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Banff & Jasper
Another Don & Joan adventure August 2003
I wanted to fly to Minneapolis to visit friends and Joan thought it would be on the way home to fly to the Canadian Rockies (Banff & Jasper national parks). When I began looking at the weather I discovered that there were thunderstorms all through the south & along the east coast so north it was. Here is our expanded log of the trip.
8/1/03
Hobbs 29.9.
Departed Oxr IFR to VfR on top 7:15 am.
Tried to climb over CB (Thunderstorm clouds) over Barstow 15,000’ didn’t make it so went through clouds on autopilot. Not long in clouds -not too bad. Lost communications with LA center (although they had us on radar) picked them up on the other side of CB on another radio freq. found on in route chart.
Hobbs 32.4--- 2.5 hrs
Landed at St. George UT 9:55 am
For gas (Beautiful Country) Very hot -talked to some pilots there and they suggested that Laramie WY would have good accommodations.
Hobbs 35.5--- 3.1 hrs
Landed in Laramie WY. 1:20 pm
“A small collage town” Joan and I were very tired and when the FBO said they had a courtesy car we could take to the hotel, we stayed and enjoyed it. Laramie has a bustling little downtown and there was a farmers market going on when we were there.
Departed Laramie WY 7:10 am
Hobbs 38.5--- 3.0 hrs
Arrived Luverne Minn. 10:00 am
for gas -stayed long enough to watch some sky divers jump and land right next to us -neat! Plane landed hard due to forgetting about the weight in the back of the plane needing new landing speed (80 knots not 70).
Departed Luverne Minn. 10:25 am
Hobbs 39.5--- 1.0 hrs
Arrived Flying Cloud Minn. 11:25 am
My high school friend Bill Brown lives in Chanhassen (close to Minneapolis) picked us up and we stayed with them for a couple of days. Had a great time, went out to lunch & dinner on Lake Minnetonka (home of Tonka toys). Barbara's great breakfasts were a treat We enjoyed seeing their new home and all the beauty driving around the lake. Penny, Bill’s sister, came over and took us to one of the best bargain stores I have ever seen - got 3 pairs of reading glasses. She also gave us some great maps for touring the Midwest and Canada.
8/4/03
Departed Flying Cloud airport IFR. 01:10 pm
Hobbs 42.5--- 3.0 hrs
Arrived in Rapid City SD 3:50 pm
(IFR Flew the ILS Apr.) for fuel. Had to stay at one of the most expensive, dumps ever - $125 per night. It seems that there was a big motorcycle rally in Sturgis, SD, about 30 miles away. The bikers had taken all the hotel rooms and campsites around for 400 miles. They were colorfully dressed and were quite a sight to see. Joan pointed out sexily clad biker babes, silicone enhanced, tattooed, bikini clad & hard not to stare at. While we were there we rented a car and drove to Mount Rushmore, something I have always wanted to see ever since I saw the Alfred Hitchcock movie” North by Northwest”. It was great.
8/5/03
Departed Rapid City SD 3:20 pm
Hobbs 44.5--- 2.0 hrs
Arrived Cody WY 5:20 pm
Joan & I decided to go to Yellowstone Park instead of Glacier National Park due to the forest fires in Glacier.
When we arrived at Cody airport we rented a car and drove to town. There were still lots of motorcycles even though we were hundreds of miles from Rapid City & Sturgis SD. Joan and I had reserved the car and the hotel from Rapid City by phone and it was a good thing that we did. We got our dinner in town (subway veggie delight) and took it back to the hotel. We tried to eat outside but the yellow jackets were too bad and we had to go inside. The antique stores in town had interesting western artifacts - trophy buffalo heads!
The next day we drove to Yellowstone right to the campsite that we had reserved the day before. After we set up the tent we went to see Old Faithful and other geysers and they were really neat! Got lots of pictures. After we got back to the campsite we went to listen to a ranger talk . While we were there a replica of the Hughes Racer crashed in a lake coming back from Oshkosh.
