We launched at sunrise from Ramona (KRNM) and flew mostly direct via Thermal to Needles to the Grand Canyon Dragon corridor, then landed at Page, AZ for fuel. From Page we headed up over Lake Powell towards Montrose, CO, but we could see that the skies were clear in the direction of Boulder so we headed towards Rifle then Kremmling. We crossed the Continental Divide near Eldora ski resort. Once across the divide we descended into Boulder. We did get hit with a couple of strong bumps here and that got my attention.
Here is my APRS track, which was rock solid all the way over very remote terrain.
The return trip was pretty much the same route. We saw that the skies were clear over the divide, so we took off from Boulder and did a couple of circles over the city to gain plenty of altitude before turning west. The winds were gusting over the divide so my plan was to be at least 3000' over the Rollins Pass altitude of 11,700'. We got a bit of turbulence, but it wasn't too bad. I was climbing at Vy at some points and losing altitude in downdrafts, but after getting through them we would also get into some big updrafts. Check out our headwind component and Ground speed of 65 Kts on this screen shot.
We crossed at around 15,700' then descended down to 12,500' and followed the Colorado River valley to Kremmling, Rifle, then down to 10,500' towards Grand Junction. We battled headwinds the entire way and they were less at lower altitudes. We flew right over Moab and Canyonlands at 8500', then over Lake Powell into Page, AZ for another fuel stop.
We flew over the Grand Canyon again, but this time did the Fossil Corridor.
APRS return track.
This was one of my bucket list trips and the scenery along the route is nothing short of spectacular. We took a bunch of photos that are online here.
CJ