North To Cavanaugh Bay - Colorado Pilots Association

North to Cavanaugh Bay:
A Journey of Adventure and Remembrance
© 2010 Charles F. Luce, Jr.
There’s A Place In the North Woods
There’s a place in north Idaho that can make even an average weekend wingwarrior feel like a bona fide bush pilot. If a pilgrimage to Priest Lake doesn’t fully
restore your pilot soul, you may not have one. My journey began about 18
months before our Skylane’s wheels touched down on the well-loved lawn at
Cavanaugh Bay, with a flight plan not filed.
For years I had wanted to show Tammy, my oldest daughter and most faithful
barnstorming companion, the Pacific Northwest, where her old man was born
and spent the first ten years of his life. And for years her over-scheduled
adolescence—basketball camps, trips to Thailand, the start of college—
conspired with annual summer family reunions to scuttle my plans for a “Great
Northwest Barnstorming Tour.”
Finally, in 2007, the calendar cleared. Mandatory tour stops included my home
town, Walla Walla, and Vancouver, Washington, where I lived from age five to
ten. A side trip to the Wallowa Mountains of northeast Oregon for Chief Joseph
Days, and a return loop through Canada via Vancouver and Banff, were added to
the itinerary as reparation for dragging Tammy down her old man’s memory lane.
There are many routes to Walla Walla from Colorado. I had wanted to see Priest
Lake in far north Idaho—15 miles south of the Canadian border to be precise—
since reading about it in the May/June 2005 issue of Pilot Getaways magazine.
But the high-arching route to Walla Walla that would have resulted from adding
Priest as a waypoint made no sense. Plus, I also wanted to explore McCall,
Idaho, where I stopped once for fuel on a return flight from Joseph, Oregon in
1995. So plans for Priest were put on hold.
The Great Northwest Barnstorming Tour of 2007 was everything I had hoped for
– I’ll write of it someday. But it left me wondering: When would I get back to this
part of the world given the difficulty in scheduling the first adventure and that
there are so many other places I want to see? Fate then intervened. My father,
my barnstorming companion when
Tammy was younger, passed away
in January 2008 at the age of 90.
Interment in the family plot at Blue
Mountain Cemetery in Walla Walla
was scheduled for July. My
alternate Northwest flight plan was
retrieved, and the planning for our
second Northwest barnstorming tour
in as many summers began in
earnest.
Off To Driggs
Over the years, Driggs, Idaho, on the back side of the Tetons, has replaced
Jackson Hole as our favorite gateway to Northwest adventure. There are three
reasons for this:
First, the Warbirds Café. Land, taxi to the ramp, and while the helpful line crew
tie you down, stroll 50 yards to the cool, commodious confines of a genuine
oasis. A great menu, a full bar, and taxiway seating on the patio beneath shady
umbrellas. The perfect end to any flight.
Second, the Super Motel 8. Tammy and my tastes are simple when it comes to
overnight accommodations – a clean, smoke-free room with a television and
good air-conditioning. Everything else is gravy. Super 8 in Driggs has all of that,
a pilot discount, and something no hotel in Jackson Hole can compete with:
location, location, location. Drive off the Driggs airport grounds, turn right, drive
200 yards, turn right, and you’re in the Super 8 parking lot. While the
complementary breakfast is nothing to write home about, it’s served early, and
you can be at your plane in 5 minutes vs. about 30 minutes from any hotel in
Jackson to KJAC.
Third, weather. Pocatello can have early morning thunder storms, and Jackson
Hole is prone to fill with fog that can hang around until noon. But Driggs, nestled
higher up the Snake River Valley on the windward side of the Tetons is usually in
the clear. It’s not unusual to cross Teton Pass and find the entire Jackson Hole
filled up with fog. We’ll be back in Boulder before it breaks up.
There are other good reasons to choose Driggs. The service is excellent and the
fuel is a little less expensive than Jackson, though not a lot. However, the rental
cars cost the same or a little less, the turn is much quicker, and for a short drive
across Teton Pass (“Howdy Stranger. Yonder Is Jackson Hole, the Last of the
Old West“), you can still have the JH experience without overpaying. Driggs
itself offers a great book store and a few interesting shops, but has no pretention
to being Jackson.
With The Fuchsia Flash, our
1964 Cessna Skylane, loaded
with everything required for
camping except a tent (more on
that, anon), The Great
Northwest Barnstorming Tour of
2008—The Northern Route
Edition—went wheels up from
KBJC at a respectable 1400Z
on Monday, 7 July. With light
winds The Flash made KDIJ in
3.9 hours, the same time as the
year before. Despite my effort
to shake off the flight-rust that
frequently follows a long cross-county, I dragged it in a bit on final to runway 21,
making a closer inspection of a towering wall of hay bales than my co-pilot, who
had soloed one month earlier, would have liked. I redeemed myself, however, by
arresting sudden sink over the threshold with deft backpressure, resulting in one
of those landings when even the pilot isn’t sure the plane has touched down until
it has rolled out without a jarring thud! Tammy, always my harshest critic, still
gave me a lowball score, on the grounds that “dumb luck doesn’t count.”
Within fifteen minutes our rental car was delivered, the plane was unpacked and
being serviced, and I was sitting in the shade of an umbrella on the Warbirds
Café’s patio drinking rum and coke, nibbling on spinach artichoke dip and
awaiting the arrival of the Asiago chicken salad croissant while taking in the view
the runway. Life is good.
