Moab and beyond... not your avg trip report.

[Matt]

I hope you don't mind Dave/Matt for me putting this here, I thought it would be nice to get another view of the area.

Report:
Well Shep and I took off last Tuesday for a 6 day adventure. We stayed 1.5 days in the Moab area, but it was just to damn hot and the mosquitoes were terrible. We hiked about 4 miles, but water was running low in the mid-day 105° heat, so we were forced to stay around the plane. It's also hard to pack for this trip because you need to keep the planes weight low, but you also need to carry everything for most the trip as you can't just swing by the super market (most all of the smaller airstrips in the US are miles from the nearest town to keep noise low).

So from there it was a quick half day flight up to the Frank Church Wilderness area just outside of McCall, ID. We met a group of people at the Johnson Creek airstrip (just south of Yellow Pine, ID) and camped there for 3.5 days. This whole area is sweet, there's about 40+ backcountry strips you can fly into all within 75nm (kind of like Moab with all the trails around). The problem is the wind/turb gets pretty bad after 11am and it's a good idea to be on the ground and parked. BEAUTIFUL AREA and a real hoot to fly around.

Sunday it was a 6 hour flight back home and the weather the entire trip was problem free.

In the Moab area there's atleast 15 remote strips I want to try to get into in the fall. It's just to damn hot in the summer and that's why ID is so popular. There were about 70 planes total that came in for the Backcountry Pilot fly-in at Johnson Creek (most camped). At 6:00am it was amazing to watch most of those 70 planes take off, kinda like a WWII bombing run. For an hour straight it was plane after plane, and then at 10:00am they'd all come back and it was landing after landing.

I took a TON of pics (1000+) but this 10 min vid pretty much sums up the 6 day trip. If you'd like to see anything bigger, I'll upload and post the pic.



Cheers
Matt/Shep

[zj95maxx]

sweet!

I love the pic of your dog sitting with the mountings behind it. Great looking shots, good times seem to be had, great report.

[MoonWorks]

Nice man. Thanks for sharing. I could only wish I could partake in something like that.

[SaturnICL]

That was truly awesome!! I wish One day in my dreams!

I used to own a Resort on the Idaho side of Palisades Res. (Your Alpine WY stop) bout 18 miles from Alpine in Palisades ID. I miss it so Bad we drove there and spent a few days after GSW.

[BigDaveZJ]

How was Mineral Canyon?? We drove past there last year, looked like it would be pretty trippy in a plane!!


EDIT: And while it may not fit the exact definition of what a trip report on this site should be about, definitely kickass!! It was cool in the Moab pics being able to pick out trails and landmarks that we see wheeling out there.

[Z]

Great report!

[Matt]

Here's some bigger pics of the Moab area.

Moab/Sand Flats Rd.



Hells Revenge



West of Moab





Pritchett Canyon



And yes Dave, I was saying to myself "this one is for Dave".
Cliffhanger



Porcupine Rim



Moab Rim



Kane Creek



There! Now it's an official trip report with trails.

[dp96zj]

Wow that's awesome, I hope to head out there someday.

If you have any higher res, I could sure use a new background!