Never Again: Nowhere to turn

I was hoping to complete my first solo cross-country flight from Gunnison to Montrose, Colorado. It was March 2, 1969, and I had accumulated about 50 hours of flight time, mostly in Indiana. I had moved to Gunnison to teach at the local college. My flight instructor advised me that because of high elevations, density altitude was a constant concern, especially in an underpowered 172—and weather-wise, flying in the Rockies was quite different from navigating around the typical seven-mile visibility in the Midwest.

Since I had acquired about a dozen hours of dual and solo experience in the Gunnison area and I had completed a dual flight between the airports, I was confident that I could manage the comparatively straightforward flight. However, what I apparently had missed—and what I was soon to learn for myself—was that Rocky Mountain weather can be really fickle and hard to predict, especially in winter.

I called Grand Junction Flight Service for a weather briefing and learned that the area forecast and current conditions at Montrose were nearly perfect for the 50-mile, roughly half-hour cross-country flight. The field elevation at Gunnison is 7,680 feet msl, while Montrose is at 5,759 feet. The direct westbound route takes one over the imposing Black Mesa, a broad, tree-covered plateau more than 9,000 feet high in Gunnison National Forest, north of the Blue Mountain Reservoir. There was a deep blanket of snow on the mesa that topped out at more than 10 feet. I filed a flight plan for 10,500 feet msl, thinking that I would easily avoid most of the obstructions over the Black Mesa.

When I arrived for the flight, I learned my regular instructor was away, and a different CFI would serve as my backup flight supervisor. The substitute instructor was a student at the college. He quickly reviewed my proposed flight plan, asked if I had checked the weather, and then wished me a good flight.

I launched into one of those deep-blue, cold, cloudless Colorado skies on a heading of 280 degrees. I wasn’t on course for more than 10 minutes when I spotted that intimidating and impenetrable wall of clouds looming ahead. Unable to climb above the danger, I thought that by descending a bit, I would be able to remain clear of the worst part of the overcast. I pushed the nose down and leveled off about 10,000 feet msl. The visibility now was about a mile, but deteriorating fast. Push that nose down even more—now! I thought. The descent barely put me in the clear, and looking down I could see an endless forest of spruce trees heavily blanketed in snow.

Since I knew that the Black Mesa was only about 20 to 30 miles wide on my present course, I reasoned that so long as things didn’t get any worse, I could continue until the ground sloped westward toward Montrose—perhaps in five minutes. To my chagrin, the visibility continued to rapidly deteriorate, and I was forced to descend until I was merely 50 to 100 feet above those gorgeous snow-covered spruces, flying into the gauzy haze that often exists beneath an overcast.

Worried that I would pick up ice, and apprehensive that I could now see only about a quarter-mile ahead, I quickly concluded that it was time for the classic 180. However, when I looked to the rear, the visibility appeared to be much worse than what was ahead. Concerned about the possibility of running into obscured higher terrain, I considered a controlled emergency landing, and at my 9 o’clock spotted a clearing that I was sure I could squeeze into.

As I reached for the flap handle, I had an epiphany: A forced landing in deep snow? Even if I survived the initial impact and wasn’t injured, things would get really interesting with the temperature hovering in the single digits. I discarded the idea of a forced landing, and desperately scoured the narrow band of airspace between the forest and low overcast for other possibilities.

At my 11 o’clock, where the ground dipped slightly lower in a V, I could make out the beginnings of a creek drainage heading south. I banked toward that nameless creek. As I flew 50 feet above the shallow, snow-shrouded drainage, I could determine that it was beginning to drop off at a noticeable angle, and I began to descend.

After a minute or two of steadily improving conditions, I suddenly and miraculously burst out from the overcast into that brilliant bright-blue Colorado sky. I now was over the Blue Mesa Reservoir and finally was able to climb back up to a safe altitude, banking toward Gunnison.

Forty-seven years and 900 flying hours later, thinking about the experience unnerves me more than it did then. I was incredibly lucky. Many things could have gone wrong—from ditching in that snow-covered clearing, to the chance that the nameless creek led into an impassibly narrow canyon, to the possibility of encountering blinding snowshowers well beyond the Blue Mesa Reservoir.

I had several warning flags that I should have heeded. First, my lack of experience with FSS might have led me to miss any reference to possible snowshowers in the vicinity. Second, my substitute instructor may have unconsciously deferred to my judgment (flawed though it was), because I was on the faculty at the college and he was a student. The difference in our situations meant that he might not have checked the weather independently and declined to lecture me about what to do at the first sign of trouble. But my greatest miscue was failing to initiate a 180-degree turn at the beginning of rapidly diminishing visibility.

I hope that I will never again dismiss any nagging red flags simply because I’ve become so overjoyed at the prospect of “slipping the surly bonds of Earth.

Ronald F. Urban, a private pilot with 975 hours, lives in Walla Walla, Washington.