With the best seat in the house and some of the best food in town, we lingered
over lunch before checking into the Super 8 and driving into Driggs. You won’t
exactly miss Driggs if you sneeze, but the downtown is a very compact three
blocks. Still, within this small space there are a few shops not to miss. One such
gem is Dark Horse Books. Like all good independent booksellers, the breadth of
Dark Horse’s eclectic collection, and its involvement with its readers, has allowed
it to survive Amazon.com and keeps customers coming back. After wandering
Driggs’ few blocks to see what was new, it was time for a little geocaching on the
way to Teton Pass.
Geocaching: The Pilot’s Game
For the uninitiated, Geocaching is a
worldwide treasure hunt played by the
online community at geocaching.com.
All that is required is a sense of
adventure, a willingness to travel, and a portable GPS. In short, this game was
virtually invented for pilots.
Geocaches come in a variety of types. A “traditional” cache consists of hidden
treasure, which in Geocaching parlance means a collection of interesting trinkets
concealed in a container together with a logbook where one can record a
successful find. Using clues and coordinates provided by the person hiding the
cache, the seeker attempts to find the cache, all the while concealing the true
nature of his activity from the uninitiated, who are pejoratively referred to as
“Muggles.” A cache which has been accidentally discovered and removed by the
uninitiated is said to have been “Muggled.”
A successful find is recorded in the cache’s logbook and logged on the
geocaching.com page for the cache. The seeker may also take one trophy from
the cache in exchange for leaving one. Highly prized are “travel bugs,” available
from Geocaching.com, which have their own pages on the website. The owner
of a travel bug designates where the bug wants to go, and the Geocaching
community moves the bug from one cache to another until it reaches the desired
destination, anywhere in the world. The bug’s page tracks its history from cache
to cache.
Alas, when we got to the aptly
named “Cache Bridge” we
discovered unusually high water
for July barring our path to an old
V-8 engine, where our cache
surely lay. Oh, well, yonder was
Jackson Hole, and soon we were
crossing Teton Pass and passing
the historic road sign, laughing as
a local radio station blared BR549’s cover of Moon Mullican’s
wonderfully politically incorrect
Cherokee Boogie.
We wandered Jackson Hole like a couple of tourists, hitting all our favorite shops
and obligatory waypoints—the antler arches and the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar
among them—before heading out to Teton Village for another fruitless geocache,
which we concluded had been “muggled.” We consoled ourselves with dinner at
the Mangy Moose before driving back across Teton Pass to Driggs, turning in a
little after midnight to prepare for another early-morning departure, this time to
Kalispell, Montana and Glacier National Park.
North to Glacier
The last time I flew to Glacier was just after Labor Day, September 2001, with my
Dad – a barnstorm I dubbed “The Great Parks Tour.” On that expedition,
Jackson Hole had been our first overnight stop. From Jackson we flew north,
over Jackson Lake and into Yellowstone National Park, where we spotted a
forest fire just getting going. I noted the GPS coordinates and we reported it to
the tanker base at West Yellowstone. We then angled northwest, passing south
of Butte and north of Anaconda before stopping for fuel in Missoula. Climbing
out of Missoula, we circled to gain altitude before following highway 93 north,
then flew the length of Flathead Lake to Kalispell and KGPI.
Because Tammy and I were starting day-two of our adventure on the back side
of the Tetons, and because variety is the spice of barnstorming, we choose a
slightly different course. Taking advantage of The Flash’s 20,000’ service ceiling
and our Nelson oxygen system to escape haze and heat, we climbed to 12,500’
and flew north towards Dillon. Passing over Butte to show Tammy the massive
mining operation, we flew direct to Seeley Lake (a future barnstorming
destination) and up the valley on the east side of the Mission Range, then
jumped the range just north of the Condon USFS airstrip to fly most of Flathead
Lake north to Kalispell. Being July, it was a hazier passage than I would have
liked for photography, but we made good time—3.2 hours from DIJ to GPI—the
haze promising and delivering a smooth ride. We were deplaned and on our way
to Glacier National Park before noon.
Dam Huckleberries
In contrast to our quick trip to and through GPI, construction on U.S. 2 slowed
our progress to a dusty crawl. So we abandoned any plan for a quick peak at the
park and decided instead to stay closer to Kalispell.
Our first stop was Hungry
Horse Dam on the South
Fork of the Flathead
River, northwest of
Kalispell and just off the
road to Glacier National
Park. It was an
opportunity to tell Tammy
a bit more about her
grandfather’s work as
head of the Bonneville
Power Administration in
the early 1960s, and to
recreate a photograph
taken seven years earlier
at an overlook of the dam
on The Great Parks Tour. It’s also a gorgeous setting and monument to man’s
industry and clean hydro power.
Having suffered the family history lesson in good spirits,
and knowing that T.J. is a huckleberry junkie, we made
the short drive back down the town of Hungry Horse,
home of the world famous Huckleberry Patch. According
to local legend, Hungry Horse was named in honor of two
draft horses, Tex and Jerry, who wandered off during the
severe winter of 1900 later to be found scraggly and
hungry, but very much alive. The Huckleberry Patch,
famous for its milk shakes, has enough quantity and
variety to satisfy even the biggest huckleberry hound, or
horse, and its huckleberry shakes were so filling that we
had to take a rain-check on Erna's famous made-fromscratch deep-dish huckleberry pie. It’s a check we still
need to cash.
