Tag Archives: Arizona

Go RVing?

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Two photos from our first real campground experience.

I’ve been camping since I was a kid. My family camped with an elaborate setup of tents and equipments on family vacations until I was about 11 years old. That’s when my dad caught a nasty cold and decided on comfort. My parents bought a 22-foot Prowler pull trailer that could sleep seven [little] people. That gave us all the comforts of home.

My family always camped in campgrounds that had at least partial hookups, even when we tent-camped. Mike and I, however, have always favored “dry camping” on public land and parks. We’re not the kind of people who like to be compartmentalized in a parking spot surrounded by other campers. Once, when we were camping at a park in Hawaii, everyone else set up their tents in a big field. We passed all that up and set up our tent on a cliff overlooking the ocean. At night, we could see the lights of the big island in the distance, we listened to the sound of the restless sea’s waves on the rocky shore below us — not our fellow campers.

Anyway, about a year and half ago, in preparation for a summer-long helicopter gig that didn’t happen [yet], I bought a 21-foot pull trailer. We’ve used it a number of times for helicopter gigs: at the Mohave County Fair, Big Sandy Shoot, COPPERSTATE Fly In, etc.

The camper is rigged for dry camping. It has a solar panel on the roof that keeps its batteries charged, so we have plenty of power for the lights and stereo and water pump. It holds 40 gallons of fresh water and has gray water and black water tanks to hold what goes down the drain or down the toilet. The fridge and water heater run on gas. Water is our big limiter; if we take very short showers every other day and use paper plates for all meals, we could probably last a week. But if we’re out for longer than three days, we bring extra water in up to four 7-gallon containers.

Most recently, we used the camper for a weekend-long stay in the Parker area, where I’d been hired to do an aerial photography gig of the Parker 425 Off-road race. Since we’d planned to bring Jack the Dog and Alex the Bird with us and since our camper isn’t very easy to keep warm on cold desert nights, I decided to reserve a spot in a campground. We wound up in Buckskin Mountain State Park (highly recommended if you don’t mind camping in a pleasant parking lot), right on the Colorado River. And for the first time ever, we had a full hookup: water, electricity, and sewer.

The main benefit of this is that we could use a very quiet electric heater to keep the camper warm at night. The gas heater that’s part of the camper has a very loud fan and goes on and off all night long. With the electric heater — which our batteries could not run — we got a very comfortable good night’s sleep.

Which is kind of important when you plan to spend the next day chasing off-road racers with a helicopter.

Anyway, after the race gig, Mike and I came back to the campground. We took Jack the Dog for a walk up to an overlook right above the campground. And that’s where I shot this photo. It reminds me of all those Go RVing commercials they have on television. It also shows what Arizona is like in the winter time, when the snowbirds come around in their $300,000 motorhomes and set up in transient RV neighborhoods like this campground.

 
In case you’re wondering, our camper is the small one just to the right of the big spread of green indoor/outdoor carpeting. That’s where our next door neighbors had set up an enclosure for their tiny dog, which spent all of its time on the dashboard of their motorhome, yapping at whoever went by.

And because you know I can never leave an interesting scene without trying that fisheye lens, here’s another shot from the same spot. That’s the Colorado River bending around the campground. The 10.5mm lens exaggerates the bend a bit, but it really does bend quite sharply here, making an interesting spot along the river.

 
And, for the record, neither of these shots have been cropped.

Over Quartzsite

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An interesting photo gig.

I got the call about a month ago. From France. A photographer with a name I couldn’t easily pronounce wanted to photograph Quartzsite, AZ from the air during its busiest time of year. This year, that’s January 19 through 27.

About Quartzsite

Quartzsite, in case you’re not familiar with the place, is a small desert community about 20 miles east of the Colorado River, right on Interstate-10. During the summer, it’s a glorified truck stop, with gas stations, a handful of fast food joints, and a few of the necessities of everyday life for the 1,000 or so people who live there year-round. But in the winter, it’s home to numerous events, including gem and mineral shows, a huge RV show, and flea markets. That’s when the snowbirds flock to the place, filling in the otherwise empty campgrounds and spilling over to the millions of acres of BLM land around the town. The population swells to an estimated 100,000 people, most of whom are living in extravagant RVs and motorhomes.

