It is not often that one has the opportunity to take a long flight south before encountering the Arctic Circle.

One of the disadvantages in selecting Tromsø for a base of operations was the inevitable long slog south to capture the largest glacier complex in northern continental Scandinavia. The glaciers of northern Sweden and Norway are spread in a longer distance north-south than what is found in fjord country east of Bergen. Nonetheless, the time had come that I needed to get it over with, or I wouldn’t do it.

I had intended to make a long day of it, flying south to Bodø and then back north for the night. The idea of “night” was something of a laughable joke anyway, as it barely had existed so far for this adventure. In any case, I knew I needed to reserve quite a bit of time to properly photograph the fullness of Svartisen.

The problem is, the furthest glaciers from Tromsø were another 78 miles south. By the time I fueled in Bodø and took off heading south, I realized that things were taking longer, and I had a problem.

Evening civil twilight set in at 11:15PM or so, which meant that I needed to be on the ground then, although sunset was theoretically before 10PM. I contemplated fudging it, and decided against it, as it is not a good idea to knowingly break rules. So, do I go for the farthest glacier, and race back for an 11PM landing, not sure if it will work, only to come back tomorrow?

As I passed Svartisen, the second largest glacier in Norway, and crossed the Arctic Circle, I decided returning to Tromsø for the night was absurd. Was I really going to spend 8 hours the next day round trip commuting back here? I nibbled away at the little glaciers southwest of Mo i Rana, confirmed my fuel arrangements at Hattfjelldal by text, and made my way down to Byrkijenasjonalpark before rounding the bend at 65N and turning north.

I stopped for fuel in evening light, and continued my work, photographing Okstindbreen and the complex of ice around it, whilst taking a 30-minute jog east into Sweden and back. By the time I had crossed the eastern part of Svartisen, the sun was beginning to set, which it did as I descended over the Atlantic and for final approach to Bodø. It was beautiful. And it was confirmatory that returning to Tromsø was never going to happen.

The problem was, I had absolutely nothing with me to spend the night. No clothes, no nothing. That was made worse as I usually bring ear plugs in the event of unexpected noise. By 2:30AM, I was still not asleep as the hotel was a raucously loud affair. I descended to the front desk to request another room, where I was greeted by at least 50 people having a full-blown party in the lobby. “Are they waiting for a tour bus?” I asked, “they look like they are in a group.” “There is a music festival. That is Norwegian drinking culture.” “So, they’re just drinking?” “Yes.” “How long will it last?” “Some until morning.” “What is the purpose of a hotel room?” The clerk at this point thought I was expressing ire at the noise, to which I had to restate that it made no sense to rent a hotel room when one intends to spend the entire night drunk in the lobby and not sleep in said room. I got a puzzled look in response. Even alcoholics have a modest sense of cost effectiveness, which is why they are often found imbibing cheap liquor.

I was given a different room, with a glorious 3AM view of the Norwegian Civil Aviation Authority’s office across the street, where the twilight was already strengthening before sunrise. Life couldn’t have been better.

The next morning, somewhat ghastly in appearance, I stumbled into a taxi and back to the airport. I had roughly 8 hours left on my 100-hour inspection, which was running out about 7 days before the annual was due. My Norwegian-registered aircraft is subject to 100 hour and annual inspection regimes, whereas US registered aircraft for private use only have an annual requirement. While it is generally a massive thorn in my side, it generally hadn’t made a material impact….yet.

That meant one long arse-numbing flight of 4.5 hours to Svartisen, to enjoy it in its full glory, before a fuel stop back at Bodø, and then the commute to Tromsø, where I would hope to god the mechanic would fly in from Bergen and perform the inspection (he did!).

Svartisen is a complex of two glaciers, with the westernmost glacier alone the second largest in mainland Norway, which I believe makes it the second largest in Continental Europe. It was a sight to behold, as Scandinavian glaciers are…a large plateau glacier with many tongues feeding from it, located not far from the sea, at only 1000m in altitude, yet in existence due to astronomical precipitation.

The 100hr gaffe meant I couldn’t stick another 2.5-hour flight in to get a few glaciers in the area. Little did I know that the best summer in northern Norway in decades would become viciously nasty a short time later, ultimately rendering it impossible to get those glaciers. I will have to return next summer.

Østisen, roughly at the Arctic Circle, flying north to Bodø. Lofoten Peninsula visible on the horizon.

Østisen, the next day, from the north looking south.

Østisen, with Istinden peak (1,573m) in the foreground.

Vestisen, draining in the Storglomvatnet reservoir. Atlantic Ocean on the horizon.

Engabreen, on the west side of Vestisen, looking east. This is the closest that a continental European glacier gets to the ocean. It is about 150m/450′ above the Atlantic at the tongue.

