More exploration and flight up the Steen's

The day dawned nice and clear with no noticeable wind, so it was time to go flying again. I decided to go back to the Eastern slopes of the Steen's and see if I could find the animals that I had seen earlier. This time the wind cooperated and I flew up past Cow Camp and down the face of the Sheep Heads. In my last post I mentioned that they were named because of the Big Horn Sheep. Since then in thinking about it, I am not sure that is totally right. They were either named that because of the Sheep, ( of which I have never found any) or because they look like Sheep Heads, ( which they do not to me, but who is to say)

The flight was fairly uneventful and I flew down the valley on the other side of the hills toward Hwy 78 with hardly any "pucker factor" at all this time. I did not however, see any sign of life at all.

I flew across the road and up the canyon where I had seen the critters all the way to the top of the Mt. seeing nothing at all. I decided to fly on along to the Steen's and the Alvord to see if the Glider group had made it to the Alvord. About half way to the Alvord I realized that if I did land on the Alvord, I would be a bit longer than Karen might think that I had gas for, so not wanting to worry her, I climbed for enough altitude to be able to talk to her on the radio. At about 8700 feet I decided to call, since I was high enough to clear any hills in between. At that time I was 37 miles away and she came in loud and clear. Since I was that high I decided to go ahead and fly on up to the top of the Mountain.

In all my flights I had never gotten a look at a lake that is located just under the rim on the South West side of the range. It is called Whitehorse Lake and is quite lovely, although I an not sure that I want to walk to it. A drop of the 700 feet or so that is required, might be just a bit more than I want to do at 10,000 feet altitude.

The winds were calm on top of the mountain and after traversing the majority of the Mountain, I decided to cut my engine and drift down to the lake bed. I did some experimenting with best glide speed and came to the conclusion the 50 MPH was probably my best glide, although this conclusion may or may not be accurate, it suits me. I restarted the engine at 1,000 feet and continued on to the Alvord, landing and talking to the glider guys for a while before heading on home.

Upon arrival at the Rock House I had traversed 149 miles in 2 hours and 24 minutes. I had climbed to 6,000 feet initially and then to 10,500 feet going up the Steen's. I had burned 7 gallons of gas for 21.2 MPG.