From the air, this is simply amazing. Quartzsite is nestled in a valley between two small mountain ranges. I-10 cuts through it east/west while route 95 between Parker and Yuma cuts through it north/south. The town is a concentrated sea of white rooftops. Scattered all around, in every direction, grouped in the BLM-approved camping areas, are more white rooftops, sometimes arranged in circles or rows.

Sadly, I don’t have a single photo of the place that shows it off.

Back to France

I gave the Frenchman a quote. He’d have to pay for me to fly to Quartzsite, fly around there for his photos, and fly back. We estimated that at about 3 hours: 1 hour ferry, 1 hour photo shoot, and then 1 hour ferry. At $495/hour, which is my current going rate, it wasn’t going to be cheap. He didn’t book, but that didn’t surprise me. About 90% of the calls I get are from folks who are “fishing.”

Two weeks went by. I got CCed on a message to a Frenchman from Robinson Helicopter, Inc. They told him that the closest Robinson helicopter operator to Quartzsite was Flying M Air. In other words, me.

Another week went by. I got an e-mail message from the Frenchman. He wanted to know about dates and weather. I told him that the weather in Arizona this time of year is usually perfect. He tentatively scheduled a flight for January 25. But since he wouldn’t provide a credit card number, I wouldn’t guarantee it. If someone else put up a card for the same date and time, he’d be out of luck.

The Gig Happens — Suddenly

On Saturday morning, I got a call from Etienne. He was in Arizona. He wanted to do the flight that afternoon because the weather forecast for midweek wasn’t very good. Was I available?

Oddly enough, Mike and I had planned to go camping in Quartzsite that weekend but had decided, just the night before, to skip the overnight trip and just drive out there for the day on Sunday. So I was available after another flight booked for 10 AM.

Etienne picked up an RV from a rental place in Mesa, AZ and drove it up to Wickenburg. He parked it in the airport parking lot. We had a pow-wow to go over details on timing. Then he went into town to book a hotel room — don’t ask me why; I don’t understand either. At 3:15 PM, he was back.

We took off to the west with coats on and his door off.

Fuel Concerns

I’d filled the helicopter’s fuel tanks to capacity. That’s close to 50 gallons of fuel. At my normal rate of consumption, that would last close to three hours. Unfortunately, we were expecting to be out for a full three hours. There’s no fuel between Wickenburg and Quartzsite. The closest fuel is Blythe, which is 20 minutes farther west. If we went there for fuel, it would add 40 minutes to his flight time. It would also have us crossing through very dark desert — and over several mountain ranges — long after sunset.

So I filled an approved fuel container with another 5+ gallons of fuel and tucked it into the back passenger area. There were two paved runways between Wickenburg and Quartzsite, as well as numerous other landing zones. If fuel got low on the way back, we could land, shut down, add 5 gallons, start up, and get back. Of course, if we spent a lot more time in Quartzsite than we expected to, we’d have to detour to Blythe anyway. Five gallons was only about 15-20 minutes of fuel.

The Gig

The flight out to Quartzsite was as boring as I remembered it. Etienne had asked me to show him Arizona. I warned him that the ferry flight didn’t have much of interest, but he assured me it would be interesting to him. I think that by the time we were on our way back, he agreed with me. The landscape is mostly flat, empty desert, with the exception of a few small communities, some of which have farms. We cruised over all of this about 700 feet off the ground, doing exactly 100 knots. Why 100? Because with a door off, that’s my maximum airspeed.

We crossed over two tiny mountain ranges: one just west of Salome and the other just west of the intersection of Route 60 (which we’d followed) and I-10. After the second one, Quartzsite came into view. We’d been in the air less than 50 minutes.

Etienne had envisioned a shot that included mountains in the foreground, Quartzsite in the middle, and the low-lying sun in the background. Problem: the mountains to the east that he was thinking of for his foreground were simply too far away to make the shot work. So we headed into town to see what he could do.

Thus began at least 90 minutes of aerial photography over Quartzsite.