The next day we left - we didn’t have time to drive out of the park by the northern route but plan to return to see more. On the way back a herd of buffalo walked right across the road in front of us. Good pictures again.
8/7/03
Depart Cody WY 2:39 pm
Hobbs 46.5--- 2.0 hrs
8/7/03
Arrived Seeley Lake MT 4:20 pm
It was a grass strip plenty long and in good shape. We called the telephone number in the AOPA airport directory & a nice lady told us to take the truck at the airport, that the keys were above the sun visor. She said that the family that owned the airport owned the Steak house in town. We loaded up the truck with all the camping gear and went to the campground out by the lake. The campground was not very clean but cheap $5 dollars a night. Due to the high fire danger no place we camped allowed open fires. Joan & I went back into town to eat at the restaurant but all they had on the menu was three cuts of steak. Being a vegetarian I could not eat there. Since they had veggie burgers in the snack shack next to the lake, that is where we went. The next morning we drove down to the lake- very pretty. Then we drove to town and had breakfast in one of the local restaurants and went back to the airplane. We met a nice lady with an amphibian aircraft preparing to take off. She was very interesting to talk to. She lives in the bay area and flies all over the country and does work on her laptop computer for her customers. What a job.
8/8/03
Depart Seeley Lake Mt 11:38 am
Hobbs 46.9--- .4 hrs
Arrived Ronan MT. 11:50 am
Seeley Lake didn’t have any fuel so we stopped at Ronan to fuel up. While we were there Joan went to the Pilots lounge and found a book that had loaner car keys and sign out sheet so we went to town for lunch. There was a nice Deli where I could get a veggie sandwich and there was an antique shop attached to the deli for Joan to browse through.
8/8/03
Depart Ronan MT. 2:50 pm
Hobbs 47.7--- .8 hrs
Arrive Cut Bank MT. 3:20 pm
The people at Cutbank also had a loaner car and let us use it over night. Joan and I explored the old Midwest town and found it the dullest of any of the towns we landed in. I guess they call it Cutbank because of all the deep gorges and banks around the town. Found a nice hotel. Right behind it there was a deep gorge and an old train trestle that was very picturesque. We tried other hotels in town but couldn’t find noone was around - weird. After getting something to eat we retired to the hotel room to TV and some good snacks.
8/9/03
Depart Cut Bank MT.
Hobbs 49.0--- 1.3 hrs
Arrive Calgary Springbank 11:15 am
Departing Cutbank and crossing the Canadian border was easy. I had to give Canadian customs 2 hrs notice prior to my arrival time.I filed a flight plan and when airborne got a discrete squawk code. Flying into Calgary Springbank was a little tricky as there were a few restricted areas within the Calgary International class B airspace. As I crossed the border I went on their air Unicom frequency 126.7 and they told me to switch to Calgary approach frequency. They guided me around all the restricted areas with altitude and flight following. There was no customs person to meet me at Calgary Springbank airport so I called them on the phone and they gave me a customs clearance number on the phone and said I was all through with customs - easy!D
We rented a Budget rental car from the FBO, went to unch at a nice family restaurant and then to explore the town of Calgary. Joan wanted to find some Antique stores so we drove up and down the streets for awhile looking over the town. We didn’t find any antique stores but we found a really neat market place right in the center of town. They had little shops of every kind with food booths and lots of people it was very interesting.
After that we got a hotel out by the airport and TV + snacks. Great day.
The next morning we loaded up the rental car and drove about 100 miles to the town of Banff in the Canadian Rockies along the way we passed by some of the most beautiful country that I have ever seen. Big tall, snow capped, steep granite faced mountains, rivers, lakes, green meadows, tall trees of all sorts and lots of wild life. We saw deer, moose, mountain goats, and squirrels on and off the highway. One thing that wasn’t good was the forest fires there. It was smoky and hazy in spots.
