This weekend flight from Camrose to Fairmont Hot Springs started in beautiful sunny weather with few clouds.
The Alberta side of the Rocky Mountains near Kananaskis and Canmore was getting a little more cloudy, with ceiling at 11,000 feet.
Further along the path, the space between clouds and mountain tops got too tight,
So, I had to look for some valleys to fly under the clouds.
And here’s a Google Earth animation I made, showing partially what it was like in that canyon, although, I was flying lower, and clouds were in the upper half of the valley. (And this animated gif has glitches, and stops after 1 loop, so I have to re-make it.)
My Garmin G-500 avionics displays 2 kinds of maps: On the right is a top-down topographical view, and on the left is a “synthetic vision” 3D graphics view of the mountains and valleys ahead of my plane.
Study the picture above, and you’ll see a tiny white airplane symbol in the middle of the right-hand screen, representing the position of my plane. Ahead of it is a valley, which I followed, which took me to the south end of Columbia lake, and then I turned north to land at the destination CYCZ airport at Fairmont Hot Springs.
May 6 update. I added a few more pictures, from the return leg of the trip from Fairmont Hot Springs to Camrose. I filled up at Fairmont Hot Springs airport, which has suprisingly a great amount of services!.
And you’ll notice the fairly low clouds. I flew north along the Columbia river valley,
up to Golden BC, ( Where there was a little rain cloud to avoid),
Then I had a choice of going West to Vancouver, or East to home in Camrose. I chose East because of the low clouds, and I took the valley route that I know very well, over Abraham lake, toward Rocky Mountain House. And here’s a nice picture of my avionics showing the synthetic vision of the valley, the topographic map of the valley, and then the actual valley.
And further along, getting closer to Abraham lake.
And, here’s the four ladies I visited with at Fairmont Hot Springs, who wanted me to take pictures of their shoes, which I did. And I end with a picture of a Moose head at the restaurant where we had dinner.