At Etienne’s request, I started by climbing up to about 3,000 feet over the town. I circled the town several times while he shot down at it with two different cameras, each sporting a monster zoom lens. I spiraled down to get closer to the town while he snapped away. Then we flew up and down along the freeway and the BLM camping areas. Then out to the west, to get a shot of the town behind a sunlit mountain. Then lower over the camping areas, with me flying sideways at about 10-20 knots groundspeed so he could shoot right down at the campers.

By this time, most folks had returned from their day at the markets and were gathered around within their “circled wagon” compounds. It was impossible for them not to see and hear us, so there were a lot of people waving up at us. I think each group was competing to be included in the photos.

We broke off from that and started following campers on the Interstate or side roads as they moved to their campsites. We must have followed five different rigs, following above and behind them. I’m sure none of them realized they were being followed. (It reminded me of that scene in Goodfellas where Ray Liotta’s character is followed by a helicopter as he drives around the city.) Etienne was especially interested in rigs that included motorhomes pulling cars. We hit the jackpot when we found a motorhome pulling a pickup that had an ATV in the back of it. There must have been $400,000 worth of equipment down there, driving out into the dusty desert to dry camp.

We did some more shots all over town as the sun started sinking to the west. Etienne got some really interesting shots at the dry camping campground southeast of the I-10/95 intersection.

The sun finally disappeared, but Etienne still snapped photos.

My fuel situation was interesting: I was showing 1/3 tanks of fuel. If we broke off soon, we might still make it to Wickenburg without stopping.

I think Etienne read my mind. He announced that we were finished. I swung out to my right, added power, and headed back. I’d already programmed the GPS for Wickenburg and I made a beeline for it.

Flying Back

The flight back was almost as boring as the flight out had been. The only difference was the moon and the fuel situation.

The moon was nearly full, out in front of us to the east. Each time I passed over a body of water — the Central Arizona Project canal, a cattle tank, etc. — I’d see a quick flash of light as it caught the moon’s reflection. Beautiful.

The fuel situation kept me on edge, wondering if we’d make it all the way back. We were still excellent shape as we flew over the first paved strip at Salome. About 20 minutes later, we were still in reasonably good shape as we passed over the second paved strip at Aguila. And when we landed at Wickenburg in the darkness, we still had fuel and no low fuel light.

When I finally shut down, I was amazed to note that we’d flown 3.3 hours on the full tanks of fuel. Based on what we had left in the tanks — at least 5 gallons because of what the gauges said and there was no low fuel indicator — I figure we burned only about 13-14 gallons per hour. My normal burn rate is closer to 17 gallons per hour. But one look in the Pilot Operating Manual confirmed what I vaguely remembered: maximum range speed is 100 knots. So the fact that my speed was limited by the door being off helped us save fuel.

Since the airport was dark and the FBO office was closed, Etienne and I finished up the paperwork in his rented camper. He was shivering; sitting beside that open door all the way back had chilled him to the bone. I went back to the helicopter, put the door back on, and closed it up for the night.

Some Photos from a Desert Trek

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A handful of photos.

I don’t usually put a lot of large photos on this site, but I thought I’d give it a try today. Yesterday, Mike, Jack the Dog, and I went for a combination Jeep ride/hike out in the desert northeast of Wickenburg. All of these photos were taken within 15 miles of my home, so it gives you an idea of the landscape I live in.

Winter is a great time for enjoying Arizona’s Sonoran desert. Oddly enough, however, our party of seven (including Jack the Dog) didn’t run into anyone else along the way.

We started at the Rodeo Grounds on Constellation Road in Wickenburg, then headed out on Constellation Road. We made the left hand turn just before Monte Cristo Mine, followed that road for a short while and took a right where it forked off. We drove through one drag gate, closing it behind us to keep the cattle on their appropriate sides of the fence, and continued down the road. Eventually, it merged with Slim Jim Creek. We followed the dry creek bed as far as we could, maneuvering around and over two nasty places where the last flood had scattered boulders in the wash. When we reached a point where we could follow the creek no further, we pulled onto the side and parked our pickup and two Jeeps. The road continued, but there were two narrow places just beyond where we parked. Besides, it climbed away from the creek, which was our intended trail.

