|
Fall 2004 Whirled Tour
The Fall 2004 Whirled tour was a big
success. We got to see and film many great places and got to take
some family up for rides. Below is the routing and travelogue.
================================================================
Matty
Chopper - Fall 2004 Whirled Tour Itinerary
================================================================
 DAY
1 Sat 10/2/2004 - Cabin to Las Vegas
We left the
Cabin around 8am Saturday morning for the North Las Vegas airport with
no winds and clear
skys. The only spot worth noting was Mammoth Lakes which are
about 30 minutes flight time behind the cabin at 11,500 ft. We
took a little bit of video and then crossed the remaining mountains and
then dropped down into Nevada past the Mammoth
Lakes Airport and then South to the Bishop airport for fuel. Then we
flew direct into the North Las Vegas Airport and stayed there for the
evening. We spent the afternoon driving around and seeing the
sights
in Las Vegas. In the evening, we went to see Mystere by Cirque Du
Soleil.
Video: This
was not a big video day. We did get a little bit of footage
of Mammoth Lakes. The
good news is that we now know where they
are and we'll go back in the spring when we suspect that the area will
be at it's most pretty.
 DAY 2 Sun
10/3/2004 - Las Vegas to Page Arizona
Las Vegas to Lake
Powell - We followed highway
15 north of
Grand Canyon to Mesquite and then St. George for fuel. We had
planned to fly over Mt. Zion National Park but thunderstorms kinda made
that not look like a very good idea so we stayed to the South of the
park and continued east to the Knabe airport where we passed Cottonwood point. Between Knabe and Page is a really
cool area the locals called "The Wave". I broke them into 2
separate movies. "The Wave
Points" which were these cool little mounds, and "The Wave Valley" where water
carved out smooth
lines and curves on the rocks that are really unique. After
shooting at the
waves, we went direct to Page and Lake
Powell where we stayed at
the Lake Powell resort.
If you like the colors salmon and aqua together, Lake Powell is the
place for you. Impressive rock formations and ridges flow down
into beautiful clear water. Tower
Butte is big and prominent. The Lake Powell resort is a
pretty
nice and reasonably priced place to stay with a good quality restaurant
and bar.
Video:
This was a good video day, we got some decent
raw footage of the Waves Points, The Waves Valley, Cottonwood point, Tower Butte, and Lake
Powell.
ACCOMMODATIONS
LAKE POWELL
RESORT
100 LAKESHORE DRIVE
PAGE AZ US 86040
Phone: (928) 645-2433
 DAY
3 Mon 10/4/2004 PAGE To Albuquerque New Mexico
Lake
Powell - We flew along south side of Lake
Powell into Utah and Monument Valley. This was the most
spectacular scenery so far. The combination of water and rocks in
Lake Powell is really worth seeing. Just as we were leaving the
lake area, we broke our video camera mount so until the parts show up,
we're only going to be doing limited video work and mostly from the
ground. By the way, for those of you who aren't
inclined to fly, the resort will rent you a 70 foot house boat with
satellite TV and a hot tub so you can explore the lake that way.
Monument Valley - You
can see these impressive rock towers from the highway, but we think the
video we got should give you a feeling for how much more can been seen
from the air. This is a really cool bunch of stuff to see that
everyone should make the effort to get to if you're within 200 miles of
this area. After flying around and getting some video of the "King
on His Throne", we landed on the butte and took some footage and
got some general views of Monument
valley.
Four Corners
Diversion - From Monument valley, we flew to Farmington where
we got fuel and ordered parts for the camera. Farmington is also
called "Four Corners" because it's near the only place in the U.S.
where 4
states meet (Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah. It was here
that we made the decision to divert from
our original plan of heading for Telluride Colorado. It was
already
1pm and there was a clear set of thunderstorms and squalls in the
mountains. While that would make the decision "iffy", learning
that tornadoes were touching down in Colorado, pretty much sealed the
decision to run like heck to the South and East. So, we decided
to go to Albuquerque instead. It took a
bunch longer than expected to fly from Farmington to
Albuquerque. The terrain is much higher here so even though we
were flying at 7,500 ft pressure altitude, we were only about 700 ft
off the deck. While the altitude by itself isn't a big deal,
there was a lot of vertical development across the
route so we.... well, got the snot knocked out of us. In a
nutshell, we ended up reducing our speed from the usual 110 to 120
knots to about 60 knots to reduce the bumpiness and arrived in
Albuquerque a bit shook up and happy to be on the ground.
Albuquerque and the
Balloons - We lucked out, as we happened to be in Albuquerque
during their annual hot air balloon event which is the largest one in
the world. When we
flew in on Monday, they had canceled the night flights due to
weather. As of noon on Tuesday they have continued to cancel due
to weather.
Video: This
was a pretty good video day. We did get some cool shots of the
North East part of Lake Powell. Also, we did a decent job of
getting footage of Monument valley.
ACCOMMODATIONS
DAY
4 Tues 10/5/2004 Albuquerque to Bartlesville
Tuesday morning, we woke up to
thunderstorms and showers over the region. This forced us to stay
the day in Albuquerque again..... on the ground.... stuck in a hotel
with no Internet access..... bummer. Found out later the 50 miles
south of Albuquerque, they had hail the size of baseballs. We
only got jellybean sized hail. Made a quick run to Home Depot for
supplies and covered up the helicopter blades with flooring padding and
duct tape to protect them from the hail.
