John & Anne Wiley

One of the things about aging is that we tend to repeat ourselves. I’ve surely already mentioned “prop advance” for example. That mental condition I’ve noted in relation to flying a small plane. You remember: the opposite of “jet lag” where flying a propeller plane like Tripp creates a time warp that gives the impression of more time having passed. You do a few things in the morning, fly for an hour, and when you land anything you did before flying feels like it was yesterday. My theory is that it’s due to “dream time” akin to the flying dreams I used to have so often before becoming a pilot. Because flying low and slow as we “prop” pilots do is so similar to those dreams of drifting slowly above the trees and houses, wandering here and there on whims. OK, so this entire trip has been absolutely stuffed with dream time of that kind.

This morning as I walked out to prepare Tripp for our flight South from Edmonton, the Canadian military air show team named of course the Snowbirds flew a few hundred feet directly overhead in tight formation. Since I didn’t have the camera you get to imagine how cool that was. Here’s how they looked over Tripp’s tail as they taxied to parking.

0566 Snowbirds

Soon after takeoff on our way toward Rocky Mountain Home where we’d re-enter the valley south of Jasper, we flew over Mameo Lake and I wondered if the person driving the boat was purposely making patterns in the orange stuff floating on the lake.

0574 Mameo Squiggle

After crossing some prairie and passing what from the air was an unremarkable Mountain Home, we passed back into the magnificent (though still smoky from all the nearby fires) Canadian Rockies.

0579 Gateway to Rockies

High on the slopes, we again floated by many glorious features and innumerable waterfalls few but enchanted prop pilots and ardent lonely climbers will ever see.

0585 High Falls

Because the weather reports had been a bit iffy and the smoke was likely to still be thick, we considered skipping this high pass to save for a future return trip. It didn’t take long for the miracles sliding slowly endlessly beneath our wings to remind us why so many people visit this area.

0618 Peaceful Blue Lake

People are down there, most probably oblivious to our presence, lost in their own activities and reveries. Not much further, we had all but given up spotting fabled Lake Louise because it’s so small and poorly marked on charts and maps. Glancing up from the town we first saw a small lake, and in a couple of miles the grand old lodge suddenly emerged from the smoke and mist. Wow.

0634 Lake Louise

So this is what we’ve been hearing about all these years! Soon the grand lodge next to the rapids at Banff provided some idea of how this town got its start. Imagine when this was the only hotel for many miles.

0694 Banff Lodge

We have several hundred photos from this part of today’s flight, and even though most are marred by the smoke each is a treasured reminder of the stunning beauty we saw. Many times during the passage we remarked on how on our other flights we’d take pains to snap photos of striking features that today we just admired in passing. I hope we can go back in clear air and do a better job of sharing a tiny slice of the overwhelming scenes we enjoyed today.

Now there were some downsides to our marathon nearly five hour route today. We dodged several nasty storms, adjusted our track many times, endured some light turbulence and even made our first brief flight through light hail. After then fighting some moderate headwinds we arrived late, exhausted and a bit lightheaded from high altitude here in Glacier Park, MT. We’ve booked a cottage at Meadow Lake to begin our 9th anniversary in style and comfort, and have just enjoyed a great meal with a glass of wine to help us transition back to the delights of some ground-based activities tomorrow before we take flight yet again. Great way to start a weekend! 🙂