Flying High

My friend is trying to get his commercial pilots licence and he needs 500 hours of flying to get it. He has worked out a deal where he can fly the plane for a little more than $100 an hour. So he is flying friends and family around and splitting the cost. So my brother and I went for a ride with him.

We arrived in Price and he was there prepping the plane. This would be my first time flying so I was a little nervous. The plane is a Cessna 172 Skyhawk II.

The take off was smooth and we was in the air sooner than I thought it would take. We was traveling about 160 MPH and 500 feet off the ground. It sure didn’t feel that fast until we would go lower. He even let me run the controls for a short time. It was fun.

We flew toward Buckhorn Draw. When we got there the sun was right in our eyes, so a lot of pictures didn’t turn out.

We hung a left at Swinging Bridge and headed toward Mexican Mountain again the sun was right in front of us. We came around the South side of Mexican Mountain and flew low near the airstrip. Heading West now was perfect, we followed the San Rafael River and could look down into the Upper Black Box.

We decided to head up into the Wedge. We flew below the cliff line for a ways before pulling out near Virgin Spring Canyon.

We headed back to Price and hit a few bumps along the way. The landing was nice and faster again than I expected.

We flew just over 120 miles in 1 hour and all it cost was $35. Can’t beat a deal like that. I am planning another trip already, thinking of heading toward Desolation Canyon or Moab.

I decided to try a time lapse video for the ride. My first one. I set the camera to take a picture every 5 seconds. During one point while banking the gps fell in front of the camera. There was 560 pictures for about a minute of video. For my first time I thought it came out okay. There are some improvements I can make for a next one.

KML file of the trip

 

Thousand Lakes Mountain

On Saturday, we left for the Thousand Lakes Mountain for a day of fishing. I decided to check out the North side. Our turn off was along Highway 72 after Forsyth Reservoir. We took our time heading up the canyon. The road was a graded dirt road, not bad. Once on top the road splits, the road South takes you to the Elkhorn Campground and a few lakes. We took the North road towards Morrell Pond. Shortly after there is a good views of Cathedral Valley down below.

The first lake we stopped at was Morrell Pond. First thing was to find a nearby geocache, then we fished. A few casts in and I caught the first fish, a small Rainbow Trout. Seemed like every fourth cast another small Rainbow would grab a hold. I changed spots and caught a bigger, but not much, Cutthroat Trout. We fished for a while then had lunch, hot dogs roasted over the fire.

We left Morrell and continued along the road, we passed a few more ponds that looked like they held no fish. The road ends and a short hike to Meeks Lake. We stopped at one pond that we thought was Floating Island Lake. We caught a few small Cuthroats out of it.

A short hike to the East was Meeks Lake. I got down there and immediately had a good size fish chase my lure. It looked to be a Brook Trout. I had one other hit but was not able to bring any to shore.

We stayed and fished for a while before giving up and heading out. We passed a few other people that looked to be deer hunters. After getting down there was still plenty of daylight left so we decided to fish Forsyth Reservoir. I was able to reel in a small Tiger Trout. Shortly after there was gunshot from the far hillside and a big splash in the middle of the lake in front of me. Figured someone may have missed and the bullet went into the lake or something. But soon there were two more shots into the lake. Figured some hillbillies were target practicing into the lake so we got out of there in a hurry. Can’t believe they would shot from on top of the hill into the lake with people on the other side. We weren’t the only people, there were three other groups.

It was late enough so we just headed home for some late night pizza.

A kml file of my GPS log.

 

Henry Mountains

On Saturday, we took off for the Henry Mountains. Check of the weather said it would be hot and clear all weekend. Along the way we stopped to find several geocaches that were along the road. We arrived at Little Egypt past Noon and thought to have lunch. We stepped out of the car and that is when the heat hit us. We did a little exploring and decided to skip lunch and head higher for some cooler temps.

We made a few stops along the way at some cabins. In the first cabin was a large lizard that the dog had to scare off before I could get a picture. I had never seen such a big lizard in the wild before.

I had been told and read that the Henry’s receive little traffic and might run into 1 or 2 other people. It was just the opposite, there was a lot of traffic and I had to be on guard after several close encounters with other cars. The road up Bull Creek Pass was steep and my little 4 popper had a hard time climbing. I had to shift into 4 low to keep the engine from bogging down. Once on top the views were awesome. We stopped at Bull Creek Pass for some pictures and a rest. I tried to read the Mt. Ellen trailhead register but there were a lot of bees living in the box. Once I opened it they all swarmed and I had to shut it and run off.

We continued on looking for a place to set up camp, we didn’t want to camp at the campgrounds and the few spots were already taken. We finally stopped on Nasty Flats at a nice camp site. While setting up camp we could see a bunch of deer on the hillside. The sunset was nice, watching the mountainside turn colors with a red hue to them.

This was Rocky’s first camping trip so I was a little worried about him. While making dinner he walked off and we had to call for him for a few minutes before he returned to camp. After that I kept a watchful eye on him. Our other dog, Shadow, stayed in camp the whole time.

The next morning I was up to watch the sunrise light up Capitol Reef from my viewpoint near camp. I sat there for a least 30 minutes watching and taking pictures.

We left after breakfast and continued along the Bull Creek Pass Road. We passed by a small cabin that a turkey was hanging around. Soon we were passing by the McClellan Springs campground. It had a few camp trailers as well as some tents camping. The road down wasn’t near as steep but it was rough. The road dropped down and then back up to pass in front of Mt. Pennell and the Horn.

The lower down we got the higher the temperature would rise. We made a few stops but I am regretting not stopping more to take pictures. After reaching the bottom we stopped at some more old cabins near the Trachyte Ranch. We came across another lizard this one not as large and sure enough Rocky took off after it. He came back with the lizard in his mouth and his head held high. He paraded around with his prize but as soon as he dropped the lizard off it went under a rock.

The ride home was hot so we stopped as few times as we could until we were home. The Henry Mountains are definitely a rugged place but a place I want to return and do some more exploring.

Link to more pictures from the trip

Link to a GPS kml file

 

Cane Wash Overnighter

Over the Memorial Weekend, we did a backpack trip along the San Rafael River up to Cane Wash. We started our hike at the Johansen Corral. There was only one other car with two people hiking ahead of us with only daypacks. We never did run into them. The hike to Cane Wash was over 3 miles, so we got there just in time for lunch. We ate our lunch near the Cane Wash pictos.

After lunch we ditched our packs and hiked up Cane Wash. The wash was pretty good from the start, after a mile or so we encountered a small stream that would appear and disappear every so often. The canyon had a lot of petrified wood in it. There were spots in the walls that would have large pieces stick out or run along the wall. We hiked for another two miles to a geocache. We searched for quite some time but never found the cache. After that we turned around and head back to the mouth of the canyon.

While resting, a large group of boy scouts hiked by. They decided to set up camp across the canyon from us. We decided to stick with our original plan and stay the night in Cane Wash. While setting up camp, I noticed we only had one tent pole and needed two more. So we just slept on top of the tent under the stars.

After a nice night, we ate a quick breakfast and headed out. The hike out was nice and easy. We made it back home before lunch.

For more pictures check out my Picasa page.

For kml file