Awesome Mineral Canyon flight

Today in Colorado was relatively mild and mountain winds were forecast at under 20 knots. A plan was hatched for Stewart and me to bag some airports in west central Colorado. While that is ok, I wanted more. So I looked into flying to Mineral canyon southwest of Moab Utah. An example of the flight is here:

http://www.vimeo.com/1839894

Info on Mineral Canyon:

http://www.swaviator.com/html/issueD99J00/mineral.html

http://www.ourairports.com/airports/US-UT75/

Leaving Meadow Lake we flew north of Pikes Peak to Salida CO (KANK) then west towards Gunnison. Mountains to the north are shown here as we were climbing through 13,000' msl



Just past Gunnison we diverted a bit to fly over Black Canyon of the Gunnison.



Then on to Dead Horse Point State Park in Utah which looks similar to the Grand Canyon:

http://www.utah.com/stateparks/dead_horse.htm



A short distance further west was Mineral Canyon. Initially I flew near the rim to assess the path and whether I could safely navigate the turns below the rim. I think Stewart went on down during his first pass. Once that was done we descended over the Green River. The sheer cliffs, typically Utah red, long shadows and easy turns below the rim was an experience unlike anything I have ever done before.

We made perhaps four passes total north and south then left to refuel in Grand Junction. From there several more airports including Aspen, past Leadville then home. 5.1 hours and an experience that won't be forgotten. But we did have to give up a breakfast flight to Salida. Now which would I do again?

Thanks for write up Ron. It will be on my list of future visits with my RV.
That little dirt strip is amazing. Unfortunately not for Vans machine.

Great pictures, Ron. That part of the country sure is beautiful.

I'm taking a DVD course in geology presented by Prof. John J. Renton at West Virginia University. One thing I learned recently is that most of the rocks you looked at today are sedimentary rocks as opposed to metamorphic rocks. Now, I hope you are properly impressed with that bit of information.

Vladyspassky said:

Thanks for write up Ron. It will be on my list of future visits with my RV.
That little dirt strip is amazing. Unfortunately not for Vans machine.

Click to expand...

But I want my RV to land there, what can be done?

ajay

Well if desire to land RV there is strong

you can modify your RV as Trey Johnson did.

ajay said:

But I want my RV to land there, what can be done?

ajay

Click to expand...

I was going to do a main wheel only T&G in my 6A but the apparent moist areas ended that.

Perhaps a taildragger RV would be fine.

I suspect that my T&G will have to wait until summer or better yet late fall before it snows.

it's doable

So it's doable Ron and ajay does not need to modify anything. Please resurrect the thread in the fall and let us know how that T&G went.

Ron Lee said:

I was going to do a main wheel only T&G in my 6A but the apparent moist areas ended that.

Perhaps a taildragger RV would be fine.

I suspect that my T&G will have to wait until summer or better yet late fall before it snows.

Click to expand...

I am not going to say that Mineral Canyon is suitable for anyone even though planes do go into and out of it. I am just very cautious with my 6A when it comes to non-paved landing areas. I did land at Monument Valley and one grass strip (Beaumont hotel) but that was before I knew about the nose-over incidents.

Another source of info is here:

http://www.utahbackcountrypilots.org/

Ron Lee said:

I did land at Monument Valley and one grass strip (Beaumont hotel) but that was before I knew about the nose-over incidents.

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At least Monument Valley is now all paved, as of last year!

L.Adamson

Here is a 30 meg avi file

http://home.pcisys.net/~ronlee/RV6A/MineralCanyonJan2009/MC4.avi

The runway is somewhat visible to the right of the sandbar here:



Mas pictures