We parked the car and walked around Banff for a couple of hours. It was picturesque like the Swiss Alps or Germany, flower pots full of colorful plants everywhere, lots of little shops, and even more restaurants. Joan and I ate lunch in a nice little (believe it or not) Mexican restaurant. I had a veggie burrito -delicious
After lunch we drove out to the campsite area and set up our tent and then drove out to Lake Louise. It was another wonderful spot, just beautiful. The lake looked like it was full to the brim with water and rental canoes full of Japanese tourists. The mountains were all around the lake and shot up to extreme heights. There was a big hotel overlooking the lake and lots of other hotels hidden in the trees behind it. Got lots of pictures.
After that we went back to the campsite. We had our little camp stove (whisperlite) so we could heat water to make Coffee, tea, soup, or dehydrated food. We also took a queen-sized blow up mattress that fits nicely in the tent and is very comfortable. So camping out was sort of fun.
The next morning we drove back toCalgary Springbank airport turned in the rental car and started planning our next adventure.
8/11/03
Depart Calgary Springbank 11:15 am
Hobbs 50.4--- 1.4 12:37 am
Arrive Hinton Jasper
I departed Springbank using the departure control to guide me around the restricted areas and heavies. (Big jets) After I cleared the class B airspace I used flight following and headed north to Jasper Hinton airport. Flight following was great but could not keep us in radar contact because we were too low (below 12,500 ft.) so they told us to squawk 1200 and stay VFR. (Above 12,500 is like our 18,000 in the USA) We originally were going to fly to the grass strips at Banff & Jasper but were told they were closed by the flight services. But after some investigation we found out that Canada’s COPA (Canadian Federal equivalent of the FAA) to court and won the case to keep them open but they were still telling pilots they were closed. Two different FBO’s told us that they fly there all the time and they are open.
We decided that flying to remote grass strips would be too confining so we opted to rent a car. We landed at Hinton Jasper and met the FBO manager (Jim Bacon) heoffered us his truck to take camping in Jasper National Park & we took him up on it.
We drove into Hinton to look around. It was a small town but had just about every thing: Safeway, Kmart, hotels and lots of fast food restaurants. After we looked the town over we drove out to Jasper park. Jasper is beautiful, even more spectacular than Banff. Because of the amount of kids out of school the camp sites were filling up fast. We secured ours just in the nick of time. We went back to town for some more looking around, ate dinner then went back to the campsite to take a shower and hit the Queen size mattress.
The next morning we drove into town,had a nice McDonalds breakfast decaf and a muffin, then headed back to the airport for more flying adventures. Since we had a thunderstorm the night before, we had to lay out the tent and tarps on the air field to dry in order to keep the weight down.
8/12/03
Depart Hinton Jasper 12:55 pm
We left Jim’s truck full of gas and left the the”donation” he asked for. We decided to start heading back toward home and look around as we went.
I called flight service and filed a flight plan (a rule in Canada) to Port Hill ID, US Customs and told them our estimated time of arrival -2 hours in our case. You must make it 15 minutes either side of the estimated time. The weather report was for isolated thunderstorms for the first 100 miles of the trip and then broken. It was clear when we took off with thunderclouds building over the mountains. A straight line back to Port Hill would have taken us right down the middle of the Canadian Rockies so I decided to angle across at Jasper to the other side and then along the foothills. Good plan but it didn’t work the heavy clouds blocked us and we ended going right down the middle anyway. Well it was beautiful and we got some beautiful pictures. There were glaciers, snow capped peaks, water falls, little lakes that were the most irridescent blue and green that we have ever seen. I did manage to follow a road and pick out a few airports on the way.
Hobbs 52.6--- 2.2 hrs
Arrive Port Hill ID 3:12 pm
With all the dodging of thunder storms and head winds we were going to miss our deadline for customs.We got them on the radio and told them we were going to be late but they didn’t seem to care. I also asked her which runway was in use and she said there was only one runway so we winged it.
After we landed on a grass & dirt strip we taxied up a big hill across another grass field and up to a wooden stairway. We walked up the stairway, across the highway leading from Canada to the U.S. and then to the Customs building, the same one that checks the cars. In a few minutes we had filled out all the paper work. The customs lady went to look at our airplane and told us we could go. I closed our flight plan and Joan & I left. The hill leading to the runway made for a great take off launcher. A few minutes after we reached the bottom we were airborne.