From Hungry Horse we headed west to Whitefish Lake, driving past the beautiful
2,560’ grass strip that is Whitefish Airport, both to take in the view and to
circumnavigate the construction delays we had encountered leaving GPI. That
placed us 13 miles due north of the brand new Holiday Inn Express, located in a
recently developed area on the west side of Kalispell, that we had selected as
our headquarters, to which we headed in the late afternoon.
Fly More, Campmor
Arriving at our hotel I was pleased to confirm that our tent had preceded us. In
the days prior to our departure Tammy had pointedly observed that the 2-man
Kelty tent acquired for our first camping trip in 1995 (abruptly aborted when a
younger edition of Tammy experienced acute separation anxiety from her mom),
had been a bit cramped the summer before when we camped several days at
Wallowa Lake State Park in Oregon. I believe phrases like “you were snoring in
my ear,” and “you sprawl like an angry oil slick” were cruelly employed.
Succumbing to her whining, as I had in 1995, I agreed to
upgrade to the Kelty Gunnison 3.1 tent only to discover
that that, notwithstanding that Kelty’s corporate
headquarters is located in Boulder, its Gunnison 3.1 tent
was not be found in the entire state – not at REI, EMS,
Dick’s or even at Boulder’s massive “if-we-don’t-have-ityou-don’t-need-it” McGuckin Hardware store. Resorting to
online shopping, I finally located one warehoused in the
Mecca of the great outdoors: Paramus, New Jersey –
more specifically, at Campmor.
Campmor has perhaps the lowest-gloss catalog ever published. Printed on what
appears to be a slightly stronger grade of toilet paper in all black and white, there
is nothing eye-catching about it except its general hideousness. As I learned,
this is one case where you really should not judge a book by its cover, or its
composition. Campmor has almost everything for airplane camping at
unbeatable prices and provides fabulous service. I also learned from the friendly
salesman that Campmor is the direct descendant of Morsan, the legendary
Paramus outfitter from which I acquired my first great tent, the Morsan DrawTite®, when I was a Boy Scout growing up in New York over 40 years earlier. It’s
coincidences like this that make me believe in fate.
While Campmor had plenty of Kelty’s Gunnison 3.1 tents in stock, by the time I
located it the tent would not arrive in Boulder before our departure date.
Undaunted by this minor setback, I had it shipped to the Holiday Inn Express in
Kalispell to “arriving guest,” saving a bundle on shipping costs, as well as aircraft
weight and space for the first two legs of our trip.
Tammy and I retired to our room to inspect our new tent, check our e-mail, and
keep an eye on a jet stream that could affect the next leg of our flight, to
Cavanaugh Bay.
Going To The Sun
Having pulled two up-with-thecows mornings, as any sane pilot
flying cross-country in the
mountains does in the summer,
we slept in Wednesday morning,
our “Park Day.” Upon waking,
the CRWS forecast showed the
powerful jet stream I had been
tracking the past several days
was on an inextricable
interception course with our
planned route the following day. I
visited the front desk and added
a day to our stay. Thus having
assured we would not need to
test our new Kelty tent before
arriving at Cavanaugh Bay, we
plotted an alternate course across Kalispell towards Glacier National Park to
avoid construction.
The 50-mile Going-to-the-Sun Road is and one of the great drives in America,
and it was now my pleasure to introduce it to Tammy, as my father had to me
seven years earlier. Following a brief stop at Lake McDonald Lodge to see if
dinner reservations were taken for the dining room, we joined the caravan of
vacation Americans winding up this legendary byway—a marvel of 1926
engineering—with its great “Single Loop” switchback, cascading waterfalls, stone
tunnels with carved windows and viewing galleries, and breathtaking views of the
hanging valley carved by glaciers eons ago, but still evident still today. When I
had last visited the park in 2001 the restoration of the Red Jammers was
ongoing, but their imminent return to service was being heralded. In 2008, all 32
of these iconic open-air touring buses had been renovated and were everywhere.
We followed them up the 3,000’ climb from Lake McDonald, arriving at Logan
Pass just before noon.
Absorbing all there was to take in at the crowded Logan Pass Visitor Center—
I was particularly drawn to the bear warnings—we decided to set off on the 1.5
mile hike to Hidden Lake Overview. Although it was July, a great snow field still
stretched across the first part of the hike. The route was marked by tall wooden
poles, and the procession of climbers against the rocky Alpine backdrop called to
mind a line of Sherpas assaulting Everest. The icy going was slow in tennis
shoes, but it was sunny and warm, and as the trail turned south around Clements
Mountain the snow gave way to more spring-like conditions. An hour later we
were rewarded with unspoiled views of the still snow-encased Hidden Lake and
an encounter with the three mountain goats gruff. Our descent made us
appreciate the steepness of the terrain we had climbed, where one slip might
send us careening down a mile-long icy track rivaling anything constructed for
the Winter Olympics. With no crampons or ice axe to assist us, the return to
Logan’s Pass took as long as the climb to the overview, but we were in oxygendeprived high spirits, good company, and no hurry.
It was nearly 3 p.m.
when we arrived back at
our car. Fearing a rush
on the McDonald Lake
Lodge dining room, we
elected not to push on
east to St. Mary’s, but
instead to stay on the
more breath-taking side
of the divide and take our
time, and many more
photos, on the drive
down from the pass.