We geared up with drinking water, lunch bags, and cameras and headed down the creekbed on foot. I figure we walked about 1-1/2 to 2 miles. The creek wound through some of the most beautiful Sonoran Desert scenery before ending abruptly at the Hassayampa River. Although there isn’t a drop of water flowing under the bridge in town, there was quite a bit at the mouth of Slim Jim Creek.

Here are my favorite photos of the day, along with some captions.

The south-facing hills were absolutely covered with saguaro cacti.

I played with my fisheye lens here. This rock face was actually quite flat, but the lens makes it look like it curves out into the river. Not very realistic, but it looks cool.

Here’s Jack the Dog with that fisheye lens again. He found some quicksand near this spot and almost got stuck in it.

The river flowed a lot higher earlier in the week. This sand shows the pattern from the receded water. It was still quite wet.

Believe it or not, this is the skeletal remains of a type of prickly pear cactus. (We also found the decomposing body of a javelina, but I didn’t photograph it, primarily because it was really gross.)

This is the windmill near the remains of Sayer’s Station, which we passed on our way on Constellation Road. The road climbs past the windmill and I took this shot from the road, just about level with the top of the windmill. I like taking photos of windmills.

Comments? You know where to put them.

New Year’s Eve Reminisces

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Tales of New Year’s Eves gone by.

I remember when I was a kid, thinking about the turn of the century, which would also usher in a new millennium. I remember calculating how old I’d be when that day came: 39. Wow! That was old! But here it is, eight years later, and I’m well past that. Yes, 40-something — you do the math — is old to an 8-year-old, but it isn’t very old when you’re 40-something.

Back in those days, we spent our New Year’s Eves at our neighbor’s house. The Merrifields were a family of 8 who lived in a big house on the hill across the street. Their 2+ acres was surrounded by trees and shrubs, making their house impossible to see from ours during the summer months. But in the winter, when the trees were bare, you could see it through the gray branches: a huge wooden structure with a big front porch, with white paint in desperate need of refreshing.

Mr. Merrifield was not a handyman. He was a scientist. I didn’t know where he worked or exactly what he did. But I do know that years later, after we’d moved away, he won the Nobel Prize for chemistry. So you really can’t fault him if his house needed a paint job.

Mrs. Merrifield was heavily involved in a number of activities with her five girls and one boy. Like my mother, she was a Girl Scout leader. And every year, she’d host a New Year’s Eve party for all the neighborhood kids. We go over there in the evening and hang out in the back room — a sun porch that had been converted into a good-sized TV room. The TV would be on with various New Year’s Eve programming for us. Maybe a movie early in the evening. But always Dick Clark as midnight neared.

Then, at the golden hour, after counting down together, we’d take pots and pans and wooden spoons and run outside in the cold. We’d bang the pots and scream out “Happy New Year” for the next ten or fifteen minutes, making quite a racket in the neighborhood. No one seemed to mind in those days. It was just something people did. Afterwards, we’d go home to bed.

One year, my sister or I — I honestly can’t remember which — ruined one of my mother’s pots by banging dents into it.

Another year, my sister and I had a fight before the party. I grabbed something to throw at her, which just happened to be a glass of grape juice sitting on my night table. I missed her and hit her brand new bedspread. Boy, did I get into trouble for that one. My mother never got the stain out. We didn’t go to the party that year.

There’s a gap in my memory of New Year’s Eves after that. My parents split and we moved away to Long Island. No more neighborhood parties.

It wasn’t until I started dating that New Year’s Eve started getting special again. Then it was getting some kind of New Year’s “package” at a catering hall offering those kinds of things. Usually a buffet meal, cash bar, and warm, flat champagne (poured hours before) at midnight. Always a dress-up affair, sometimes involving a limo with another couple to and from the festivities. It was a big deal in those days, but it may have started my distaste for packaged and programmed entertainment.

Over the years, it’s been more of the same. Nothing very memorable — perhaps because of over-consumption of alcohol. (Can someone explain why you people to get shitfaced to ring in the new year?) The years rolled by.

As we matured, we switched to a New Year’s Eve routine that included a nice dinner out followed by an evening at home with a bottle of champagne. Television fell of the equation, replaced by conversation. I recall a particularly nice New Year’s Eve when we lived in New Jersey: dinner at our favorite Japanese restaurant where the staff somehow made its few customers feel special. And the champagne at home is always high-quality and ice cold.

