The weather looked good on Sunday morning for Kelly’s first flight with me in a while, so off we went to the airport. On the way there we discussed a few options, but settled on Steamboat Springs.

Weather

There was some less-than-ideal weather coming in during the afternoon but the morning looked great so we decided to make the trip to Steamboat Springs; I had a really good flight there a couple of weeks ago which I wrote up in a previous post. The winds aloft were stronger than I hoped but acceptable for mountain flying; they ended up being quite a bit stronger than forecast which caused a few more bumps than I would have liked.

Fort Collins to Steamboat

I prepped and departed Fort Collins before 10am and headed north-west before turning towards Cameron Pass. It was quite a bit bumpier as we climbed because of the strong winds which were barrelling down over the mountains and foothills; I should have thought about this before we left and offered Kelly a Dramamine. Once up to cruising altitude it was calmer but the headwind component exceeded 50kts at times - it took an hour to get over to Steamboat.

I had a pair of GoPros recording and also a separate audio recorder to capture the communications; I’m starting to try to learn the basics of editing in Final Cut Pro X - the video I put together shows departure from Fort Collins but doesn’t have the cockpit audio:

The second video shows approach and landing into Steamboat Springs airport and includes some cockpit audio.

Steamboat really is an exceptionally beautiful town:

As was the case on my previous trip, the folks at the airport are very welcoming and we took a courtesy car into Steamboat to go get a coffee.

Return journey

Remember those headwinds from the way over? 😊 They were now ~47kt tailwinds so we made it back home in a little under 45 minutes.