8/12/03
Depart Port Hill ID 3:35 pm
Port hill didn’t have any services at all so we headed for Bonners Ferry a few miles away.
Hobbs 52.9… .3 hrs
Arrived Bonners Ferry ID 3:45 pm
After we fueled up and tied down under an airplane port we went into the FBO and asked about a loaner car and sure enough we got one! We drove to town and looked around for Joan’s antique stores but there weren’t any. We ate dinner in a 40’s type diner and found an inexpensive hotel to spend the night.
8/13/03
Depart Bonners Ferry ID 9:35 am
The next morning while talking to the people at the FBO (fixed base operation) I told them I was interested in landing at some remote strips. They told me that Moose Creek would be a good choice and not too hard to get into. So we bought a little book on remote landing strips in Idaho, read all about Moose Creek and took off.
Hobbs 54.3…1.4
Arrived Moose Creek ID 10.50 am
On the way to Moose Creek it was very hazy from all the forest fires in ID.. I could see the strip and when I dropped down into the canyon it became clear. It was very hard to find the wind sock. I had to head up a canyon and get enough height to turn around and head down the canyon. With the wind blowing up the canyon it was very hard to loose altitude with all that lift. By the time I got to the runway I was too high so I went around for another try. This was making Joan very nervous but I was being very careful and not taking any chances. The next time I came down the canyon I used full flaps and got the airplane much slower. It worked although I still floated down the runway further than I wanted.
I pulled off the runway next to 2 other airplanes and walked into the forest to a picnic table. It was beautiful.This was really remote, there is no access to this area other than foot or horseback and 20 miles to the nearest road. We had bought food to have a picnic lunch. While we were eating lunch one of the couples from the other airplane came over to talk. They were from Spokane WA. They told us a little bit about the area and said the fishing was good in the local creek. After lunch we hiked to the ranger station, which was about a mile away. We talked to the ranger lady and some of the volunteers working there. They were clearing trails. There were some historic cabins there and a horse drawn lawn mower for the airstrip.
8/13/03
Depart Moose Creek 12:15 pm
Except for a ditch on the north end of the runway the takeoff was a piece of cake. (A little bouncy)
Hobbs 55.7…1.4 hrs
Arrive Nampa ID 1:35 pm
Joan wanted to go to a place that had antique stores. Being the accommodating husband that I am took her to where ever she wanted to go. She picked Nampa ID. Another good place and they had a courtesy car and a very nice reasonable motel. After looking at several antique stores and talking to the people that had moved here from California we found a great Chinese restaurant for dinner. Having quenched Joan’s addiction for looking at antique stores we retired to the hotel to rest and watch TV.
8/14/03
Depart Nampa ID 10:30 am
The next morning I called to check on weather and TFR’s (temporary flight restrictions). While talking to the weather briefer he hinted of airport closures in the Southern California area the next day. Joan & I were both pretty tired from traveling every day and decided to fly all the way back to Oxnard. Joan wanted to get a few days at home before going back to work.
Hobbs 58.0--- 2.3 hrs
Arrive Carson City NV 12:40 pm
We stopped at Carson City for fuel and to eat lunch. I talked to a guy that gave us directions to the local restaurants off the field. The walk wasn’t too far,about a mile, and it was only about 85 deg. We found a nice deli and had a very good lunch. When we got back to the airport we stumbled onto the local EAA so Joan and I sat down with the guys for a while and talked airplane stuff. A wonderful bunch of guys.
8/14/03
Depart Carson City NV 2:40 pm
It was a steep climb out of Carson City over the Sierras. I flew over Lake Tahoe and to the west to clear the mountains and fly more over the flat land. We had clear skies and smooth air the rest of the trip.
Hobbs 60.3---2.3hrs
Arrived Oxnard CA 4:50 pm
Reflections:
Joan and I had a very memorable trip. We both agree that we did too much traveling. The next time we are going to fly someplace and stay a while longer in one spot.
By Don & Joan McMullen