This decision also
allowed us to stop and
enjoy the viewing galleries carved into the West Side Tunnel which perfectly
frame Heaven’s Peak.
Returning to McDonald Lake Lodge about 4:30 p.m. there was ample time to
explore, take photographs, and reminisce. Built in 1914, this wooden
architectural gem, a National Historic Landmark, is where my
father had brought me on The Great Parks Tour after
enduring my grousing in Jackson Hole about how there were
no more great lodges in the parks. Then we had arrived
after Labor Day, the last few days of the Lodge’s season, but
still had to “settle” for a lake-front cabin, the Lodge rooms
having all been long-previously reserved. One visit and it’s
easy to see why the Lodge is so beloved. Perfectly mated
with the surrounding scenery, with the steam-powered
touring boat DeSmet which still plies the Lake as she has
since 1930 docked out front, McDonald Lake Lodge has the
ability to magically, instantly transport all who cross its
threshold back in time. For Tammy, the anthropologist, and
her father, the history buff, the Lodge’s power is seductive.
At high season the Lodge is booked months in advance.
So, while my concern about being able to enjoy the hospitality of the Russell’s
Fireside Dinning Room was logical, it was abated when the doors opened at 5
p.m.. Although the Lodge was full, most of its guests apparently dined late and
we had the massive dining room almost to ourselves. We enjoyed the hunting
lodge ambiance with its trophies and rough-hewn Western Red Cedar wood
beams, friendly service, wild game and the moment.
Kalispell
The next day the precaution of extending our stay at the Holiday Inn Express was
validated as an unusually strong jet stream dipped further south than normal for
July, temporarily grounding us in Kalispell. The forecasters nailed this one, and
from an impressive distance of four days out. And so, with no mission to fly and
our Glacier National Park agenda
complete, we enjoyed a free day
courtesy of Mother Nature, stress-free
because of the two extra “weather
days” I build into every barnstorming
trip.
After stopping by the front desk to
extend our stay through Friday
morning, we decided to explore
Kalispell. We geocached
unsuccessfully in the well-groomed
Woodland Park and explored
downtown, but the day’s highlight was
a visit to the Conrad Mansion
Museum. Built in 1895 by Charles Conrad, a displaced Virginian and veteran of
the Confederate Army, the 13,000 square foot mansion’s Norman interior and
original family furnishing is somewhat reminiscent of Rosemount Mansion in
Pueblo, Colorado; another opportunity to step back in history, and a reminder of
what ambition, hard work and a little luck could create in the days before the
Sixteenth Amendment.
Finally, Cavanaugh!
Friday morning broke bright, blue and windless. I called Allen, the caretaker—
and more importantly, the groundskeeper—at Cavanaugh Bay. Although I had
over 900 hours in my logbook, almost all of it had been recorded in Colorado, so
this would be my first landing on a real grass strip. From my planning I knew this
meant the potential for interesting obstacles, like water sprinklers, and I wanted
an on-site conditions report.
Allen was out mowing when I reached him on his cell phone. He reported the
field conditions were dry and groomed, and we would not have to worry being
“hosed” on roll-out. When I mentioned that the winds Thursday at Logan Pass
had been clocked at 60 mph, Allen said it had been that, or worse, at Priest Lake
– power lines had been blown down and half the lake had been without electricity
for the last 24-hours.
Buoyed by blue skies and Allen’s report, we bade farewell to Kalispell and
climbed to 12,500’, topping a low cloud deck for the relatively short 1.6 hour
flight to Cavanaugh Bay. Flight conditions were close to perfect. The cloud
deck, fairly solid over the Flathead National Forest, became scattered as we
approached Libby, Montana. At my request, Tammy snapped a few photos of
Libby Dam and Lake Koocanusa to the north, while I squeezed off a few shots of
Libby and Libby Airport, which served as the tanker base for the filming of my
favorite flying movie, Always.
My focus for this flight, however, was squarely on our destination. Up to now
we’d been covering favorite, but familiar, sky trails. This leg was a brand new
adventure – if I have ever had a case of get-there-itis, this was the flight. Rugged
mountain flying, never-before flown routes, culminating with an over-water
approach to a short grass strip; my anticipation was palpable – I was anxious to
prove myself.
Just because I had never flown this route did not mean it was unfamiliar. In
addition to the a careful review of the charts, Fly Idaho!, and conversations with
Cavanaugh’s caretaker, I had studied and “flown” the approach many times on
Google Earth, a fabulous (and free) three-dimensional tool every pilot should
take advantage of. My plan was simple: fly to Bonners Ferry, overfly the
Kootenai National Wildlife Refuge, then follow one of the broad drainages up and
over the Selkirk Mountains to Priest Lake. This course would bring us to the
north end of the lake, giving us the 12.5 miles to lose 7,500’, from a comfortable
10,000’ crossing altitude—2,000’ higher than any terrain—to the 2,484’ field
elevation at Cavanaugh Bay Airport (66S).
Months of planning began paying dividends as,
tracking to the north of Temple and Klootch
Mountains, we caught our first glimpse of Priest
Lake – reassuringly right where it should be. I
began dumping altitude, S-turning down the east
side of the lake. We self-announced our position
and intentions on 122.9, which serves as the
common traffic advisory frequency for
Cavanaugh Bay airstrip, Priest Lake airstrip
(located on the west side of the lake), Tanglefoot
Seaplane Base (located in Cavanaugh Bay), and
other lake traffic. A forest service flight plying
the west side of the lake responded and was no
factor, so we continued our descent over Indian
Creek Campground, a readily recognizable
peninsula protruding from the east shore at midlake.
