Smiley Creek, Idaho in the RV-10 (Just Do It)

We let the plane catch a quick breather after Oshkosh before heading to the high country in Idaho. Idaho has some of the best back country strips in the world. RaNae and I have been trying to fly into Johnson?s Creek but fires in the summer of 2007 have kept us from getting in. There are a plethora of TFR?s in the area. I have a great DVD called ?Flying Idaho? which is sold at [email protected] according the back of the DVD which discusses and shows the approaches into many of these back country airports. So, last Saturday I put the DVD in and picked Smiley Creek as our destination. We packed our tent, inflatable mattress, camping gear and the dog and headed to Idaho. The flight from Salt Lake City was only 1 hour 15 minutes. The weather was hot in Salt Lake nearing 100 deg. so we quickly climbed up to 10,500 ft. where the air temp was in the low 60?s and had a beautiful flight up.

Mutt Muffs for CB (When will Bose have noise cancelling dog headphones? These actually work great and I saw at Oshkosh they make a O2 system for their nose.)




Smiley Creek off in the distance.

Smiley Creek is located in the southern end of Idaho just north of Sun Valley and south of Stanley. The airstrip is maintained by the state of Idaho and was absolutely perfect. The strip is at 7100 ft., was over 4000 ft. in length and was in great condition. We landed around noon and the winds were blowing around 10-13 mph. The normal approach into this airfield is on runway 14. This area is right in the middle of the Saw Tooth Mountains. The meteor showers were going to be occurring this weekend too and I threw in my telescope to look at Jupiter and anything else that was up. When we landed there were around 5-6 planes that were either camping or just parked there. We were able to use one of the supplied tie downs and took our camping gear into the camping area by the river. This is a perfect place for plane camping. The high temperature was 72 that day. We set up our tent and just relaxed the whole day, read books, talked with other campers and made grilled cheese sandwiches on my little camping stove. Life is good!

Final for runway 14

Our stream 30 feet from the tent. Great background sounds for sleeping.


Grilled cheese and gourmet tomato soup


View of Smiley Creek airport from the Smiley Creek Lodge

A little smoke came in Saturday night from a fire that was 50 miles southwest of us. It actually scared one couple off. They thought there might be a TFR over the airport in the morning. But I wasn't too concerned it if was still that far away and the smoke was gone by 10pm.




You can see why they call them the Sawtooth Mountains

The night temperatures dropped to 34 degrees. You could see every single star in the sky. The Milky Way was as clear as I have every seen it. (I forgot to take some time exposures, shoot) We went out and watched a few shooting stars and looked through the telescope as long as my hands could take it and then called it a night. Jupiter was beautiful. The next morning, by the time we were up, I think I had counted at least 5-6 planes that either took off or landed. People come into the airport in the morning and have breakfast across the street at Smiley Creek Lodge. We borrowed the courtesy van which is $5.00 + $0.30/mile and drove up to Pettit Lake where CB (our dog) swam with a couple of other dogs and we walked the shores of this great lake. From there we drove to Stanley and had lunch at the local bakery where they serve breakfast all day on Sunday and I had oatmeal pancakes, yummy. We drove up to Redfish Lodge and Lake where it was very busy. We didn?t stop here and decided to head back to Smiley Creek and get a chocolate malt at the lodge where they have an ice cream bar inside. Another couple said they visited the fish hatchery and had a great time but we had to get back at 3:30pm so Gordon (the manager of the airport) could head home. We packed up around 5:30pm and left at 6pm.

The courtesy van we called, "The Blue Bomber"


Pettit Lake



Redfish Lodge and Lake




Bathroom facilities were great.

The RV-10 had no problems getting off the ground in about 1200 ft. with a density altitude over 10,000 ft. I may have been able to made it off sooner but kept it on the ground a little longer since I had over 4000 ft of runway. If I remember correctly, I had 21.7 inches with full power on take off. When you land and taxi be cautious of the metal covers that cover the sprinkler holes. They are 1/3 and 2/3 of the way across the runway all in a line so as long as you are in the middle you will be just fine. There was a gentleman there with a Maule that said he hit one last year and it flipped up and cut through part of his horizontal stabilizer. If you know about them it is no big deal. This trip may have been one of our favorite in the plane yet. We will be back for sure. The facilities at Smiley Creek are fantastic. There are hot showers, flushing toilets, campsites with picnic tables, and the courtesy van. What more do you want?

Ready for takeoff


View of camping area and lodge



Gordon says he opens everything up the weekend before Memorial Day and closes it down the day after Labor Day. So if you want to get up there this year, go now! I am still going to try and hit Johnson?s Creek and Big Creek before the year is over if someone will pray with me for a little rain and get those fires out. I guess it has been pretty bad for them.

We dodged a couple of small rain showers and saw rainbows everywhere.



Talk to you all later.
Scott, RaNae and CB

You've convinced me!

Wonderful write-up and photos. Thanks for sharing them. My 100# malamute saw the photos and is now bugging me to build a -10 so she can go next year.

