The truth was a bit unsettling. The summer beauty of Colorado’s Front Range spread from my feet toward the prairie—tremendous blues and grays in the rocks, browns and blacks in the soil, greens and golds in the trees, snow-capped summits that glistened. Standing in the parking lot atop Mount Evans, just west of Denver, at an elevation of 14,240 feet, I had arrived at the highest paved roadway in North America. The air was clear and calm. The day was hot. Every horizon seemed to be a promise of a deeper joy. Above me, contrails in the flight levels seemed more like art than exhaust.
I would love to fly here, I thought, and imagined myself soaring up the mountain faces before lazily enjoying canyons and passes. I imagined slow flight over trout streams; open windows; landings on dirt strips in hidden valleys—a day of profound beauty. But then it occurred to me. In this parking lot, my Jeep was closer to the stars than I had ever been as a pilot. The airplanes I rented would never get here.
How do I get there? Online or on paper, we stare at the charts and imagine the trips we would like to make someday. We ask ourselves, “How in the world would I get there?” Many of these thoughts involve mountains. If you have the right kind of airplane, the mountains are easy. Just go up and over. But most of us have a pretty tall problem. Even on a standard day, the service ceiling of our beloved airplane is lower than the tops of the hills. We can’t go up and over. We have to go around—or through.
Mike Paulson, manager of the flight school at the Fargo Jet Center in Fargo, North Dakota, knows what it’s like to be a flatland pilot heading for the mountains. There is a whole world of issues around mountain flying we just don’t see on the prairie. “If you have a little Cessna 140 or 152 up near its service ceiling,” he says, “you’re flying at a slower indicated airspeed because of its performance. If you’re flying very slow in that thin air, you’re flying with a high angle of attack. You get much better performance at lower altitudes.”
But that doesn’t mean the low flyers can’t dance across the Rockies. It just takes a bit of planning.
“If you’ve never done it,” Paulson says, “then daytime only. Around here, a day with 25-knot winds is just another day on the prairie. But we don’t have mountains. We don’t have that kind of turbulence. And while we don’t worry about flying in the dark, an inexperienced pilot flying mountains VFR after dark is a bad idea. Even IFR with a single engine is an issue. If something goes wrong, you can’t see where you’re going to go.”
Easy enough, I thought. But I kept staring at the sectionals and those numbers that show the minimum altitude to clear cliff faces, tamarack trees, and radio towers. Where seemed as large a question as how.
Look at the World Aeronautical Charts, I was told. Take a few steps back. Just look at the colors, where they change because of elevation. That’s how you find your way across. I wanted to find three routes—north, south, and middle—and I smiled at the idea of art leading navigation.
The Northwest Passage—Billings to Missoula to Coeur d’Alene to Spokane
According to Jim Pierce, owner and president of Red Eagle Aviation in Kalispell, Montana, most pilots on the northern route follow I-90 or cross at MacDonald Pass near Helena. Following Highway 2, the “High Line,” across the top of Montana is another popular route. “In a lot of places,” he says, “you can cross at 6,000 feet. Eight thousand feet is easy. A lot of pilots like to run the backcountry on their route,” he says. “If they are comfortable, they stop in at Schafer Meadows or Spotted Bear. This is some of the most beautiful flying in the country.”
However, the trip is not without its challenges. “What catches most pilots crossing for the first time,” he says, “is how strong the winds can be on the east side of the mountains. In the mountains there are canyon effects. Winds can get funneled into higher speeds and then erupt upwards. And there are updrafts and downdrafts on the mountain faces. People read about those things, and even if they’ve never experienced them, they sort of expect them. But there is also a surprise. The winds on the east side can be pretty turbulent. The west wind comes over the mountains and there is a downdraft as the mountains change to flatland. But that downdraft bounces. About 20 miles out from the foot of the mountains, there’s a pretty big roller.”
The Great Divide—Cheyenne to Salt Lake City to all points west
Doniv Feltner, owner and chief instructor at Wings of Wyoming in Cheyenne, has very specific advice. “Leaving Cheyenne, you need to go to the Medicine Bow VOR and then follow I-80 at 8,500 feet. If you follow I-80 out of Cheyenne instead, 30 miles west of here you’ll get to Sherman Hills Pass. The road there is at 8,600 feet, but the towers are at 9,200 feet. That’s a big difference for a little airplane.
“Eighty miles east of here,” he says, “you’re down to 3,000 feet. Here, though, you have to be at 7,200 feet just to be in the traffic pattern. And you have to remember—this is really important—a service ceiling is a density altitude. On summer days, the density altitude here can be close to 10,000 feet. Well over 9,000 feet. And the winds have to be 25 knots or less; otherwise, you get mountain waves.
“I’ve been instructing for 25 years,” he says, “and I can’t tell you how many times a pilot has landed, walked into the office—a sort of glassy look on his face—and said, ‘I need an instructor.’ At the very least, if you’ve never crossed the mountains, you need some ground time to understand mountain weather, proper leaning, and high density altitudes.
“I tell you what, though,” he adds. “In summer, the afternoon thunderstorms can be pretty violent. But fall is the perfect time to fly here. Look at today. Fifty-five degrees and not a cloud within 400 miles. The air is calm. This is the way it’s meant to be.”
The Southern Cross—El Paso to Tucson to Southern California
Sam Ragland, chief pilot at Arizona Aero-Tech in Tucson, has a single, emphatic bit of advice for pilots crossing a southern route: altitude. Altitude is everything. “This is not a route for low-ceiling airplanes,” he says. “Winter is OK. Winter is the best time to fly here. But in summer, density altitude at the field in midmorning can be 6,000 feet. Midafternoon, it can climb to 7,500 feet. Our field elevation is only 2,600.”
Heat is not the only reason to climb. “You need to get up to at least 7,000 msl,” he says. “That puts you above the helicopters working traffic. And that puts you above the border patrol, too. They work at about 3,500 feet, but they aren’t in radar contact and they don’t talk to anyone on the radio.” Between El Paso and Tuscon, Ragland says ATC radar coverage is sketchy at best below 9,500 feet and pilots should frequently self-announce their position. If your airplane isn’t comfortable at 12,000 feet, it’s not a very pleasant ride, he says. Many pilots follow I-10.
Fly west from Tucson and it’s all clear sailing—do watch out for that unmarked balloon on a cable northwest of Yuma—but desert weather has a special twist. “You’ll see dust storms along Interstate 10,” Ragland says. “You’ll see little dust devils all the time. But the big ones, they can get up to 6,000 or 7,000 feet msl. They can pop up suddenly. A dust storm can ruin your day really fast.
“One last thing,” he says. “It’s best to fly with a GPS around here. If you’re flying by landmarks, it’s really easy to violate the [Air Defense Identification Zone].”
Ask enough people and good advice gets repeated. Plan your fuel so you can overfly the highest airfields. Plan two or three daytime VFR routes and choose one, based on weather and clouds, once you get there. Land at an airport with a CFI and have him or her walk you through the local routine. Altitude is important. Don’t forget your camera.
Ask the right people and the best advice is shared, as well. Take a few steps back from the WAC and look at the colors. Imagine yourself in those spaces. Seen from above, tamarack trees bordering a trout stream winding through one valley and then another is a type of memory you can hold forever. The simple, gargantuan weight of a mountain, the whole of it seen from a low-flying airplane, is a lesson in humility and grace. Don’t just stare at the sectionals—go.
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