When we moved to Wickenburg, we started having New Year’s Eve dinner at home. There simply wasn’t anything better in town to do, and, with all the animals we have, going down to Phoenix for an overnight was not an easy option.

Last year, we managed to get reservations at a local guest ranch. The food was good, but they placed us in a room with a party of 15 or 20 that included kids. Not exactly the quiet evening we’d envisioned, but the food was good and the service was quite acceptable.

This year, we returned to the ranch for New Year’s Eve dinner on the house. I’d done some work for the ranch, flying the manager and a photographer over the ranch to take photos from the air. Rather than get paid, I agreed to a trade — my flight time for New Year’s Eve dinner. The arrangements were made months ago, in the spring. Since then, the ranch manager moved on to other things. But I reminded the ranch owner a few months ago and, on Sunday, when I called to make reservations, learned that we’d already been put on the reservations list.

Although I do appreciate a free meal, I admit that I was deeply disappointed this year. Although the ranch is normally the best restaurant in town, they set up a buffet with a limited number of choices: a prime rib carving table, poached salmon, and a shrimp and chicken pasta dish. The place was full of people of all ages, walking back and forth from table to buffet line to get each course. Some of the folks were very old and needed help getting their plates back. And some of the kids were a bit rambunctious. It was loud, but not because of music — it was sheer voices. If you needed something that wasn’t at your table or on the buffet tables — like butter — you had to flag down a waiter or waitress. Certainly not the meal I was expecting.

I shouldn’t be so critical of the atmosphere. It’s supposed to be a party, a celebration of the new year. But I prefer to let the old year die quietly and the new year slip in to take its place. Each new year is another year gone. There are only a limited number of years in a person’s life.

Perhaps that’s why I think back to the days on Mezzine Drive — now Merrifield Way — in Cresskill, NJ and the New Year’s Eves banging pots out in the cold. Back then, each new year was a step closer to maturity and independence, a step closer to the day when I could step out into life on my own. Why not celebrate?

Weather Flying

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Two trips to Sedona in challenging weather.

One of the best things about being a pilot in Arizona is the weather. It’s darn near perfect just about every day. What else could a pilot ask for?

So when weather moves in, it’s a big deal. Especially when you need to fly in it.

Wickenburg to Sedona

Saturday’s flight had been booked a month in advance. Three friends from Phoenix wanted a day trip up to Sedona. To save money, they drove up to Wickenburg — which was on the way to their weekend place in Yarnell anyway — to start the flight at my home base.

I’d spent Friday night in Phoenix for Mike’s company Christmas party. When I woke at 6 AM, it was dark and rainy. But I had my laptop with me and wasted no time checking the weather. I’d told my client that I’d call him by 8 AM if we needed to cancel. If he didn’t hear from me, it was a go.

The forecast called for chance of showers before 11 AM, then partly cloudy. More showers after 11 PM. Sounded good to me. OUr flight would depart Wickenburg at 10 AM and we’d arrive in Sedona around 11, when any weather in the area would be moving out.

The drive home to Wickenburg was long but the weather was definitely clearing. There was some flooding on State Route 74 (Carefree Highway) not far from I-17. Nothing I couldn’t drive through, though.

At 9:30, when I pulled the helicopter out of the hangar and fueled it, there was still a layer of clouds sitting atop the Weaver Mountains. That wasn’t good.

Let me explain my usual route from Wickenburg to Sedona by air. I depart to the northeast, crossing the Weaver Mountains just east of Yarnell. Then I continue northeast, following the path of Route 89 through the Bradshaw Mountains and over the town of Prescott. Then I head skirt along the southern edge of Prescott Airport’s airspace and cross over the top of Mingus Mountain at the pass so I can descend right past Jerome. Then it’s north until I reach the red rocks and east until I reach Sedona Airport. I chose the route because it’s relatively direct, it shows downtown Prescott and Jerome from the air, and it completes a “red rock tour” outside of Sedona’s noise-sensitve areas and away from other helicopter traffic. The return flight is much more direct. I fly southeast over Oak Creek, then head southwest to Wickenburg, crossing the southern end of Mingus Mountain and the Bradshaws at Crown King or Towers Mountain, and passing east of the Weaver Mountains. You can see this usual route on the chart below; it’s the blue route.

