What is the best transition through Salt Lake City heading east?

tspear

tspear

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Timothy
Hello,

My plane is currently at Cedar City (KCDC), planning to head east back towards Boston on Friday morning. I expect to spend 3-4 days flying home; so good food/fuel/hotel stops appreciated!

My original route was a southern route which I have done before. However, looking at the current fronts I think a northern route might be better to get around the Rockies (staying VFR until I am away from mountains). Not having flown a northern route around the Rockies, I figured I would ask the collective wisdom on the best route.

My search has shown there is a common recommendation for I80 or Emigration Canyon. However, I am largely coming up empty on the best way points or other information to use for filing a VFR flight plan (I will be talking to ATC for flight following also). I also could not find any recommendations when coming from the south.

Any suggestions appreciated.

Thanks,

Tim
 
SR22 N/A. Trying to stay under 11.5 since I did not bring the O2.
Stopping at SLC is not a requirement or a wish. I am at KCDC now; I did not see any routes east further south than SLC without going above 11.5.

Tim
 
A few years ago I went around the southern route, Farmington then near Raton, NM, coming back from St George, UT. I’d have to look at a chart, went around the higher terrain, never went real high.

Going up the CO River, or maybe near the Green River to get up near I-80 seems like another idea. I’d think weather & winds would factor in. It does sound like a great flight.
 
tspear said:
Hello,

My plane is currently at Cedar City (KCDC), planning to head east back towards Boston on Friday morning. I expect to spend 3-4 days flying home; so good food/fuel/hotel stops appreciated!

My original route was a southern route
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For the Flight Plan just put in Waypoints where you make bends.
 
Here's what I'd do in my 182 if I wanted to stay below 11500. I'd depart Cedar City to the south then go around the mountains over Zion towards Kanab then northeast towards Escalante and Hanksville, continuing on to Rawlins Wyoming and then east from there. Bear in mind there is a whole lot of nothing out there and the terrain is very rugged with very few places to make a forced landing.
 
a572mike has suggested a good route. Another option, from CDC, you can head towards, but not quite all the way to Provo, then veer towards Heber City, then Evanston, Wyoming, then follow I-80. You'll keep the highest points (over 11,500 to cross) to your east, all doable at less than 11500.
 
Oh, and if you're looking for food when you get to Rawlins, there's a Thai place downtown that's way better than you think it should be.
 
I’m not trying to be mean - really I’m not - but I see this kind of question once in a while and I kind of don’t get it. What are your concerns? I’d just open up ForeFlight, follow the lower terrain and go. With a little zigging and zagging for the mountains and passes I’d probably just go CDC>RIF>VEL>RWL then east.

upload_2021-5-26_14-44-6.gif

Just want to understand a little better the reason for the question.
 
Because I am a flat lander :)
So I am very cautious in the Rockies and surrounding areas.
As a general rule, I will either file a flight plan and get flight following or go IFR. A flight plan without way points is rather useless, and I have had ATC drop me from flight following often enough that I do not depend on it.

Tim
 
I'd go KCDC to U52 to KRIF, through the pass northeast, then to KVEL then KRWL and you're home free.
 
Gotcha. Well, I feel like weather decisions are easier in the mountains sometimes than a place like Boston, it's either clearly good or clearly bad. Not too much to interpret. If you can see where you're going and the winds are calm, you should be good!

PS, you're more likely to get dropped from FF due to lack of radar or radio coverage than anything. I get "check back in on 123.45 in 25 miles" not infrequently. I kinda like it.
 
Now for the important stuff. Maybe snug up to WI or MI on day 1, hole up.

FD31F434-971D-42B9-9960-ACC3070B61F2.png
 
@sourdough44

Yup, I will either go north and stay between the two systems as they move east.
Or go south planning to roughly Santa Fe on Friday. Then follow the system the south east on Saturday before going north east behind the system.

There is roughly a two day gap between the systems.

Tim
 
Was just down in CDC last month with the wife. I would probably do this:

If using flight following you will lose them probably between VPPVO and EVW.
MLF DTA VPPVO (through Provo Canyon) HCR EVW then follow I80 east.

If you want to have the best chance at staying with FF substitute out VPPVO and HCR with PVU and VPZOO. This last one sets you up for Emigration Canyon which is a little more open than Parleys.

Assuming VFR don’t fly this with any mountain obscuration (people die in those mountains routinely for different reasons) and check winds aloft 9-12k.
 
