Passion for Flight

Double Arch of Arches National Park New Weather The briefer says, "Cheyenne is IFR. In fact, the entire route to your destination is IFR. That is not supposed to improve today. Let me look at the forecast. Oh, likely this will get worse. Low IFR is predicted tomorrow for Cheyenne, with possible snow in the mountains along your route from Cheyenne on. Even the day after does not look good." This is bad news. The day before, friend Manfried and I flew from Dallas to Goodland, KS, stayed at a motel, and are now ready for the trip from Goodland to Vernal, UT, where we want to hike in Dinosaur National Monument. The planned route includes a refueling stop in Cheyenne, WY, then follows Interstate 80 West up to Elk Mountain. At that point, it leaves the road and goes southwest directly to Vernal. I tell the briefer, "I don't understand this. Last night a cold front came through here, and the high behind it was to produce VFR for the entire route from Goodland...

Gila National Forest With a plane, you can turn a long weekend into an adventure. You can travel a considerable distance, do some interesting stuff, then return, and all this in three or four days. Here are two such trips, assuming you live somewhere in the Southwest. Trip 1: Gila National Forest You fly to Deming, NM. Have the FBO put the plane into a hangar and rent a car; all available for a reasonable fee. Then drive to the Gila National Forest north of Silver City, and do some interesting hikes. At the end of the weekend, you fly back to your base. An example hike is the Black Range Crest Trail 79. The trailhead is at Emory Pass, which is reached from Deming via US180, NM 61, and NM 152 in less than two hours. The elevation of Emory Pass is 8,200 ft. The trail rises gently over 5 miles to the fire lookout on Hillsboro Peak at 10,000 ft and is almost entirely in the Aldo Leopold Wilderness. In 2013, a huge portion of Gila National Forest was devastated by a fire started...