This was actually taken that morning on my way out of American Falls. Decided it looked nice enough to try heading back west a little to the Interstate again and then follow it towards SLC.
Turned out to be a good move. Had to fly pretty low over the Interstate, avoiding a few pretty high communication towers for a while, but the then the weather started getting nicer. Here I flew quite a bit out of my way (to the right) to stay over the highway.
I didn't want to fly through Salt Lake City's class B airspace, and the clouds prevented my flying over it at this point, so my plan was to fly over the Great Salt Lake, hopefully at a high enough altitude to be able to glide to at least near the shore if necessary. To accomplish this I abandoned the interstate and flew down a finger of land, hoping the weather would improve before the lake. As you can see it did. You can also see why the FSS was saying travel east of the Wasatch range was not VFR north of SLC.
The Great Salt Lake was green and red today... the digital camera didn't do so well here (also I was using a lower resolution). By the time I got to the end of the finger of land the sky was clear, so I climbed up to 7000 feet and headed across the lake.
At the south end of the lake it was cloudy again, but I could see that a little farther toward the east it was clear. Climbed up to 11,000 and flew over the clouds, mountains, and SLC class B for a little bit. Got a nice view of the SLC area for a little bit
and the large copper mine just south of the city .
This is the beginning of the Rocky Mountains, pointed East, just south of SLC. Unfortunately not very nice landing terrain from here to Carbon, UT, about 60 nm to the east.
The terrain outside of Carbon Co (Price) airport (PUC). Some pretty red canyon walls interspersed with snow. Landed at Carbon and ate some lunch. Bought 15.1 gallons of AVGAS ($2.48/gal).
On to Montrose, CO. This was the longest leg. I had planned a straight line between the two but there was some pretty rugged terrain and so I flew in a U to the south about 50 miles to keep within gliding distance of the road.
Passed over the Colorado River on the way to Montrose.
A nice view of the back side of the Front Range from near Grand Junction.
The Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument. Or near it. With the end of my journey in sight I couldn't be bothered to fly 2 miles to the north to look down into it. Time for that later! Kind of odd to above 12,500 feet counting down my 30 minutes without required oxygen, yet only to be about 1500 feet AGL.
Continental Divide. Original plan was to land at Gunnison airport and 'seek local advice' on the best way to cross the divide. However sunset was approaching again, the weather had been absolutely clear with no turbulence what-so-ever, and so I decided to just fly towards Monarch pass and see how it went. Decided to climb high (i.e. 14000-ish) and fly over the ridge.
After a month of reading about mountain flying, rotors, mountain waves, 737's crashing while landing at Colorado Springs, etc. crossing the divide was very much a non-event. The air was calm and I just flew over it.
This is just over the pass, looking south at the west side of the Front Range.
Landed at Fremont, CO at bought 12.9 gallons AVGAS ($2.35/gal) for the last trip home. This is the view east... nothing but plains! Flew the last 30 minutes in the dark and landed at 00V Meadow Lake airport, Colorado Springs.
Total flight time was 10.9 hours. Used about 59 gallons of gas giving a fuel burn of about 5.3 gallons per hour. Most of the flight was spent at 4600-4800 rpm. Average ground speed was 93 kts, which is what I figure my average TAS was also. The engine performed flawlessly, although it did use more oil than I expected... probably 3/4 qt on the trip.