WLM | adventure
Next up was a series of sand dunes between I-80
and Oregon Buttes, followed by encountering
an enormous elk herd on a sage-covered butte.
Following the elk herd, I was treated to antelope
herds, and then more horses, each of which I
photographed extensively.
The Wind River Range was on my list, and
I climbed into the southern section, clearing
13,000’ and finding some of the most amazing
mountain scenery I had yet seen in the airplane.
This statement comes from someone who had just
finished flying all 58 peaks over 14,000’ in Colorado
with the same airplane, and this just took the cake.
After fueling in Pinedale, I wound up in Jackson by
way of Hoback Canyon, squeezed on the left by the
Wyoming Range and the right by the Gros Ventre
Range. Right over Jackson my lens broke, which
soured my mood, though I had a backup camera and
switched over to it.
My cantankerousness over the lens malfunction,
coupled with the deteriorating conditions for
photography (clouds and haze), conspired to dampen
my perspective of the Jackson Hole area as I flew over
it. I was undergoing an element of personal struggle
at the time, reconciling my fantasies about ski towns
in the Rockies with the realities I had just learned
about in Colorado. I remember deciding not to move
to Wyoming, because Jackson looked the same as the
towns in Colorado: “remote, expensive, and filled with
tourists.” It would be literally nine months later that I
would fly the same airplane within 20 miles of that exact
point as I moved it to my new home in Alpine. Life is
filled with ironies, even if it is we unto ourselves.
I then flew north at 9,500’ over Jackson Hole airport
(to avoid the airspace) and got thrown around like
a leaf in the breeze by the strong winds raging off of
the Tetons. Since moving to Wyoming, I learned that
9,500’ is the worst altitude to fly east of Grand Teton.
Nonetheless, I plunged into Yellowstone, learning for
the first time that the place is surprisingly flat, devoid of
emergency landing locations, and scarily wild. Those of
us from the East somehow come to the conclusion that
Yellowstone should look like Glacier Bay, Alaska.
Seeing the hot springs was beyond words.
50
Wyoming Lifestyle Magazine | Spring 2016
Fuel was West Yellowstone, Montana, followed by a
high-speed flight east over the Absarokas, Cody, the
Bighorn Basin, and then the Bighorn Range due to
strong tailwinds. That was my first experience with
the incredible winds that I now know are normal in
Yellowstone, especially as they funnel over the range
and into Cody, which is like a natural wind tunnel.
The Bighorns were a surprise, with a verdantly green
eastern slope descending into Buffalo. I spent the night
in a tent behind the airplane, off the next morning at
6 AM. West of Devils Tower, enjoying the carpet of
yellow flowers over eastern Wyoming, the engine got
rough. I fired a text to my wife: “Engine roughness, 24
miles SW of Hulett, WY – will try to make it there.”
Recall that I have no radio, so my only hope of being
found was a successful landing, walking to a ranch 20
miles away, and not dying of thirst beforehand. The
engine kept running thankfully, and as I got nearer
to Hulett, I realized there was nothing on the facility
directory. No hotel, rental car, mechanic, nothing. The
engine still ran, so I made Spearfish, South Dakota,
having ended my trip to Wyoming with quite a bit more
than a touch of adventure, which would only preview
the reality of flying all over the state once I moved there
the next spring. How little I knew what I was getting
myself into… W L M
Garrett Fisher is the author of nine books, having just published
his first Wyoming aerial photography book Flying the Star
Valley in January 2016. He is in the process of publishing a
long list of aerial photography books focused on the Rockies as
seen from his antique airplane. Garrett blogs regularly about
his aviation adventures at www.garrettfisher.me.