Wickenburg to Sedona

You may have noticed that the word “mountain” is used extensively in the above paragraph. That’s because there are a lot of mountains here. The ones I have to cross range in elevation from 5000 to 8000 feet. While that’s not a big deal on a typical Arizona day, it is a big deal when the clouds are sitting at 6000 feet. All pilots know about mountain obscuration — mountains hidden by clouds. And smart pilots avoid it.

So one look at the Weaver Mountains made me wonder how much detouring I’d have to do that day and what the clouds looked like in the valley beyond the mountains.

But there was plenty of detour space. I could avoid the mountains entirely by flying around the west end. That would add time to the flight, which was billed at a flat rate. Not in my best interest, but neither is hitting a “granite cloud.”

By the time my passengers arrived, however, the clouds had lifted a bit. And since they really wanted to see Yarnell from the air, I headed that way. When we got close, I saw a clear path beneath the clouds and a clear valley beyond it. I popped over the ridge and even circled their weekend home once so they could get photos of it from the air. Then we continued on our way.

In the valley between the Weaver and Bradshaw Mountains, I’d estimate the cloud bottoms at 6,000 feet. I was flying at 5,400 feet, 600 to 800 feet off the ground, so I had plenty of space. But I decided to file a pilot report, since the weather forecast had nothing about the low clouds.

A pilot report — for those readers who are not pilots — is a report of observed conditions where a pilot is flying. Normally, pilots file pilot reports when they encounter unexpected conditions, like low ceilings, turbulence, or icing. These were low ceilings and they were low enough to get an airplane pilot in trouble. They were worth reporting. It’s unfortunate that more pilots don’t file pilot reports since, once filed, they appear on weather briefings for the area and they’re a valuable source of information for other pilots.

I think that hearing me talk to the Prescott Flight Service Station on the radio about the weather scared my passengers a bit. When I was finished, my client said, “If the weather is too bad, we can do this another day.”

I assured him that the weather did not pose any danger to flight. I then told him how interesting to me it was since I’m so accustomed to flying in perfect weather.

Meanwhile the tops of the Bradshaws were socked in pretty good, so I decided to go around the west side of Granite Mountain. That took us over the Williamson Valley Road area of Prescott and Chino Valley. From there, it was a straight shot past the northwest end of Mingus Mountain (which was also cloud-covered) to the red rocks. I did my usual tour, listening to my passengers ooh and aah. (It really is beautiful out there, even when the weather is overcast and otherwise ugly.) Then I landed at the Sedona Airport.

It was cold and windy there. We walked to the terminal and my passengers left me to have lunch at the airport restaurant, which overlooks the rock formations around Airport Mesa. I chatted with the FBO folks, placed a fuel order, and settled down with the IFR training material I’m reading in preparation for getting my instrument rating.

I got a call from one of the Phoenix-area resorts I occasionally do business with. They had a couple who wanted to do a Sedona Tour the next day. We agreed on times and my contact said she’d fax me the reservation form. As I hung up, I was glad I hadn’t delayed this flight for a day, making me unavailable for the next day’s flight.

I read about IFR flight instruments. It wasn’t terribly exciting. After about 20 minutes, I happened to look out a window. It was snowing outside, just southeast of the airport. One of the low clouds was dumping a flurry of flakes. While snow didn’t bother me, the fact that I couldn’t see through the snowfall did.

When I flew at the Grand Canyon, the pilots had a saying: if you can see through it, you can fly through it. I couldn’t fly through this little snowstorm.

Of course, I didn’t have to go that direction, either. So went outside and had a good look. There were little snow squalls here and there in every direction.

I went over to the computer they’ve got set up for flight planning and got on the National Weather Service Web site. The forecast had changed. There was now a 50% chance of snow showers. Duh.

Things looked good to the west. Although there was falling snow out that way, I could see sunshine beyond it near Mingus Mountain. That meant the snow was localized. It would probably blow through.

And it did. But other snow blew in to take its place.