Just to add to what I just said, if you are at 11.5 the canyons are just waypoints. You will be well above them with no concerns. If using Provo Canyon you will have rocks on each side. It’s a non-factor. Really rather pretty.

upload_2021-5-26_21-34-11.jpeg
 
@woodchucker

Agree, in the Rockies I am VFR only with 30 knots wind or less.

I just do not have the local knowledge to be more adventurous.

Tim

Sent from my HD1907 using Tapatalk
 
Well, I'm a flatlander too.
My brother & I flew from OKC to Pocatello, Id last October to pick up and fly the Rans S6S back. We flew out I40 to Moriarty, NM, then North, sort of threading our way through the lower elevations to Pocatello. The highest we ever really had to really go was 9500'. We were in the 30 mile SLC vail, but that was as close as we got to SLC. We even stayed out of the Provo airspace when got to Spanish Forks, we went through the "Provo Pass" to Heber City. Then stayed inside the SLC vail around the SLC Bravo on in to Pocatello.
 
I’m a flat lander too so I like the security of flying Victor airways when possible over inhospitable terrain that I am not familiar with. As you know, they give you 1000 ft on obstruction clearance in low terrain areas, but 2000 ft in mountainous areas. Looking at the routing from Salt Lake area (TCH) , take V35 to Ft Bridger, V6 to Rock Springs, then to Cherokee to Medicine Bow, then V100 to Scottsbluff then eastbound, or from Rocksprings V235 to Muddy Mountain, then to Newcastle, then V536 to Rapid City, then eastward. I realize you did not want higher than 11500, but only the first 77 miles have the MEA of 12000. The rest of the routings have MEAs of 11200 or less. While O2 is desirable, this would appear quite legal and obstruction safe otherwise.
 
tspear said:
My plane is currently at Cedar City (KCDC), planning to head east back towards Boston on Friday morning. I expect to spend 3-4 days flying home; so good food/fuel/hotel stops appreciated!

My original route was a southern route which I have done before. However, looking at the current fronts I think a northern route might be better to get around the Rockies (staying VFR until I am away from mountains). Not having flown a northern route around the Rockies, I figured I would ask the collective wisdom on the best route.

My search has shown there is a common recommendation for I80 or Emigration Canyon. However, I am largely coming up empty on the best way points or other information to use for filing a VFR flight plan (I will be talking to ATC for flight following also). I also could not find any recommendations when coming from the south.
Click to expand...

tspear said:
SR22 N/A. Trying to stay under 11.5 since I did not bring the O2.
Click to expand...

With those requirements, I would go maybe KCDC KSPK VEL MBW and east from there. If you don't have any mountain flying experience/instruction, that's plenty adventurous. Try to depart at sunrise and avoid it if the winds aloft at the peaks are >25 knots and you should be in pretty good shape. I would remain south of Lake Michigan too, unless you're willing to bet your life on your engine. A cold bath is a terrible way to go. If you do want to stick closer to the great circle and cross the pond, add MTW MBH to your flight plan and spend 20 minutes at 13,500.

Now, looking for places where you can stop along that route (and from there eastbound)... Just be sure to call ahead and make sure things are still open after the year we've had:

KOFK Norfolk, NE has a nice little restaurant on the field.
If you like Buddy Holly et al, you can fly over the place where the music died and rock your wings. Near KMCW.
Mi Tierra at 05C is a fantastic little Mexican joint. Be sure to ask "What's cooking" when the waitress comes to take your order. The chef/owner will come out of the kitchen, ask you a few questions about what you like, and then tell you what he's going to make for you. I've never been disappointed.
You could file a flight plan and go past Detroit into southern Ontario and fly over Niagara Falls crossing into New York...
If you choose to stay on the US side, KFKL Franklin, PA has Primo Barone's (Italian, of course) in the terminal. Just be sure you don't park or walk inside the Red Line of DOOM lest the TSA come shoo you away. That whole situation is actually quite entertaining.
If that's not your cup of tea either, just a hair east of there at KOYM there is a restaurant on the field as well (in the upper floor, you'll need to walk around to the "ground" side of the terminal building to get up there).

And from there, you're getting back into your own neighborhood and probably not gonna stop again.

It doesn't look like you'll get much past the Missouri River (NE/IA border) tomorrow VFR, so maybe OMA or SUX (haha) would be a decent place to stop overnight. Or, if you're really not in a hurry and/or run into weather earlier and want to go to the Denver area, KAPA has a really nice on-field restaurant (nicer steakhouse type) and I've had really good service at Front Range... Er, the "Colorado Air and Space Port" KCFO. They can get you a rental car and a good deal on a hotel there and you'll be around a bigger city with things to do instead of in cow, pig, and corn territory.

tspear said:
Because I am a flat lander :)
So I am very cautious in the Rockies and surrounding areas.
Click to expand...

