Well, after all the delays due to weather, we finally started the first day of the roadtrip. Bob and I departed Boundary Bay at 8:30 and flew a routing of Boundary Bay. Hope, Lytton, Spences Bridge, Ashcroft, Kamloops and Salmon Arm. I flew the first day and Bob handled navigation, maps, radio, and putting Willie Nelson 8-tracks into the tape deck. Weather in the Fraser Valley at the start didnt look all that great, but once we got to Hope it was excellent. We had spectacular views of the Fraser River all the mountains on the way. We arrived in Salmon Arm, got fuel, and then started the next leg to either Golden of Calgary/Springbank. We were going to make our decision based on the predicted weather in the Calgary area.
From Salmon Arm we followed the Trans Canada highway (after all, this is a roadtrip) at an altitude of 9500 feet to Revelstoke, which was pretty spectacular. We got a report from FSS about the weather enroute and in the Golden and Calgary area. Calgary was looking pretty good and they didnt forecast any major convective cloud, thunder, hail, animals falling from the sky, etc. We decided to press on to Golden and get a weather update there and make decision on Calgary or spend the night in Golden. It was a little bumpy on the way to Golden, but what a spectacular view. Once we got to Golden the DRCO wasnt working, so we made a decision based on the previous predictions for Calgary and the fact that we could see any large Cumulus formations developing in the area. Plus we could get another report at Banff and if things went south we would backtrack to Golden. We pressed on. Well that part of the leg was quite a challenge. We were wrestling with moderate mechanical turbulence in most of the way between Golden and Banff, lots of thermal activity, and all the things you get flying in mountains on a hot day. Once we got Banff, the weather at Calgary/Springbank was looking pretty good, with convective activity reported to the North of our planned track to Springbank. We proceeded more or less to Springbank and were assigned a runway with winds at 90 degrees most of the time. Thank god for the crosswind landing training at PFC. After we landed I felt like I had just wrestled with mountain Gorilla.
We got down and decided to partake in the hospitality of the Calgary Flying Club. We fueled up there and they gave us free parking for the airplane for the night. If you're in the area, check them out. It's a very nice facility, and lots of friendly people.
Bob's brother Gary met us at the airport and put us up for the night. Bob's daughter Michelle happened to be in Calgary as well, so he had a subset of a family reunion.
We got lots of great pictures flying through the mountains, but it's easy to get a reflection off the window. This is one of the better ones, taken just outside Field just before we turned towards Lake Louise.
The second picture shows just how fast the weather can deteriorate -- here is a storm that blew in at Springbank about 45 minutes after we landed. No warning on the weather forecast!
Tomorrow we're off to Regina...
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