Cavanaugh Bay airstrip now came into view. I felt somewhat guilty flying a 12mile straight-in approach, but not guilty enough to jockey around to make a 45degree entry for right downwind to runway 15, the preferred runway for landing
due to its slight uphill grade. Visibility was excellent, we had made the only other
traffic on the lake, and we had a fresh groundskeeper’s report on field conditions.
“Plan the flight, fly the plan,” the little voice
said, so I continued down to 3,500’ as we
cleared Eightmile Island, a four-mile final.
Tammy snapped some great photos the
pristine, deep blue waters of Priest Lake,
bespeckled with lush, forested islands, as
fast as her point-an-shoot could fire, but
was under strict orders to shoot the
approach into Cavanaugh.
Things looked good as we dropped into the throat of the bay, Tammy snapping
away; me vigilant for unannounced traffic and working to keep my excitement in
check. The only other craft in sight was a Chris-Craft, making for the marina
located a tenth of a mile north of runway 15’s threshold. I maneuvered to hug the
east shoreline even more tightly. At about three-quarters of a mile I saw I was a
little high, so I throttled back, but resisted adding more than 20 degrees flaps until
we were over the marina. The evergreens under 15’s threshold, textbook 50’
obstacles, appeared even higher to this rookie bush pilot who did not want to
have his first grass adventure end as a “Flash in the pine,” even if it meant going
around. Tall evergreens line both sides of Cavanaugh Bay airstrip, but the
northeast end of the field has been cleared and widened to make room for
transient parking. Adhering to what
seemed a practical rule—fly where the
trees are not—I stayed east of the
imaginary centerline on final approach.
Clearing cabins and trees, I chopped
power, dumped full flaps, and slipped
The Flash right, centering us on the
runway, my dutiful co-pilot shooting all
the while.
My faith that The Flash would quickly
settle and stop with full flaps at this
altitude was not to be shaken, but
Tammy and I were as we both
experienced our first grass landing.
With full aft yoke The Flash touched
down and rattled and rolled out, hitting
and feeling every bare spot in 15’s
center, but quickly decelerating and
coming to a stop well short of the south
end of the runway. Elated, I announced
“Skylane 64 Uniform, back-taxing runway 15, Cavanaugh,” and powered us
around and towards an alcove carved out of the pine at the northwest end of the
field reserved for campers.
Taxiing to camping I learned my second lesson of “bush” flying, the first being
that the reward for nailing the “centerline” of a well-used grass strip is a rougher
roll-out. I would have done better to land a little off-center on the 120’ wide strip,
a habit my primary instructor, Greg “Bulldog” Inman had dutifully drilled out of
me, just as he had drilled into me to land with full aft yoke – a good lesson to
remember when putting it in clover.
The second lesson is
that it’s a lot easier to
drag a plane around in
the grass with a turning
propeller than a tow bar.
Cavanaugh has tie
downs, and given that
power lines had been
uprooted by wind the day
before, I planned to use
them. But first I had to
find them. Allen, an
excellent groundskeeper
and loving caretaker,
was not a great
linesman. So, after
shutting down
reasonably close to the tie downs, Tammy, Allen and I pulled, and pushed, and
swore trying to maneuver the fully-loaded Flash into position for the chains.
An alternative would have been to bring my own ties, as Tammy and I had done
on our Oshkosh AirVenture six years earlier. However, our tie-down kit is heavy.
Not only would it be quite capable of securely mooring a B-17, that was precisely
what it was designed to do – a WWII surplus gift from a good friend picked up at
a garage sale. Since we were packed full of camping gear, I wanted to save
every ounce I could to improve departure performance, so I decided to use
Cavanaugh’s existing ties, quite adequate once you ferret them out of the long
green. Next time I’ll shut down in the middle of the camping alcove, find the ties
we want, and then have Tammy flag me into position with the power on.
Chillin’ in Coolin
Unbeknownst to me, all ingredients were also in place for my third lesson in bush
flying, but I would not learn it for another 30 hours. Blissfully ignorant, and still
celebrating having cheated death again, Tammy and I unloaded The Flash,
located a choice camping spot—one with good drainage, shady trees, and a
commanding view of our craft—and set about learning how to erect our new
Kelty tent. That mission accomplished with considerably less swearing, it being
now after noon and both of us feeling peckish after our exertions, we borrowed
Cavanaugh’s courtesy car to go find lunch in Coolin, three miles south of the
airstrip and Priest Lake’s mightiest metropolis with a population of 217. We
quickly made Coolin’s best eatery, Ardy’s Cafe, famous for its fresh homemade
Huckleberry pie.
After lunch and a drive-by tour of Coolin, we headed south, then west out of town
to intercept route 57. Route 57 is the main artery to Priest Lake, winding from
Priest River to the south and traversing northward along the west side of the
lake, but not so close as to spoil the lake’s wilderness experience. I wanted to
see the Priest Lake USFS Airport (67S), located about a third of the way up the
lake on the shore opposite Cavanaugh, and to see a little of the more developed
west side of the lake.
