Over the Cascades
Finally the weather forecast was wrong in our favor. The Labor Day weekend was supposed to be cloudy and rainy, but I woke up to sunshine on Saturday. Time for some flying.
There was virtually no wind and only very high, wispy clouds. Perfect conditions for trying some flying over the mountain passes. I took and headed northeast toward Stevens Pass. Mount Rainier was visible to the south.
The pass itself looked pretty daunting, but I kept careful track of my position on the GPS and chart and followed highway 2 below.
Not much snow on the mountains this time of year.
Passed over Lake Wenatchee and the grass strip, state airport there. Even a few planes were parked there. The lake itself is actually to the left behind the wing. I think the other little lake there is called Fish Lake.
I started to head over toward Chelan, leaving the highway. This was the only spot that made me feel a little uncomfortable. Not a lot of landing options–just really rugged looking logging roads. And of course I had a strange feeling at about this point. The plane suddenly seemed too quite or too smooth. I checked the gauges. Engine was running great. Wasn’t loosing speed or altitude. Must have just been a really smooth patch of air.
This is about as close as I got to Chelan before I bailed on the idea of heading over there.
Instead I headed south along the Columbia River toward Wenatchee. I landed there and fueled up thinking the prices would be cheaper. Man, was I wrong. It was $.50 more per gallon.
It took just over half an hour to get there. Would have been even shorter if I optimized my route a bit instead of heading toward Chelan.
The cafe there is closed on the weekends, so I just took off again and headed toward Snoqualmie Pass. Mount Rainier was visible ahead, but I eventually turned more northwest to follow the pass.
Looking back at Wenatchee.
This is looking north toward Mount Baker. The mountains are certainly spectacular.
I’d have to say Snoqualmie Pass is much friendlier than Stevens. I climbed up to 8500′ this time and still felt much more comfortable. The time spent actually in craggy mountains is pretty low and there’s more landing spots along the way. Here’s a shot of the Alpental ski area right at the pass.
I took the opportunity to take a picture of a friend’s house on the approach to Renton.
All in all, a very easy trip. It was great to get in some fun flying. The way back took again just over half an hour minus some horsing around I did with the autopilot. Back at the hangar, it was time for the 50 hour oil change. Looking over everything, I found a small oil leak at the back of the engine that I chased down to the oil temp sensor. I tightened it half a turn to see if that would fix it.
Here’s a complete non sequitur.
I like the colors of this ladder truck. Black over red is pretty cool. Still thinking about colors/designs for the plane.