Still, when my passengers returned, I didn’t want to wait around. I’d seen a good clearing to the west and I wanted to be through it before the situation at Sedona worsened. So we loaded up, started up, warmed up, and took off.

We were in snow showers almost immediately. Visibility wasn’t bad, though, and the air was still smooth. It was safe. It was just…well…different.

We got clear of Sedona’s weather and popped into the sun. But there was still a cloud atop Mingus Mountain, so crossing over the top on the way back wasn’t an option. And the weather radar I’d looked at showed me that conditions were better to the west than to the east, so I should avoid my usual return route. So after taking a low-level pass alongside the ghost town of Jerome, I headed northwest to retrace our route back the way we’d come.

We hit a bunch of snow along the west end of Mingus Mountain. I must have been flying in it for close to 10 minutes. My passengers were very quiet. But I kept chatting — as I usually do — to keep them at ease. Then the snow cleared out and we were flying with the clouds at least 1,000 feet above us. I looked for and found the indian ruins on top of one of the mesas in the area and pointed it out to them. A sort of consolation prize for taking the same route each way. When we got closer to Prescott, I thought I might be able to overfly it and follow Route 89 back to the Yarnell area. But by this time the wind had picked up and flying along the foothills of Granite Mountain was tossing us around a bunch. And since I couldn’t see the pass south of Prescott that I needed to slip through, I didn’t know it’s conditions. I didn’t want to look and see — I’d already done too much detouring on this flight and it was quickly losing profitability. If conditions were bad at the pass, I’d just have to come back, thus adding at least 20 minutes to the flight time. So I steered us around the west side of Granite Mountain again.

Ahead of me, in the Yarnell area, the clouds looked low again. So I detoured to the west some more, around the west end of the Weaver Mountains. That put us in the valley near Hillside. The clouds seemed to move up as we descended down to 4000 feet. I followed Hillside Road to Congress Mine, then detoured once again to the Hassayampa River just so see how it was flowing. From there, we made a quick pass over the town of Wickenburg before landing.

It was mostly cloudy but cold when we got out of the helicopter. It had been an interesting flight for me, but not one I was anxious to repeat. It had taken 30 minutes longer than the round trip flight usually takes and about 15 minutes longer than my budget for it. I hadn’t lost money, but it hadn’t been a very profitable flight, either.

But my passengers really enjoyed it and maybe I’ll see them again.

Scottsdale to Sedona

The next day is a good example of how quickly weather can change. I was scheduled to fly from Scottsdale to Sedona with two passengers at 2 PM.

I checked the weather shortly after getting up that morning. Partly cloudy, 10% chance of showers, high 46°F. Not bad at all.

I checked the weather again at 10 AM. It was the same. My passenger called right after that. I told him about the weather and that we were good to go. He promised to meet me at the airport at 2 PM.

At noon, I prepared my flight plans and manifests. I checked the weather again. Now it was mostly cloudy with a 50% chance of show showers. Dang!

I dug deeper into my weather resources. Flagstaff looked bad, with low visibility forecast right around the time we’d get to Sedona. Flagstaff is only 20 miles from there, but its up on a higher plateau. Was the altitude part of the problem? Would it be clear in Sedona? I called the FBO and asked what the weather was like. He said it was cloudy and that a small storm had passed through, but it was okay then. I got back online and looked for Webcams. I found a few in Sedona and they all showed good visibility. One of them even looked as if there was a little sunshine.

I called my passenger and left a message on his cell phone. Then I called the concierge who had booked the flight and told her the situation. I said I didn’t think it was a safety issue, but I thought the weather might make the views a bit less appealing. (Wow, did that turn out to be an understatement!) She wanted to cancel. She tried to reach the passengers, but couldn’t. I told her I needed to leave Wickenburg by 1 PM to get to Scottsdale on time.

I was warming up the helicopter on the ramp at Wickenburg when my cell phone rang. I answered it. It was the Concierge. She’s spoken to the passengers and they were still good to go.

So I went.

It was cloudy in Wickenburg but there were very low clouds atop the Weaver Mountains. I didn’t have to go that way. I had to go to Scottsdale, which is southeast. I passed through heavy rain in North Phoenix. I was sunny in Scottsdale when I landed, but it soon started to pour. I was wet when I got into the terminal.