We found the Priest Lake airstrip, which lies just west of highway 57. More dirt
than grass, it has none of the charm or challenge of Cavanaugh Bay, but in
fairness it’s a harder working airfield. It’s primary advantages are its length—at
4,400’, it is 1,300’ longer and a little wider than Cavanaugh—and proximity to the
more bustling west side, less than two miles from the Priest Lake Marina and
Hill’s Resort, the largest, and some of the best accommodations on the lake.
Also on the west side we found The Little Store, a quintessential convenience
store selling beer, fishing licenses and anything else one might need for
camping. We put some gas in the courtesy car and bought some snacks for the
campsite – the kind of food I sneer at the rest of the year, but is somehow
justified, even sanctified, in the backwoods.
I would have liked to have
spent more time exploring the
west side of Priest Lake. The
area around the Priest Lake
Marina looks particularly
interesting, as does Hill’s
Resort. Even more, I would
have loved to rent a fast boat
and explore the lake itself,
especially Bartoo and
Kalispell Islands. But we
were dropping in at high
season, and on a weekend no
less, and without a
reservation made well in
advance if you want to go boating you need to bring your own.
The other constraint we faced was “courtesy car guilt,” a malady which, from
years of observation, does not seem to bother legions of our avian brethren, but
eats at me like a quarterback standing in the pocket in the face of a fierce pass
rush. Cavanaugh Bay has a serviceable courtesy car, but only one. The alcove
for overnight flyers was filling up when we arrived, and I could not bring myself to
ignore the fact that someone else might need the only wheels in town. Boats
may be hard to rent on Priest Lake, but cars are impossible; I don’t think even
Enterprise would have picked us up.
Hence, an unpleasant dilemma – if you want the fun of a true fly-in experience,
and have any shred of conscience and decency, your ability to fully explore
“Idaho’s Crown Jewel” is going to be limited. If you want wheels to explore the
lake, you can’t fly in because the nearest car rental is in Sandpoint. A solution
would be to drop a driver at the Sandpoint Airport (you’ll almost certainly be
returning there anyway) on your way into Cavanaugh, and have the groundsupport team drive in a rental car, a strategy which has the further advantage of
increasing short-field performance by lightening the load.
After stocking up at The Little Store, we retraced our path to Cavanaugh Bay,
then drove half-way up the east side lake to the Indian Creek Marina, where the
power was still out at the general store. There were no boats for rent there, so
we set out for our primary afternoon adventure, the Cavanaugh Bay Vista
Geocache, located at N 48° 32.502 W 116° 49.341.
Taking advantage of the extra time and free Wi-Fi in Kalispell, Tammy had
logged onto her account at geocaching.com (registration is free) and selected the
Cavanaugh Bay Vista cache
near our campsite as worthy
of our effort. (An indication
of the continuing and
exponentially increasing
popularity of Geocaching, in
2008 there were only a
handful of caches near
Cavanaugh Bay. Today
there are over 300 within 30
miles of Coolin.) The
directions to the cache took
us south from Indian Creek
along the lake, and then
about a mile up a well
maintained logging road.
We parked and followed our
GPS another quarter mile to a clearing which offered a spectacular view of Priest
Lake and Cavanaugh Bay. A little scouting and I spotted the cache nestled in . . .
in . . . (Oh, come now. You don’t think I’m really going to ruin the fun for you, do
you?) Tammy logged the cache “TNLN,” for “took nothing, left nothing,” except
perhaps the most stunning photographs of our entire trip. Triumphant, we
returned to our campsite, returned the courtesy car’s keys to Allen, and kicked
back to read and relax a bit.
Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner
A couple of hours later, with late-afternoon shadows falling across the grassy
airstrip, it was time for dinner. Now understand that I know how to cook and
perform other vital functions in the woods. Born and raised in the Pacific
Northwest, I’ve schlepped a 60-pound backpack for two weeks through the Eagle
Cap Wilderness Area, eaten a small mountain of Mountain House freeze-dried
beef stew and Kendal Mint Cake, and performed culinary magic on a compact
gas stove that would make Julia Child green with envy, or perhaps with food
poisoning. But only a fool would favor campground cuisine with the Cavanaugh
Bay Marina restaurant, and its lake-side patio seating and full bar, less than two
football fields away.
The Cavanaugh Bay Resort touts itself as “A Year Round Recreational
Paradise,” and it is. Operated by Trent and Glenda Presley, Cavanaugh Bay
Resort offers cabins and boat rentals, but you’ll need to reserve weeks, or
perhaps months, in advance if you want one during the high summer season.
Fortunately, the focus of our attention, Trent’s Place, required and took no
reservations.
Trent’s Place is Cavanaugh’s version of Cheers—a mix of resort guests, locals,
and pilots where everybody knows your name—and instantly earned the
designation of official provisioner and watering hole for The Fuchsia Flash’s
motley crew. Even if it hadn’t been within stumbling distance of our sleeping
bags, Trent’s Place
would have won
this honor because
of its relaxed
atmosphere and
unparalleled setting.
Unpretentious but
nourishing, at the
end of the day
Trent’s fills needs
that go far beyond
the mere
gastronomic, but
does a fine job
doing that also.
Smokehouse
specialties include
sirloin wrapped in
bacon, with BBQ
ribs and prime rib served Fridays and Saturdays only. For early risers, breakfast
on the deck, with a cool breeze blowing off the water, is available starting at 7
a.m.
