Garrett Fisher

Author, Pilot, & Adventurer

Email subscription form header
Subscribe
Your email address:*
Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide
Powered by FeedBlitz
  • Writings
  • Documentary & Interview
  • Press
  • Economics
  • Maps
  • Flying Videos
  • TEDx Talk: Forget Economics
  • About Me

Powered by Genesis

Archives for October 2018

Flight: Switzerland: August Snow

October 28, 2018 by Garrett

Why would I write about August snow, in late October?

There is something to be said that it substantially hadn’t really snowed since this mysterious August event, a product of an extended Swiss Indian summer that defies one’s normal expectations of what one thinks when they hear the word “alpine.” Then there is the matter that, as I write this right now, snow levels are roughly at 2000m in the Alps with a cold rain down here where mere mortals live. Back in Spain, it is expected to have light accumulations below 1000m, which by all definitions is early. So, on one hand, we have an interesting August snowfall down below 3000m, a strange total lack of anything wintry until practically November, and then a bit of an unusual early Spanish snowfall all the way to the valley floor.

European weather continues to confuse, as it sits there doing nothing exciting for weeks to months, and then the atmosphere splashes an unexpected phase of moisture at seeming random. And when it does spurt something out of the sky, it does it without any fanfare. Clouds ooze in. The temperature slowly slides down. Something begins to gently fall out of the sky. All aforementioned factors incrementally intensify, and I find myself writing about something I deem unusual, though it has been building up at a snail’s pace. In North America, a significant weather change is preceded by apocalyptic wind, angry thunderstorms, some sort of vicious something, and then the atmosphere rages physical matter out of the sky that lands on the ground, which gets Instagrammed as though it never happened before, with a quippy self-serving hashtag accompanying such meteorological ephemera.

In the case of the flight in question, I was hiking the day before at about 1200m, and it was 45 F/ 7 C outside, in August, with a cold rain. I knew enough about the feel and smell of such rain to deduce that it was snowing higher up (this reality confirmed in Colorado, Wyoming, and Spain). The next morning, I could see snow on the north side of the Massif du Chablais, so I saddled up the symbolic steed of economic inequality to chase it before it melted under summer sun.

Just exiting Class D controlled airspace. I love Switzerland.

Bietschhorn. Note light snow on the north side of the ridge.

Bietschhorn again.

August snow. Tyfelsgrat in the center, Breithorn to the left.

Beichgletscher.

Äbeni Flue (3.962m / 12,998′) & Äbeni Flue-Firn. Ie, glaciergasm.

Jungfrau! (4.158m / 13,641′). I am now officially satisfied with how high I am flying.

Gletscherhorn (3.983m / 13,067′), with a light dusting of snow on top of glaciers and ice caps. Amen.

Eiger. (3.967m / 13,015′)

Mönch (4.107m / 13,474′).

I have no clue what this is. It is big and precipitous, though.

Fietschergletscher.

Aletschgletscher. This is half of it, from one mile above it. Its the largest glacier in Europe.

Some glaciers. 

Gspaltenhorn in the foreground. One can see the roughly 3000m snow line clearly.

Doldenhorn (3.643m / 11,952′). Now we’re getting down into low country….

Canton of Bern in the foreground, Canton of Valais over the ridge with light snow. Bietschhorn on the right horizon (flight path en route to high terrain).

Bernese Oberland. While it looks like gentle knolls from up here, if taken in isolation these highlands would be considered noteworthy.

Bernese Alps with Plaine-Morte Gletscher in the background. August snow is clearly visible next to green grass below.

Arpelistock (3.305m / 10,843′), among other things.

Snowfall melting in afternoon sun. 

Les Diablerets.

Col du Pas de Cheville.

I think this is the Grand Muveran.

Roc Champion

Mt Blanc, sneering at me after I already spent my fuel chasing other things. She shall have to wait until another day.

Grand Chavalard above, Rhône River below.

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Flights: Switzerland, France, Italy: Demystifying the Upper Atmosphere

October 12, 2018 by Garrett

It’s not like I haven’t been here before with the Cub. When I was a student pilot, I took the airplane to 7,500 feet, came home, and told my parents about it proudly. My father’s response was, “DON’T EVER DO THAT AGAIN!” My reply to his little tantrum was to take it to 14,000 feet the next time I went flying. There I was, overhead my grandfather’s airstrip at 1,280’ elevation in upstate New York, above incoming airliner traffic to Buffalo, with no radio, looking north of Toronto Canada 75 miles away. I was 16.