Between the semi-luxury camping set-up and the dog, I'm beginning to understand why Paul wants us to build a -10!

Awesome

Inspirational. Going to have to share with the wife tonight. Excellent photos and nice write-up. DJ

Note to self: BUILD FASTER!!!

Scott, you look like you are having way too much fun with the -10. Keep the pics and stories coming!

Hey Scott,
AWESOME trip report .

Since the wife doesn't fly and the kids are 'too busy' I think I'll have to make this trip with just me and our Yellow Lab in the RV10....he can sit up front and navigate .

Thanks for taking the time to write this up AND to post the beautiful pics......makes me want to keep the RV10 and move back to Salt Lake City again!

You really landed a nosedragger on Grass????????

And it didnt flip over????????

You must be "SuperPilot"

Good writeup, I enjoyed it.

First your OSH writeup, and now this. I'm ready to go out and get to work on the airplane today despite the 107 degree temp and insane humidy we're enjoying.

Your writeups always have great pics that make me want to be there. Thanks!

Good inspiration for those still riveting, Scott, and in spite of Smiley being in my back yard, I haven't been there this year! Good to see it.

But...I gotta be a cold water scold about something...

You took off uphill. That's a real bad practice around here. Since most people looking at your pix won't realize this, I hope you don't feel singled out since your outcome was no sweat, but I've seen too many near crashes and wrecks, and read of enough dead people who tried to go around too late or take off uphill, to remain silent. I'm concerned about someone from Kansas packing the bathtub, windmill, and kitchen sink recalling the orientation of your pix, who'll attempt the same thing and plant himself in the side of Galena Pass. Downhill's the way out of mountain strips (and uphill landings). If you think the wind's too wrong, don't fly (that's the advice of a past Idaho Aeronautics Director).

John Siebold
Boise, ID

Great Observation

RV7ator said:

Good inspiration for those still riveting, Scott, and in spite of Smiley being in my back yard, I haven't been there this year! Good to see it.

But...I gotta be a cold water scold about something...

You took off uphill. That's a real bad practice around here. Since most people looking at your pix won't realize this, I hope you don't feel singled out since your outcome was no sweat, but I've seen too many near crashes and wrecks, and read of enough dead people who tried to go around too late or take off uphill, to remain silent. I'm concerned about someone from Kansas packing the bathtub, windmill, and kitchen sink recalling the orientation of your pix, who'll attempt the same thing and plant himself in the side of Galena Pass. Downhill's the way out of mountain strips (and uphill landings). If you think the wind's too wrong, don't fly (that's the advice of a past Idaho Aeronautics Director).

John Siebold
Boise, ID

Click to expand...

That is a very good point. I should have mentioned that anyone interested in flying in the backcountry can fly into McCall Airport just west of Smiley and Johnson's Creek and get a "crash" course in flying these runways. They will show you the approaches and discuss mountain flying. You can even hire them to make some approaches. Thanks for pointing that out.

But....
That is funny you say that. I was with Gordon (the caretaker), a Maule driver, and two guys who were air traffic controllers watching guys come in and land Sunday morning and take off. The winds were about 10 gusting to 15 or so about 30 deg off centerline from the south (downhill direction). I would say that 1/2 of the planes that took off that day went downhill and half went up hill. I asked Gordon what he typically sees and his words were that it is 6's, but if the winds blow much above 5 or 10 that he always recommends takeoffs uphill and we all agreed. We watched some Cherokees takeoff down hill and couldn't believe they were even trying a downwind takeoff. They were about 100' agl for 3 miles trying to climb. The higher they went, the stronger the winds. The guys that took off to the south (uphill) appeared to climb much quicker and easily made a left crosswind or just kept climbing through the mountains. We all sat there and actually couldn't believe that these people were taking off downhill but that is everyones decision. I did notice that all of us taking off uphill had more horsepower than the guys going downhill.
You are dead on that if the winds are not blowing the downhill takeoff is preferable, but in the winds we had all day and into the night, uphill was the better choice.

Now the best choice is to wait until 6am when the air is cool and there are no winds. At a place like Johnson's Creek or Big Creek that is smartest way. But it comes down to judgement. I took off right after 6pm, the OAT was around 70 deg. and we used about 1/4 the runway and easily climbed straight out. If I was in a Cherokee 140, I would have never tried what I did. I would have waited until the morning.

The downhill/downwind takeoffs we watched appeared to be dangerous. Gordon pointed out to me while they were taking off that windsock on the south is typically different than the one on the north. He says the mountains protect the south end and by the time you get to the north you can have a pretty good tailwind. Just another thing to watch out for.

As for me, the Maule, and two 182's that took off that night, we all went uphill into the wind and had no issues. I actually kept the plane a little lower on takeoff so RaNae could take a picture of the campsite as we flew by.

I did notice a few memorial stones there at the camp. Not sure if they lost their lives at that airport but it does make you think. This type of flying is more risky but just like anything with a little training it is just another runway.

Good observation though, thanks for pointing that out and bring up the discussion. If you have the new Carbon Cub, sounds like you could takeoff across the runway.