And there is nothing at all wrong with that. It is to be admired.

And I see I misunderstood, you're IFR capable, just wanting to avoid it in the mountains. Good move. But I bet your hotel will be cheaper west of the Mississippi!
 
The southern route ended up closing on me last night. Went from 20% Thunderstorms to 40% chance of thunderstorms with hail and wind sheer coming out of the mountains. With the northern route clear it became a no brainer.
I went with @Jim Carpenter suggestion and filed KCDC KHCR HERTS KEVW FBR V6 OCS T302 MBW 82V. For a food/fuel stop in Pine Bluffs WY before continuing to Nebraska (where is TBD depends on how far the front moves during the day and how much I want to fly).

Glad I asked, thanks for the suggestions.

Tim
 
MajorTurbulence said:
I’m a flat lander too so I like the security of flying Victor airways when possible over inhospitable terrain that I am not familiar with. As you know, they give you 1000 ft on obstruction clearance in low terrain areas, but 2000 ft in mountainous areas. Looking at the routing from Salt Lake area (TCH) , take V35 to Ft Bridger, V6 to Rock Springs, then to Cherokee to Medicine Bow, then V100 to Scottsbluff then eastbound, or from Rocksprings V235 to Muddy Mountain, then to Newcastle, then V536 to Rapid City, then eastward. I realize you did not want higher than 11500, but only the first 77 miles have the MEA of 12000. The rest of the routings have MEAs of 11200 or less. While O2 is desirable, this would appear quite legal and obstruction safe otherwise.
Click to expand...

Victor airways are NOT your friend over inhospitable terrain. The routing I gave above stays clear of obstacles and/or stays near roads. That’s why the OP asked for local advice. I am out of Salt Lake and fly these mountains routinely. I also fly to Denver from time to time. Wyoming is desolate. The only route that I consider safe (in a single at least) is over I-80. Nobody will find you if you go down if you are off of I-80.

If you are VFR and winds are <25 and cloud tops are >10k it’s easy peasy to make the flight through the rocks east of Salt Lake.
 
woodchucker said:
Victor airways are NOT your friend over inhospitable terrain. The routing I gave above stays clear of obstacles and/or stays near roads. That’s why the OP asked for local advice. I am out of Salt Lake and fly these mountains routinely. I also fly to Denver from time to time. Wyoming is desolate. The only route that I consider safe (in a single at least) is over I-80. Nobody will find you if you go down if you are off of I-80.

If you are VFR and winds are <25 and cloud tops are >10k it’s easy peasy to make the flight through the rocks east of Salt Lake.
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I like to fly IFR also, as in “I Fly Roads” over inhospitable terrain. That is why I chose to follow the Alaskan highway enroute to Alaska, and not fly as direct as possible. I also like to get local advice when traveling over unfamiliar and potentially hazardous terrain, as another recent thread of mine demonstrated. I think the advice by you and others with local knowledge demonstrate great routing possibilities that us flatlanders would not have necessarily considered.

But unless you never take any risks in your flying, even with great visibility, weather and lower winds, I would bet you have flown over areas that were desolate enough that if you went down, finding you would be problematic, and where there may not be roads underfoot. One of the beauties of flying is the ability to get places others could not even dream of, if you chose to. But the proposition that flying Victor airways have little or no merit when traversing the high mountain ranges as an aid to those not completely familiar with all the terrain underneath is, I think a disservice. Those airways, when flying the MEAs, when the winds are not too high, provide definitive terrain clearances, radio reception with ATC, and if a mishap occurs, a relatively defined area for search and rescue when on FF or a VMC IFR clearance, or less immediately if not talking to anyone on a VFR flight plan. We all hope that if not actively communicating with ATC, activating your ELT if possible in the air, or activating a portable beacon on the ground, is something we are in a position to do, to get us found quickly.
 
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MajorTurbulence said:
But unless you never take any risks in your flying, even with great visibility, weather and lower winds, I would bet you have flown over areas that were desolate enough that if you went down, finding you would be problematic
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I did. Once. Regretted the heck out of it in retrospect. Got away with a lifetime of stupidity in one flight.

