away as our eyelids droop ever lower ahead of the 9pm sunset. So all this by way of context on how tired we’re feeling right now. Happy tired. 😉

2010/08/01

Civilized life above…

Filed under: Aviation,by Anne,Flying,Has Photos,Nature,NxNW Adventure — Anne @ 17:45

Recently I thought about what luxury it feels to eat avocados from our tree and chips from TJs over the skies in Montana, Wisconsin, and Ontario in the plane. Our afternoon appetizers – which have also turned into being dinner. We brought a few along, in various states of hardness and have waited until they ripen. They have spread out their ripening quite nicely, and we now have one left, and it needs to be eaten today. We spoon the avocado out and eat it with what are now crushed chips. The chips at the beginning of the trip were whole, but the bag is now is pretty crushed from everything around and on top of it, but still adds that nice salty taste to the avos. I thought how surprising it would seem to people to realize what a civilized life we have at three thousand feet in the air.

0066 Circles, Yellows, blue, brown

0066 Circles, Yellows, blue, brown

Today I sewed – a purse needed a repair as the zipper was getting stuck.  I started it while waiting in the terminal, and then needed to leave with the needle & thread still stuck in the purse. So when there was a quiet time I completed the job in the air. Most often we are looking at the sights. We also listen to air traffic or look at maps & charts, or weather. I thought about people below hearing a plane overhead, not guessing the woman in the plane (me) was sewing!

0069 Circles - Yellow
0069 Circles – Yellow
0077 Regina park & gov't bldg

0077 Regina park & gov't bldg

by ~Anne

2010/07/30

Missed Moments-GT&R

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Nature,NxNW Adventure,Random — John @ 14:00

You may recall that back on the 23rd we flew some particularly spectacular sights but weren’t able to share pix. Here then are a few from our exploration of the Grand Tetons and Rushmore. The view up-slope from our hotel provided a great start to the day as we could see the chair lifts taking tourists up for a low and distant glimpse of what we were about to survey on wings.

8168 Jackson WY

8168 Jackson WY

The airport is much closer to the Grand Tetons, and our excitement built considerably as we approached Tripp and contemplated our route along the range.

8252 Teton Setting

8252 Teton Setting

A few minutes later our magic carpet provided this view back toward Jackson with the airport just out of view to the left and of course the town further out of view beyond. Some peaks in the range have a distinctive “Matterhorn” look, as you can see in one of the snaps I’m about to put on my Photo Page.

8365 Back Toward Jackson

8365 Back Toward Jackson

Next we toured massive Yellowstone Lake, and this tiny slice of shoreline shows one of the many areas of bubbling hot springs and mud pots at the left edge. The lake is surrounded by a tumble of small peaks and a distant rim of tall mountains. As we traversed the vast valley I explained to Anne that the entire thing is a volcano. She tried to grasp that for a few minutes, looking for a large cinder cone or crater. “This whole valley to the mountains all around in the dim distance,” I repeated. It’s called a super volcano, the last time it erupted launched an ice age, and it’s due to blow again. Pretty sobering to contemplate that from a few thousand feet up where the whole thing surrounded us.

8382 Yellowstone Lake Pots

8382 Yellowstone Lake Pots

Not many miles later we searched a rock outcrop for signs of the Mt. Rushmore monuments. In the dim haze we first spotted a few large buildings and a parking lot so we flew toward it. Such an enchanting moment when rock outcrops suddenly emerged into crisp faces.

8468 Mt. Rushmore

8468 Mt. Rushmore

Now we’re off to find coffee and then back to Tripp for more miracles…

2010/07/23

Jackson to Jackson

Filed under: Aviation,Flying,Happiness,Has Photos,Inner World,Nature,NxNW Adventure,Random,Tripp — John @ 05:09

First some catch-up: Tripp’s cover didn’t last. I tore it this evening trying to pull it tightly closed. The faulty instrument turned out to be the auxiliary fuel pump (working fine, but noisy and seldom used so I didn’t think to check if the switch was on!). The fog didn’t lift until 10am, and we heard on the radio it was clearing at SBA then too (oh well). We didn’t actually take off until 11am.

Because we had full fuel, Tripp flew more like Flash used to with a lighter load. Well, not that sluggish. But we did need to divert North a bit to climb over the Sierra Madre before turning direct to Kernville. On that detour we passed close to the Jackson estate so I snapped this.

8034 Michael Jackson's Neverland

8034 Michael Jackson's Neverland

So just after takeoff, our trip began with a Jackson moment.

Since things were going well,  just past Bakersfield we turned slightly more North heading toward Tonopah and crossed the Sierras not far South of Mt. Whitney. Tripp faithfully hauled us up to 10,000′ or so, and Flash couldn’t have done that even without the baggage and 64 gallons of fuel aboard. Go Tripp!

8047 High Sierras

8047 High Sierras

I think one of the peaks is Mt. Whitney, but I haven’t figured it out and of course it looks different on every flight due to the different angles we see.

The valley presented the unusual as usual. This time the colors, textures and shapes were different not just due to our different route further North and flying higher, but also the rainy spring. I like this snap on its side, because my eye is less trapped by knowing what it is so I can more fully enjoy the Art of it.

8056 Geo Art

8056 Geo Art

I love so many of the photos from today, but I’ll skip ahead so this doesn’t get too long. Wish you could fly along with us and see how much more magnificent our planet is, than words or photos can begin to describe.

8074 Tonopah

8074 Tonopah

We stopped at Tonopah to check weather and stretch our legs. There are some fascinating decrepit old WWII hangars there, and this new building at the other end. Turned out it was too hot for a real walk and their internet wasn’t working. So back aboard our magic for more enchanted memories.

After a full day of glorious flying and geographic art, we arrived at today’s other Jackson: Jackson Hole, WY. We’d only been here once, as part of a long driving trip decades ago. So fun to see it from the air coming in, and tomorrow we’ll probably go for a closer look before continuing on toward WI. For now, we sleep, and dream about this unbelievable day.

8163 Jackson Hole WY

8163 Jackson Hole WY

Smoke clinging to the peaks appears to be from a wildfire. Hope it’s clear tomorrow.

« Previous Page — Next Page »

Blog at WordPress.com.