Perhaps that moment could have been highly instructive as to how I ended up here a bit over 20 years later.

Anyhow, not too long after moving to Colorado, I took a flight in a snowstorm at 12,000 feet over Fremont Pass into Leadville, to move the airplane to the highest airport in North America at 9,927’ elevation. Two flights later, I was cruising around at my present altitude record: 16,300’, with a passenger.

Now, connect that to 300 hours of flying in the high country of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Utah, to hundreds of hours in the Spanish and French Pyrenees, and I somehow got my undies in a bunch about flying in the Alps. Granted, Mt. Blanc exceeds the highest peak in Colorado by 1,400’, but it’s not like I haven’t gone higher.

There is the matter that I would be starting in Sion at 1,582’ instead of at 10,000’, though refer to my teenage miscreant misadventures, and clearly the airplane could do it, even though I hadn’t figured out the mixture control at the time, so the engine coughed and sputtered its way to 14,000’. I would eventually figure out on my first takeoff run at 5,400’ in Boulder, Colorado that the engine needs to be leaned at high altitude, as I was rotating for takeoff with a curiously partially operative engine. “Maybe if I pull this lever a bit.” [engine roars to life] “Simple enough. Rockies, here we come!”

Anyway, I digress. What is the point? My ass has gotten a bit bigger. You know, middle age (it’s all muscle, I swear). That has lent to a nagging suspicion that a quick jaunt to 16,000’ might be a bit more complex. It was with such a fear that I chose a hot day in late June in Spain to make a detailed record of how long it took to climb from 3,609’ to 16,000’. 56 minutes. And then somebody crashed a plane and I got distracted jumping in to help confirm the wreckage location (he survived), so that supplanted non-emotionalized data consideration (okay, okay, I am just convoluting the large ass thing).

56 minutes is from almost 4,000 feet, not 1,582’, and I have 3 hours of fuel. How would this work?

It didn’t help that an astonishing 28 people died in airplane crashes in the Alps in the week of my arrival to Switzerland, inclusive of another crash in the vicinity of Sion, while I was in the air (again). Nonetheless, if one wants to fly around mountain peaks, getting in and figuring it out is the most expedient way. As the pictures will show, I was just being a wimp and its fine.

Climbout out from Sion, wondering how this all is going to work. Rhône River below.

At this moment, I was fairly certain I would end up above the clouds. Sembrancher lower right.

Pierre Avoi. 8113′ elevation. We’re getting a little somewhere.

Absolutely heading above the clouds.

In the Pyrenees, this would be impressive. Switzerland, its the warmup exercise.

Glacier du Gietro, Switzerland.

And Grand Combin (14,153′). At this moment, I decided I don’t give a crap and I am heading in…

…even if it involves some creative flying.

Grand Combin mixed with clouds.

Mont Vélan, with Italy lurking in the background. On this side of the line, they hoard cash. On the other, they spend it (and everyone else’s), threatening to take the Eurozone down with them. Its amazing what a mountain range will do to the development of culture over millennia.

Grand Combin again.

Glacier de Valsorey, Switzerland.

Some glacier in Switzerland, looking at Italy. At this point, I was somewhat starstruck with glaciers everywhere I looked.

Glacier d’Otemma, Switzerland.

Glacier du Mont Miné. By this point, I realized that whatever mental track I had of what glaciers existed was completely wrong, and there were far more than I recalled.

The Matterhorn (14,692′). Italy foreground, Switzerland background.

Why not get closer?

Dufourspitze, the highest peak in Switzerland (15,203′).

Ice cap on the Italian border. An ice cap differs from a glacier in that an ice cap is frozen to the bedrock, whereas a glacier moves as a river of ice.

Matterhorn again, from the north.

Glacier de Molry.

Col de la Dent Blanche.

A mountain range lurks in those raised clouds. The path back to the airport is in the hole to the center left.

Some good old cumulo-granite….