You do you flatlander. My life depends on smart flight planning here in the rocks. Come fly here routinely. Then feel free to contribute.
 
woodchucker said:
I did. Once. Regretted the heck out of it in retrospect. Got away with a lifetime of stupidity in one flight.
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Please tell us more about your one experience, so we all can learn from your mistakes the pitfalls of flying Victor Airways at their respective MEAs. Downdrafts, mountain waves and turbulence would come to my mind if flying with excessive high altitude winds at high DA and associated degraded aircraft performance.
 
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tspear said:
The southern route ended up closing on me last night. Went from 20% Thunderstorms to 40% chance of thunderstorms with hail and wind sheer coming out of the mountains. With the northern route clear it became a no brainer.
I went with @Jim Carpenter suggestion and filed KCDC KHCR HERTS KEVW FBR V6 OCS T302 MBW 82V. For a food/fuel stop in Pine Bluffs WY before continuing to Nebraska (where is TBD depends on how far the front moves during the day and how much I want to fly).

Glad I asked, thanks for the suggestions.
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So how's the trip been so far @tspear?
 
flyingcheesehead said:
So how's the trip been so far @tspear?
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Fun. Had lunch at a cafe call Sadies in Pine Bluff WY, the crew car was a land yacht from about 1990. Times it well, left Cedar City about 8am to get through the mountains around 10am on schedule as the Airmet Sierra was ending at 10am for the Wyoming plains. So had clear sailing with only very occasionally light chop and just a couple bumps.

Stayed last night in Lincoln Nebraska. Was IFR to get through a layer, and for some reason ATC held me there for twenty minutes. It was only about 500 ft thick. But kinda fun to stay there.

For now we are bouncing all over the Midwest waiting for the nasty weather to clear in Boston. In Madison Wisconsin tonight, looks like we are going to Lansing Michigan tomorrow night, and then somewhere in NY on Monday. :) Having fun goofing around and ignoring work.

Tim

Sent from my HD1907 using Tapatalk
 
tspear said:
In Madison Wisconsin tonight, looks like we are going to Lansing Michigan tomorrow night, and then somewhere in NY on Monday. :) Having fun goofing around and ignoring work.
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Nice! I learned to fly in Madison and was based there for about a decade. More like 15 years really since even after I had an airplane elsewhere I was still on the board of a flying club over there and still flew in and out frequently and flew the club planes now and then.

You should have breakfast at the Jet Room in the Wisconsin Aviation GA terminal. Or maybe lunch, since it sounds like you're not really in a hurry. ;) Or if you're hopping Lake Michigan, head up to KSBM Sheboygan and eat there for lunch at the Fuel Café, in the big gray building at the southeast part of the airport. The lake is narrower up that way too.
 
I was up tonight in Northern Illinois... really nice Wx for flying right now. Other than that - agree with everything stated above... enjoy the Midwest!
 
MajorTurbulence said:
Please tell us more about your one experience, so we all can learn from your mistakes the pitfalls of flying Victor Airways at their respective MEAs. Downdrafts, mountain waves and turbulence would come to my mind if flying with excessive high altitude winds at high DA and associated degraded aircraft performance.
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Woodchucker, you decided not to respond to further edify us as to the mistakes you made. I would conclude from that that you either were not at the MEAs and much lower, or you were flying those Victor airways when the winds were really too high and had to deal with dangerous downdrafts or bone jarring turbulence. Were you at or over gross with very poor climbing performance, or in the clouds with no view of the peaks, embedded thunderstorms, or in icing. Proper flight planning and decision making would have eliminated those concerns flying the airways.

Now I’m not putting down local knowledge at all; I wish I had it at all times. But if you don’t, and can’t easily get it, but you have the proper weather conditions, ie great vfr and low winds, and planning to cross the rocks early in the AM, hopefully well under gross, and have O2 as appropriate, I’m not sure why I should be timid about flying those airways at the proper altitudes and crossing the ridges at 45 deg. I get that some will not fly a single over water, terrain, or at night. I try to defer flying over the Great Lakes in my single ( unless it’s over Beaver Island, etc, and full disclosure, I have flown the Bahamas ), but do fly at night; I just won’t fly over the western mountain ranges at night or in less than pretty optimal weather conditions. What’s wrong with that?
 
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Didn’t reply because it wasn’t worth replying to. Victor airways are not a safe flight plan over the rocks. They tend to be direct. Over unsafe terrain. Where radar services and thus FF are not always available. You didn’t buy my earlier explanation and you won’t buy this one. I’ll fly the rocks at night, in a single. And I know how to be relatively safe. You do you.
 
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