Lacombe

Fort Langley to Lacombe

Alberta

Since I flew my friend, Ted Davis' Beaver Ultralight from Golden to Lacombe on April 30th and May 1st of 2000, I had been interested in flying my own plane to Alberta from the West Coast. So, in the summer of 2001, I decided to do it and this is the route I flew on July 4th, 2001 from Glen Valley near Fort Langley to Quilchena Ranch, Salmon Arm, Revelstoke, Golden, Rocky Moutain House and ending at Lacombe, Alberta on July 5th after overnighting at Rocky Mountain House.

This is what the Coquihalla highway looks like from my Beaver ultralight 10,000 feet above sea level.

IGSIQuil

I stopped here to top my fuel tank both going and coming back. On the way back to the Coast, I stayed overnight at the Quilchena Hotel because the gas station had closed and I didn't have enough fuel for the remaining 2 1/2 hour flight home.

This is the airport at Salmon Arm. A fellow ultralighter, John McDermott who is president of the Okanagan Ultralight Association and who owns Lakeland Ultralights Ltd., was manning the fuel pumps. He was very friendly and helpful. He advised me that the Revelstoke Airport was closed due to repaving of the runway. He phoned the airport on my behalf to enquire about my flight there but we could not contact anyone. I decided to take off anyway.

This is a truck haul road next to the runway that was being repaved. I landed on this after talking with a radio operator during the approach. I transferred fuel from a 25 litre gas container I had strapped in the rear seat to the plane's gas tank and took off shortly after. By this time, it was about 1:00 pm and I was wondering about the afternoon wind conditions in Rogers Pass. It was relatively calm for the first part of the flight to Three Valley Gap and the west end of Rogers Pass but, as I flew out of the east end of Rogers Pass and turned north to the Columbia River and east to Golden, I encountered some turbulence due to the heat of the day convection.

I got to Golden about 3:00 pm BC time or 4:00 pm Alberta time. I was preparing to stay the night at the Golden Airport but a young female pilot at the airport advised me that it would be fine to fly through Howse Pass later in the evening. Accordingly, after checking with FSS, I took off at 7:30 pm Mountain Daylight Saving Time and headed west of Golden a few miles to the Blaeberry River drainage that takes you to Howse Pass.

This is what it looks like flying through Howse Pass at 7000 feet ASL. The valley bottom is 5000 feet ASL so I am only about 2000 feet AGL. For the next 10 miles, there were no roads and one would have to ditch the plane into trees if there were an engine failure. As I left the Howse Pass to the north, I entered the Howse River valley and shortly banked around a large mountain ridge and flew east to Saskatchewan River Crossing where the Howse River joins with the North Saskatchewan coming off the Columbia Icefields to the north. Unlike my flight the previous year, there were no strong gusts of wind coming off the glacier this time.

As I flew over Saskatchewan River Crossing, the David Thompson Highway appeared below and I followed it east to Abraham Lake, a dammed lake of the North Saskatchewan. As I expected, it was gusty there at the west end of the lake where two drainages enter the lake from the north and south, bringing cold air down from higher elevations. However, after a few miles of bouncing around, I flew over land to the east of Abraham Lake and it was calm flying the rest of the way to Rocky Mountain House. This picture was actually taken on the way back to the Coast on July 10th.

I landed there and refuelled. At 10 pm I took off with the intentions of flying the 1 1/4 hour remaining flight to Lacombe but, a short while after taking off, I saw my friend Ted flying towards me from Lacombe. He was low on fuel so I turned to fly back with him to Rocky Mountain House. It’s just as well Ted came to meet me since it would have been quite dark by the time I would have arrived at Lacombe! We left the planes there overnight and returned the next day to complete the flight to Lacombe.

The next day we flew on to Lacombe and I took this picture of Ted as he flew beside me.

I finally arrived at Lacombe about 11:00 am on Thursday, July 5th. This is my plane IGSI parked in Ted's hangar at the Lacombe Airport.

This is Ted's Beaver Ultralight IDYB parked on the other side of his hangar.

This is Ted working on his plane in front of his hangar. I stayed at Lacombe visiting with Ted for the rest of that week and part of the next. All the time I was there, though, I was worried about the weather and getting my plane back to BC. There was some lightning and thunder storms the day before I decided to leave. However, on the morning of Tuesday, July 10th, the Edmonton FSS advised me the weather was acceptable and I took off at 5:00 am and flew west back to Rocky Mountain House. I stayed overnight at the Quilchena Ranch Hotel and arrived back at my Glen Valley airstrip on July 11th safe and sound! It was a great expericence flying my ultralight to Alberta and back!