Tammy and I anchored ourselves beneath an ersatz grass umbrella and drank it
all in, my mixture including a little rum. I ordered the chicken breast, while
Tammy tried the ravioli served in a vodka cream sauce. A guitarist quietly
strumming in the background, and the sun setting behind the trees on the
peninsula that forms Cavanaugh Bay, as if on cue a family of four quietly paddled
a canoe into frame through the still waters of the bay, providing a perfect “photo
op” and ending to our first day as bush pilots.
Two Points Are Made
Flying days are always special, but on a long barnstorming trip non-flying days
are pretty nice, too. With a non-flying day on the schedule, the pressure is off.
No spending the day before wondering whether the outlook briefing will hold. No
calculating “eight hours from bottle to throttle” during dinner. No up-with-thefarmers-to-beat-the-boomers to your next destination.
So, the next morning, we slept in, or what passes for sleeping in when you’re 52
and go to bed before midnight. These days my body is programmed to rise at
6:30 a.m. regardless. But the Selkirk Mountains rising sharply to the east and
the tall evergreens shading our tent held the morning sun at bay, so we slept in
and lounged around the tent reading until about 8:30 a.m., at which hour hunger
and the scent of bacon from fellow campers who had not discovered Trent’s
Place, drove us from our Kelty and back to the marina for a relaxing breakfast on
the water, with the added bonus of a copy of the Spokane Spokesman-Review.
After breakfast Tammy and I set our sights on Rocky Point, the terminus of the
peninsula that forms Cavanaugh Bay, about a 2.5 mile hike. With no map, we
set off cross-country,
along the beach,
down driveways,
trails and back roads.
Rounding the bottom
of the bay we soon
came upon Dr. Loel
Fenwick’s Tanglefoot
Seaplane Base, its
massive hangar
housing, among other
things, N12YZ, the
oldest Grumman
Mallard (serial no. 2)
still flying, which I
immediately
recognized from the
cover of the
May/June 2005 issue of Pilot Getaways magazine that had introduced us to
Cavanaugh. There was no one around and the hangar was open, so we took a
quick peek and a few photos. Clearly, Dr. Fenwick, a former South African now
residing in Seattle, knows how to live.
North of Tanglefoot, about half-way up the west shore, is the Blue Diamond
Marina and Resort, the bay’s other marina. Blue Diamond has only two lodging
units, but they are something to behold. Whereas the Cavanaugh Bay Marina
has cozy cabins, Blue Diamond has two octagon-shaped redwood showplaces.
Unfortunately for us, the Blue Diamond’s restaurant was closed, so we grabbed a
few snacks from the marina and pressed onward and upward, reaching Rocky
Point about 2 p.m. Alas, the view was nothing compared with that from the
Cavanaugh Bay Vista Geocache – just a glimpse through the trees. We rounded
the tip of the peninsula, followed another road down the west side of the
peninsula, and then dead reckoned our way back to camp.
Upon our return, Allen met us. A recent arrival had detected the faint sound of
an emergency beacon and Allen thought it might be coming from The Flash. He
had a portable transceiver, and if you put the transceiver right next to The
Flash’s baggage door, the signal increased. Slightly. I opened the baggage
compartment, popped the access cover and sure enough, our ELT was chirping
like a nearly-dead bird. I reset it, and then discovered that, while the access door
comes off pretty quickly, it’s a bear to correctly pin back in place. Allen
diplomatically speculated that our muscling the plane into position to tie down, or
perhaps taxiing, but certainly not my masterful landing, had set it off.
Whatever the cause, the second point was made that day: we had invested
wisely in acquiring a 406 MHz personal locator beacon for The Flash earlier that
spring because our approved 121.5 MHz ELT is utterly worthless as a rescue
device. I also made a mental note to tune in 121.5 after my next grass landing to
save myself the expense of battery replacement.
My penitence for not
checking 121.5 upon
arrival—having to
replace the access
cover while sitting
backwards and
contorted in the hot
baggage compartment
—now fully paid, it was
once again time for
dinner on the lake,
which was as relaxing
and enjoyable as the
night before. Cell
phone service is
excellent at
Cavanaugh, and the
forecast delivered by Pilot My-Cast promised great weather the next day for the
flight to Walla Walla, where we would meet up with the rest of Clan Luce in
advance of celebrating the life of my first barnstorming partner.
In his years as a practicing attorney in Walla Walla, Dad served as the first tribal
counsel of the Umatilla Indians and wrote the tribe’s constitution. For his years of
service he had been honored by being made an honorary chief – Chief White
Eagle. The Umatillas were according him full tribal burial honors. I thought of
this, of our past barnstorming trips through the South and to Canada, and of the
coming flight home to Walla Walla as Tammy and I returned to camp. My
thoughts were interrupted by the sound of an impromptu air show provided by a
group of five American Champion Scouts, each outfitted with cartoonishly large
tundra tires, whose owners had flown in earlier in the day. In the waning light of
the day they were off for other adventures, but not without first performing a few
low passes and a military break for the enjoyment of the campers. It was a
perfect ending to another good day.