Circling down…

On final to Sion. Obviously all of that was senseless bluster and there is nothing complicated about it.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

  • Español
  • Français
  • Català

Blog Posts

  • Flights: Spain, Switzerland: A Crazed Aeronautical Bender…Seven Years Later January 25, 2023
  • Flight: France: Surfing the Wave December 19, 2022
  • Flight: Switzerland: A Mystery on the Eiger, 700,000th Photo November 16, 2022
  • Flight: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands: Losing My Flying-Over-Water Virginity October 24, 2022
  • Flights: Norway: Sognefjord, Longest Fjord in Norway September 24, 2022
  • Flights: Norway: Hardangervidda, Largest Mountain Plateau in Europe September 17, 2022
  • Flight: Norway: Galdhøpiggen, Highest Peak in Northern Europe August 20, 2022
  • Flights: Norway: Jostedalsbreen, Largest Glacier in Continental Europe August 7, 2022
  • Flights: Norway: Flyraseri ikke Flyskam July 17, 2022
  • Flight: Switzerland, France, Italy: 2,000 Hours & FL160 July 9, 2022
  • Flight: Day 4: Sweden, Norway: 56N to 59N July 6, 2022
  • Flight: Day 3: Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden: 53N to 56N June 27, 2022
  • Flight: Day 2: France, Belgium, Netherlands: 44N to 53N June 19, 2022
  • Flight: Day 1: Spain, France: 36N to 44N June 4, 2022
  • Flight: Spain: Rock the Casbah, Sierra Nevada, Africa on the Horizon May 8, 2022
  • Flight: Portugal, Spain: Promontorium Sacrum, Last Sausage Before America April 26, 2022
  • Flight: Spain, Morocco: Spanish Africa, Pillars of Hercules, Southernmost Point in Europe April 18, 2022
  • Flights: Spain: The Antipope, Package Holidays & A Clandestine Metropolis April 11, 2022
  • Flights: Days 2 & 3: France, Spain, Portugal: España Verde, Galicia, Aggressive Eucalyptus & Andalucía April 3, 2022
  • Flight: Day 1 of 3: Switzerland, France, Spain, Andorra: Alps, Mediterranean, Pyrenees & Atlantic March 30, 2022

Archives

  • January 2023 (1)
  • December 2022 (1)
  • November 2022 (1)
  • October 2022 (1)
  • September 2022 (2)
  • August 2022 (2)
  • July 2022 (3)
  • June 2022 (3)
  • May 2022 (1)
  • April 2022 (4)
  • March 2022 (1)
  • February 2022 (1)
  • January 2022 (1)
  • December 2021 (2)
  • November 2021 (3)
  • October 2021 (1)
  • September 2021 (1)
  • July 2021 (2)
  • June 2021 (1)
  • May 2021 (3)
  • April 2021 (1)
  • March 2021 (1)
  • February 2021 (1)
  • December 2020 (5)
  • November 2020 (5)
  • October 2020 (1)
  • September 2020 (1)
  • August 2020 (1)
  • July 2020 (1)
  • June 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (1)
  • March 2020 (2)
  • February 2020 (2)
  • January 2020 (1)
  • December 2019 (3)
  • November 2019 (3)
  • October 2019 (1)
  • September 2019 (4)
  • August 2019 (3)
  • July 2019 (2)
  • June 2019 (2)
  • May 2019 (2)
  • April 2019 (2)
  • March 2019 (3)
  • February 2019 (1)
  • January 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (2)
  • October 2018 (2)
  • September 2018 (2)
  • August 2018 (2)
  • July 2018 (3)
  • June 2018 (2)
  • May 2018 (2)
  • April 2018 (1)
  • March 2018 (4)
  • February 2018 (2)
  • January 2018 (2)
  • December 2017 (4)
  • November 2017 (4)
  • October 2017 (4)
  • September 2017 (4)
  • August 2017 (5)
  • July 2017 (3)
  • June 2017 (4)
  • May 2017 (5)
  • April 2017 (4)
  • March 2017 (5)
  • February 2017 (4)
  • January 2017 (1)
  • December 2016 (4)
  • November 2016 (5)
  • October 2016 (4)
  • September 2016 (6)
  • August 2016 (2)
  • July 2016 (4)
  • June 2016 (3)
  • May 2016 (1)
  • April 2016 (5)
  • March 2016 (5)
  • February 2016 (4)
  • January 2016 (6)
  • December 2015 (4)
  • November 2015 (5)
  • October 2015 (5)
  • September 2015 (8)
  • August 2015 (8)
  • July 2015 (8)
  • June 2015 (8)
  • May 2015 (4)
  • April 2015 (4)
  • March 2015 (5)
  • February 2015 (3)
  • January 2015 (2)
  • December 2014 (10)
  • November 2014 (4)
  • October 2014 (1)
  • September 2014 (3)
  • August 2014 (1)
  • July 2014 (6)
  • May 2014 (1)
  • March 2014 (1)
  • February 2014 (3)