This is a ridge I have been wanting to land on for years, and I finally had an excuse to do it. We need access to this area for a job that we hope to do tomorrow. I went scouting this evening for a place to land and after a bunch of passes I set down. I had looked it over carefully enough that there were no surprises, and I was stoked to get out of the cub in a brand new spot that had never been landed on by anybody. I spent about an hour digging up boulders and leveling bumps. Then I landed on it again to experience the improvements. It’s just over 5100′ elevation, and the fog hung above the strip making the light flat and the air dead still.
It’s not uncommon for us to bypass an area for years before landing on it. I’ve always struggled with the concept of landing just for grins in a new area. It seems like the risk/reward ratio never balances out if I do not have a purpose for landing on virgin ground. There is always an element of risk when you know that you are the first one to do it. In fact, tonight the lighting was poor enough, that I nearly smacked a rock the size of a wheel barrow with my left main gear. It’s easy to do when you are covering an area at 50 mph from 3 feet off the ground in a tight valley. It requires much maneuvering to really get down and look things over. There are a ton of variables flying at you, and your brain is scrambling to pick out the important ones. It also takes several passes just to determine the general area and direction of the landing strip before working out the specific rocks that need dodging and ditches that need avoiding. Then there are the inevitable wind issues to work out for each strip, and the approach and departure options to think about once I am using this strip loaded. It’s really more of an art than a science, but it’s great to crawl out of that cub for the first time on a new piece of dirt.