Flight 1 - Vancouver to Merritt
Not exactly according to plan.
It was a modest plan. We would fly to Salmon Arm BC for a night of under-the-wing airplane camping, with a stop on the way in Merritt for a picnic lunch. But we weren't planning to fly a straight line, because some pretty serious mountains, the Coast Mountains and the Cascades, stand between Vancouver and Merritt. With peeks at 9,000 and 10,000 feet, these can be a challenge for our little plane. On a good day, we can climb over them, but we don't usually do it that way. For one thing, the cloud bases are often not high enough. For another, going directly across those mountains puts us over some rugged terrain with no reasonable options for an emergency landing. Instead, we usually plan routes that follow valleys, where there are roads and settlements and other airports and better cloud clearance, with short hops when necessary to cross over between valleys.
Our plan on this Saturday was exactly that. We would follow the Fraser Canyon as far as Boston Bar, then climb out of that canyon and fly across to the Kokahala canyon to follow that to Merritt.
Fortunately, we had a Plan B. If the cloud bases wouldn't let us climb high enough to get out of the Fraser Canyon, we would continue on to Lytton, turn right into the Thompson Canyon, follow that for a bit, then turn right again in the Nicola River Canyon to Merritt. This would add about 45 minutes to the trip, but at least it would be very scenic.
Here a video of the flight to Merritt. You can see for yourself what happened.
Flight 2 and Salmon Arm
It was getting late in the afternoon by the time we left Merritt. The plan was to follow the Nicola river and lakes to the Thomson River, then follow the Shuswap lake route around into the Shuswap valley and down to Salmon Arm.
The weather briefer warned us of possible thunderstorm activity along our route and, sure enough, we managed to find some. But we came up with a cunning plan.
Check out the video
Camping at Salmon Arm
We went for a quick walk around the airport to stretch our legs, then quickly set up the tent and got out the cookware.
It's a bit of a tradition for us to have beans and weiners on our first camping night. This time, we even had vegetarian gluten free weiners for Janine. While we cooked up our dinner, the jump plane continued to take up load after load of jumpers. It was beautiful weather and peaceful surroundings. Made for a wonderful evening.