Leaving Cavanaugh
Sunday morning I rose with the sun. The Cavanaugh Bay airstrip was still deep
in shadows, but within ten minutes The Flash and the other planes in the tiedown alcove were bathed in full sunlight. We were not in a rush – the outlook
briefing was holding with no
convection forecast, and the
flight to Walla Walla would be
under two hours. However,
the air is always sweeter in
the morning and I did not want
to fly this leg GPS direct. The
clan was not due to arrive in
Walla Walla until late
afternoon, and this was a rare
opportunity to explore the
other lakes of upper Idaho—
Pend Oreille and Coer
D’Alene—potential tour stops
on a future Northwest
barnstorming trip. Also, for
performance reasons, I had
arrived at Cavanaugh with only 15-20 gallons of fuel, so we would lose some
time making an early fuel stop at Sandpoint, 20 miles away.
I roused Tammy, a process requiring some lead-time. While I waited for my copilot to appear, I took in the departure of a fellow camper and his family. I was
particularly interested in this first take-off of the morning because it was a
similarly-loaded 182, though without a Horton STOL kit, and I was keenly
interested in how much runway he would use. Also, because I could not very
well photograph my own departure from the ground, this was as close a
substitute as I was going to get, and I knew that if I timed things right it would
make great Windows wallpaper. Our campmate lifted off at 7:03 a.m. using less
than half the 3,100’ available runway and providing not only a great photo op, but
also immeasurable comfort that The Flash should have no problem if its pilot did
his job. We broke camp, packed up The Flash, and because of the short flight
and spectacular forecast, treated ourselves to one last breakfast at Trent’s Place.
At 8:47 a.m. we arrived at the far end of runway 33, the old adage about “runway
behind you” being one of the three most useless things in aviation firmly in mind.
With the advantage of a 2% downhill grade and departure over water, runway 33
is favored for take-offs, while 15 is preferred for landings. I took a little extra time
with my run-up checklist, carefully listening for any early morning arrivals since
there is no line of sight between runway ends. Next, I mentally went through my
short-field checklist. At 8:50, the yoke in my belly, I smoothly firewalled The
Flash and rolled her onto and down the airstrip.
The stall warning horn buzzed pathetically as the nose wheel came up and I let it;
my instructors would be proud. Time seems to expand when you’re focused, and
though The Flash quickly gained airspeed at 2,484’, for this first-timer it seemed
to take forever.
(“Forever,” in this case,
based upon
incontrovertible digital
evidence faithfully
recorded by Tammy—
whose view of the
departure, like her view
the approach, was
through her viewfinder—
was precisely 12
seconds.)
The mains lifted off well
before the half-way point,
and I dropped the nose,
allowing The Flash to
gain airspeed as Allen’s
carefully manicured lawn
gently fell away. Five seconds later were in a solid climb. A few seconds after
that we had cleared the trees and were waiving goodbye to Allen, who watched
our departure and rated as “a good one” over his transceiver. Moments later we
were over the bay and on crosswind over Rocky Point. The smile on my face
would last for days.
Departing downwind we left Priest Lake behind us, using Fourmile Island and
Coolin as our first checkpoints. While we could have flown a more direct course
to Sandpoint, I wanted to examine a phenomenon I had observed on Google
Earth while planning this trip – a geographic checkerboard filling the valley south
of Coolin. Two minutes after departure our aerial reconnaissance confirmed that
this was no optical illusion or practical joke by the Google Earth development
team. The checkerboard effect is the unintended consequence of the U.S.
government having granted alternate sections of land to the Northern Pacific
railroad in the 1880s to encourage the
development of the transcontinental rail.
Clear-cut, privately owned sections
alternate with wooded U.S. Forest
Service-managed land, creating the
appearance of a chessboard which can
only be appreciated from the air. While
this phenomenon can be observed in
several parts of Montana and Idaho,
nowhere is the pattern more precise and
stunning than just south of Priest Lake.
This unusual sight was well worth the
detour and allowed us to be kind to our
Continental. There’s little point gaining
5,000’ over ten miles to clear Mt. Casey and Mt. Schweitzer (a local ski area),
only to have to lose it all, and then some, in the next ten miles for arrival at
Sandpoint, which at 2,131’ is 353’ lower in elevation than Cavanaugh Bay. Much
better to spend a few extra minutes and take in this unique vista, then follow the
Priest Lake drainage to intercept the Priest River, which is what we did.
Turning east, we tracked the Priest River to where it empties into Lake Pend
Oreille, where lies Sandpoint, Idaho. This course put us naturally onto downwind
for KSZT’s runway 19,
which we reached a mere
15 minutes after lifting off
from Cavanaugh Bay.
Sandpoint Airport is
home to SilverWing Flight
Services, a great little
FBO which gave us a
quick turn. That was
good, since upon landing
we discovered where the
five Scout pilots who had
provided our bedtime
entertainment the night
before had spent the night. “Let’s go, Tammy,” I said as we climbed out after
rolling up to the FBO. “I want to beat the Tundra Tire Type Club out of here,”
bringing a smile to one of its club’s members.
As we waited for The Flash to be fueled and I surveyed the FBO’s merchandise,
one of the locals wandered in. Pointing to a well-fed cat lounging in a corner of
the FBO, he remarked to the proprietor, “I found out why she’s in here. There’s
two eagles overhead.” That was worth a look. Stepping outside there were, in
fact, two young bald eagles circling high above us, their white wingtips flashing in
the morning sun. Squinting into the light to admire the precision of their graceful
turns-around-a-point, I had to smile. The message could not have been
delivered more poignantly – Chief White Eagle was with us still.
Want to see more photos from the trip? Click here for
a high resolution slideshow of the entire journey!