Scottdsale to SedonaLet me take a moment to review my flight route from Scottsdale to Sedona. I fly northwest to Lake Pleasant and follow the shoreline up past the Agua Fria River to Black Canyon. Then I follow I-17 (mostly) to the southeast end of Mingus Mountain. I follow the mountain’s northeast slope to Jerome, then head north to the red rocks. I do my red rocks tour and land. The return trip takes us through Oak Creek and Camp Verde before climbing up along I-17 and following that back all the way to Phoenix. Again, it’s the blue line in this illustration.

I met my passengers, gave them a briefing, and loaded them up. One of them looked startled that the helicopter was so small. I talked to the tower and we took off to the north.

I could immediately see that the weather in the vicinity of Lake Pleasant would be anything but pleasant. So I headed north up into the mountains. The area was remote and undeveloped. All the little runoff channels were full of water, with waterfalls everywhere. It would have been kind of cool to fly lower and really see them, but I needed to climb to clear mountains ahead of us and I definitely didn’t want to get caught in the area if weather moved in.

It rained on us. It was mostly a light rain. The drops were pushed off the helicopter’s bubble by the force of the wind.

I couldn’t get much speed because my passengers (and I) were heavy and I’d topped both tanks off in Scottsdale. (You can never have too much fuel when weather is questionable.) We were not far from max gross weight.

We hooked up with I-17 just south of Cordes Junction. The freeway was covered with water — you could tell by the splashing of the car and truck tires. The clouds were low. North, along I-17, they seemed even lower. I couldn’t see the Bradshaws at all. I flew to Arcosante and circled it, telling them what it was all about. I also told them that I didn’t think I could go any farther toward Sedona. I was actually heading back along I-17 when I decided to take another look. I swung the helicopter around and, sure enough, the clouds had lifted enough for me to see the pass down into the Verde Valley. “Let’s give it a try,” I said.

Conditions improved a bit as I reached the pass. The clouds were much higher over the valley — primarily because the valley is much lower. I descended through the pass right over I-17. I skirted along the foothills of Mingus Mountain as I normally would, but lower. The top of the mountain was completely obscured. We reached Cottonwood and I still couldn’t see Jerome. It was in the clouds.

So I altered my course and headed northeast toward the first red rocks I could see. I’d start the tour there.

I should mention here that my passengers didn’t seem the least bit concerned about the weather. They were from British Columbia in Canada and they live, as one passenger told me, “in a rain forest.” Sadly, they’d come to Arizona for sunshine and it had been cloudy and/or raining since they arrived. They commented on all the terrain we passed over, asking me a lot of questions. Apparently he wants to buy a place here and she’s not convinced it’s a good idea. They did appreciate the views, especially when we got right up to the red rocks. I did a modified tour, going into a canyon I usually avoid, mostly because it was clearer than some of the other areas I do go.

It was snowing hard at the airport, and since they hadn’t been very interested in landing anyway, I decided to recommend against it. By big worry was that the weather would worsen while we were on the ground and that we’d be stuck there when the sun set in less than 2 hours. Then I’d have to pay a car service to take them back and I’d have to spend the night in Sedona. None of this would impress the Concierge that had booked the flight. My passengers understood the situation and agreed that it was best to continue. So we flew around Airport Mesa, getting a few last good looks of Sedona, and headed toward Oak Creek. We were only in snow for about 5 minutes.

The return trip was relatively uneventful, After crossing over Camp Verde, we climbed along the path of I-17. I’d been tempted to follow the Verde River south — it looked pretty clear that way — but did not want to get trapped in that canyon by weather, especially since my flight plan had me going a different way. When we came out atop the mesa north of Cordes Junction, I was surprised to see that the ceilings had risen by at least 500 feet. In the distance, toward Lake Pleasant, the sky was bright. Whatever had been there had cleared out. I headed toward the light.

A while later, we flew along the northwest side of the Agua Fria River. I showed them the ruins atop Indian Mesa and flew down the west side of the lake. We caught sight of a rainbow about 10 minutes out from Scottsdale.

My flight home was quick and easy. By 5 PM, the helicopter was tucked way in its hangar, clean from the rain.