 DAY
5 Weds 10/6/2004 Albuquerque to Bartlesville
Today the balloon folks
did a "Mass Accent". This is where everybody that has a
balloon launchs all at once. While it wasn't as large a launch as
the weekend launch, it was still impressive. The Pretty much got
up
at 3:30am to get everything ready to get out there in time for the dawn
launch. The Balloon
Festival video isn't as good as
it could be as we couldn't get within 4 miles of the main area due to a
temporary flight restriction. Special thanks to Gary Blascziek
from the FAA for coming up with us to man the camera.
Video: Balloon Festival
We finished filming the balloons at 10:30 and took off to Bartlesville
with marginal VFR conditions, mountains, and thunderstorms to the
East. We pretty much had to skim over the mountains and then skud
run under the overcast layer all the way through Texas. Once into
Oklahoma, we had to divert around the thunderstorms a bunch but we did
finally make it into Bartlesville before dark.
ACCOMMODATIONS
Hotel Phillips
821 Johnstone
(918) 336-5600
 Day
9 - Sun 10/10/2004 Bartlesville to St. Louis Missouri
ROUTE
- Follow Highway 44 to Springfield then on to St. Louis
Day
10 - Mon 10/11/2004 St. Louis Missouri
Pretty nasty flying and video day. Storm
coming in from the East... that whole Hurricane Matthew
thing..... Anyway, got off the ground in the morning before the
rain
came in but not before the strong winds from the East. Flew over
St. Louis and got some footage of the St. Louis "Gateway" Arch.
Unfortunately, we were fighting 30Kts winds but you get the idea.....
it's a big arch and pretty cool.
For dinner, I'd strongly recommend Cunetto's House of Pasta on "The
Hill" followed up by frozen custard at Ted Drewe's. The hill area
was heavily settled by Italians in the early days and there's still a
large bunch there running really good restaurants. A St. Louis
signature dish is the toasted ravioli.... pretty yummy.
Video:
St. Louis "Gateway" Arch
Day
11 - Tue 10/12/2004 St. Louis Missouri
On the ground in St. Louis, overcast at
800ft with 2 mile visibility. There's just to many damn towers
out here to risk it. I'm finding they're real fond of their radio
and cellphone towers out here, or at least they seem to have more of
them for some reason. Enjoying getting caught up on work and
other administrative matters.
 Day
12 - Wed 10/13/2004 St. Louis Missouri to Dalhart Texas
ROUTE
- OK, I'd love to tell you that our route went
as planned. But what really happen was the we were socked in at
St. Louis. The multiple, low level, layers meant that we didn't
get off the ground until 11:30am. It was so scattered and goofy
that we called the FAA weather briefer who said that the Spirit of St.
Louis airport was VFR, then a few minutes later, we couldn't get a
clearance to leave because the airport was socked in. Anyway, we
got of the ground and dodged a bunch of low layers of scattered clouds
to head West. The bee line wen really pretty well in the
afternoon but as we reached the West side of Oklahoma, the rain, 30kts
+ winds, and low ceilings forced us to land in Dalhart Texas.... you
know.... Dalhart. OK, you never heard of it but that was the best
we could do. By the time the sun was going down we were dealing
with 400 ft ceilings, rain, and high winds... pretty much wishing we
were on the ground and someplace else. Anyway, after catching the
"If you got a gun on you, you can go to jail sign down at the steak
house, we got a good nights sleep and hit the road first thing in the
AM.
Video: No
Video today, just moving as fast a possible over the country.
Day
13 - Thurs 10/14/2004 Dalhart Texas to Sedona Arizona
Left early in the morning for Sedona,
Arizona. Got to Tucumcari New Mexico and then tried to cross the
Rocky's into Albuquerque,
New Mexico. There was still some strong
winds from the North so we got a chance to make sure that the mixed
nuts we got from Costco Wholesale were really mixed up. Anyway,
after landing at the Double Eagle, and Winslow airports for fuel, we
flew into Sedona around 4pm. Setup the video camera and took some
footage. Found out that the entire airport shuts down at 6pm so
had to scramble for a place to stay as most places were full.
Ended up staying at the Enchantment resort which is pretty high end but
very nice.
Hoping to get more video of the ruins in the hills tomorrow.
Video: Check
out the first Sedona Video
Day
14 - Fri 10/15/2004 Sedona Arizona to Home
Well, the Sedona airport and just about
all businesses on the airport shutdown after 6pm. So we kinda got
stranded..... The other problem was it turns out the town was mostly
booked up for hotels.... So, we ended up staying in the top
notch Enchantment Resort. It's a bit pricey (holy smokes....I
actually said that $325 a night is a bit pricey) but the location is
amazing. There's plenty of footage of Boyton canyon and the
resort on our second day movie. After taking more video,
we
took off
with clear skies and made a bee line for the cabin in Yosemite.
Video: Checkout
the Movies page for the final videos
That's all Folks!!!!
Home at last, we'll be at it again soon.
Matty
|
