Johnson Creek

We have done a ton of flying this summer, but still have a couple more items on the list that we really wanted to hit.  Johnson Creek was one of them.  Johnson Creek is kind of a legend airport in the RV world that you really have to go to at least once in your life.  It is a very mountainous place and there is a recommended approach procedure to follow located “ here” that is designed to provide as much safety as possible.  I read the procedure back and forth, also watched a ton of videos that others have made to get as familiar as possible.  You definitely need to know your airplane and have some mountain flying experience before going in to Johnson Creek.  I had a Go Pro on the wing that actually captured a pretty amazing video that you can see below.

 

For this trip, we made plans with a friend who has an RV up at Arlington to meet up Friday at 4:00 in the air above Snohomish.  From there we flew together in a 10 knot headwind the whole way to Johnson Creek getting there about in about 2.5 hours.  As you can see in the video, it put our arrival right in the early evening which made for some great shadows in the canyon.  Bekah and I were shocked to see how serious this canyon is.  The canyon walls are much steeper and much closer in that even the video suggests.  It’s a wide angle camera lens so while it captures everything, in reality those walls and trees are much more daunting than even visible in the video.

 

Click here to watch the video !

 

After arriving we quickly set up camp and made a huge fire with the free firewood as the temps plummeted.  Overnight it got down into the 20’s, but then the next day as the sun came up over the canyon walls the temps shot up hitting about 80 degrees on our hike to the famous hot springs bath tub..   Here I am getting in my morning bath ;-) While Bekah, Scott and Casey get the famous foot soak.  Such a great trip and just amazing that we are lucky enough to do things like this.

 

 

The Flight home was fairly bumpy as we departed mid-day in the high density altitude, and continued as we came across the Idaho mountains into Washington.  We refueled near Walla Walla and then shot across the Cascades in much smoother air making it home by late afternoon.  Amazing trip !