For years I resisted the call of backcountry flying.
I’m a flatlander. My entire life has been lived in the state of Maryland. My city is 303 feet above sea level. The highest elevation of our portion of the Appalachians is 3,360 feet. (In North Carolina, that range soars to 6,684 feet.) People from California and Montana and Wyoming call our mountains “hills.” For us, density altitude calculations are more likely to turn up in knowledge tests than in actual flying.
Backcountry flying is, as they say, a whole ’nother thing. It intensifies everything you’ve learned as a pilot. Weather, winds, fuel, temperatures, and the location of your intended landing site all take on heightened importance. AOPA Content Producer Alicia Herron lays this out for you in “Beginner Backcountry,” on p. 32.
Why do it, then? Why go to the expense of traveling somewhere far away, hiring an airplane and an instructor, to fly in (and I do mean in) the mountains—enduring sometimes stomach-churning turbulence, actual high density altitude, and almost nonstop thoughts of would I survive if I had to land there?
Because you can. Because you should. Because nothing worth doing is easy, and you knew that when you signed up to be a pilot.
Because you will see sights like no other: sparkling lakes and rivers with songs dedicated to them, carving paths through valleys dotted with airstrips that to your urban eyes look more like hiking trails and cart paths.
There are mountains to see, lakes and rivers to splash down on, snow-covered stretches to glide upon.And the mountains and towers themselves. The red-splashed buttes of Sedona, Arizona. The Sawtooth and Cascade ranges in the Idaho backcountry, or the Sierra Nevada in California—nobody would dare to classify these behemoths as hills. They’re true mountains, with their own weather systems. The mantra would I survive if I landed there? in your mind will quiet just long enough for you to absorb the sight of the jagged peaks sprinkled with black oaks and foxtail and ponderosa pines.
You will finally get the chance to experience high density altitude and know the feeling of waiting...and waiting...and waiting for that airplane to get to rotation speed on a hot day, and then realizing you can’t just point the nose at the sky and start your climb lest you settle back onto the runway. That same runway, by the way, is disappearing beneath you. If you ever took weight and balance and density altitude calculations for granted, you never will again.
For years the sad ending of Steve Fossett was a cautionary tale and good reason to avoid this type of flying. Fossett, an adventurer who’d flown around the world in balloons and fixed-wing aircraft, disappeared in 2007 while flying a Super Decathlon in the mountains. The destroyed remains of the aircraft and a few of Fossett’s personal belongings were discovered in October 2008 in California. If Fossett, an accomplished pilot, could die while flying in the backcountry, what chance does a flatlander have? But in fact, there’s a cautionary tale for nearly every aspect of flying—people of all skill levels who have crashed and injured themselves or died when they were taking off, or maneuvering, or landing.
Flying—all flying—is about managing risks. It’s why we train, why we practice what we’ve learned, why we are tested on our skills, and why we fly to remain proficient. There are mountains to see, lakes and rivers to splash down on, snow-covered stretches to glide upon.
And there are highly professional flight training providers who can safely help us experience all these wonders. Each one of my backcountry jaunts has been with a seasoned pro, and I wouldn’t try it any other way.
We should see it all, do it all, because we can—because it’s worth it.
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