The wife and I took advantage of my private pilot achievement big time this weekend. We started our adventure off on Friday August 11th at 13:00Z. We headed out to the airport where my awesome co workers already had the plane waiting at the hanger for us. We loaded up the cooler, and our gear. Pre flighted added 2 more hours of fuel, and headed out.
We departed KSGU at 14:10Z the ride over was as smooth as glass. We climbed to a cruising altitude of 7,500 ft. We averaged about 120 kts ground speed in cruise.
We arrived at KPGA around 15:20Z. Once we landed we tied down. We had an amazing line guy from American Aviation come pick us up and take us out front to wait for the shuttle to Antelope Point Marina. The shuttle picked us up where the van was filled with some other flyers from Salt Lake that traveled down for the day. Their flight was about as long as ours lol.
The shuttle dropped us off at the boat, we loaded up then launched. We spent 2.5 wonderful days on this beautiful lake.
We headed home this morning August 13th. We made it down the lake onto the trailer, and back to the airport. We arrived at American, and where met by an awesome German fellow who had us pay the ramp fees. 14 USD for 2 nights, they charged us 35 USD to launch and receive the boat 😂. We departed KPGA at 17:10Z. Climb out was good then 50NM into the flight we had to start dodging weather and clouds. We started off at 8,500 ft, and ended up at 6,500 ft due to clouds. We arrived back at KSGU at 18:40Z. My wife got her first experience of what turbulence is really like in the 172. Reguardless though she handled it like s champ.
I have a good friend who lives in Grand Junction, CO. and is a Pro BASS fisherman. About 10 years ago, I believe in February, early in the morning on a pre fish scouting run, my buddy randomly decided to explore an area of Lake Powell known to be sparse in trophy sized fish. He ends up seeing three guys in the distance stranded and waving a white t shirt. One of the guys rescued ended up being a former Olympian wrestler named Rulon Gardner. What had happened was they were hotdoggin’ it in a SR22 flying low through the canyons, and apparently the pilot(owner of Barnes ammunition and the plane) lost his orientation and dipped a wing in the water dragging the aircraft down. They swam quite a distance to reach shore and waited until the next morning until my buddy found them.
Great place to vacation. Always a great time even if those crazy gusts creep up on you, and never the same if you only visit once a year. You’re photos make those walls look tiny. Out of curiosity how easy is it to get down into the canyons undetected?
I live about an hour and a half west of Lake Powell and I love that place. Absolutely gorgeous, your pictures just show the absolute beauty of that area! Great flight!!
airplane repo filmed an episode at animas Air Park (in Durango), I think it was one of their first episodes. Still my favorite episode to this date since they were repoing a Cessna 414 with no radios/navigational equipment at night and an ‘angry’ mechanic shut off the runway lights as they were trying to depart. Could’ve been @Brandon_Sandstrom for all we know!