Western Vestisen, looking south.

Svartisen, looking northeast.

Vestisen, south to north.

Flatisen, with Flatisvatnet below. Atlantic on the horizon.

Fingerbreen, Østisen.

I have made no shortage of the reality that I do not keep count of the total image count taken, plotting to associate novelty with round numbers. It is my photography software that tracks the total, which fuses with my esoteric inclination toward enumeration (it might have something to do with my line of work), resulting in ceremonial moments of repose revolving around numbers of significance to the base 10 system. Perhaps a translation into more suitable vernacular is in order: I found out afterward which photograph matches a big round number. In this case, the 750,000^th snuck up and passed me by, me having noticed it a few days after I took the image.

It is of the Fornesbreen, a glacier located at 69.5 degrees north, to the east of Tromsø, Norway.

“What were you doing up there?” one might ask, particularly since there is something of a gap in the continuum of my flight wanderings. I confess to largest drought of posts since I began blogging almost a decade ago.

To answer the question, it was part two of my ambitions to photograph the glaciers of continental Scandinavia. If one recalls from 2022’s glacier season, I seem to lack the obvious skill of looking at a map, seeing glaciers, and having the foggiest clue how many hours it is going to take to photograph them. Distance is not the issue; I can clearly see the expanse, distance from airports, and the speed of the aircraft. They teach what to do next before handing over a pilot’s license (calculate time in flight). The problem is the sheer mass of the glaciers in question. When they exceed an obviously small feature, then the magnitude grows exponentially. I find myself snaking around, performing 360 degree turns, and generally flying in such a way to guarantee that anyone accompanying me would vomit. It is something of a fusion of an artistic and aeronautical orgasm: one doesn’t know where it will go or how long it will last.

Thus, I could not photograph all of the glaciers in Norway and Sweden in 2022. I had to return for the northern half, for ice found north of 65 degrees north latitude. The flight north from central Europe will be covered in an AOPA article, so I won’t steal the thunder here.

This flight was one of many during the glacier binge. A friend had visited from Switzerland, desiring to take a flight, as he had done so in the Alps. Having thoroughly terrified this individual in the past at 13,000 feet, obtaining the evening money shot in somewhat gyrating turbulence near pointy rocks, we had agreed to keep the flight with wings relatively level and a length and style befitting an outcome where lunch remains inside one’s digestive system.

The path was basic, from Tromsø to the Lyngen Alps, a glorious mountain range protruding from deep Norwegian fjords. Airflow was out of the southeast, with clouds and precipitation over the spine of the Scandinavian Mountains, affording a stirring and eerie backdrop to luminosity fixed nearer to the Atlantic Ocean. To quote the passenger, lighting was “[freaking] awesome.”

Meahccevákkejávri. I am fairly certain this is the indigenous Samí language version. The Norwegian map seems to refuse to give me the name in Norsk.

Gjømmersdalsbreen. Definitely in Norwegian, though it is about 2km from the Samí glacier.

Entering the Lyngen Alps.

Sydbreen (fore), Midtbreen (rear).

Jiehkkevárri. Roughly 6,000 feet. 

750,000! Fornesbreen.

Fugldalsvatnet, below Jiehkkevárri.

One of the outlets of Jiehkkevárri.

Hamperokken…on the way back to Tromsø.

Western slope of Tromsdalstinden…approaching Class D airspace for Tromsø.

Tromsø.

After flying an interminable amount of hours over years of summer seasons, sorting through almost 40,000 photographs, post processing and exporting a little over 2,000 images, and then winnowing those 2,000 down to 928 images to represent every glacier in Switzerland, it is done. I have given birth to a book that is almost four times the size of any other photography work of mine, coming in at 542 pages. Writing the book involved more work than the flights.

I am sure I forgot a glacier or two, though I digress.

With the release of this work, my focus has changed. In the past, I was more intimately concerned with pricing, distribution, retail presentation, royalty percentages, and a final equilibrium that appealed to the largest number of consumers. In the end, I don’t think pressing all those levers amounts to a hill of beans, so I decided to do something I wanted, which was to make a book large enough that it will break a toe if you drop it. The glaciers of Switzerland themselves speak with such a visual magnitude that I wished to present them in printed form in the closest similarity that it felt in the air.

All images except a couple were taken in the PA-11. Despite having the PA-18 since 2021, it just worked out that even some of the glaciers I chased in 2022 were still done in the PA-11, as the Super Cub seemed to always be in the wrong country for one reason or another when it came to glacier season. When I step back and look at the project now that it is done, I am left wondering how I did it in that little, underpowered, unheated, underfueled aircraft, though, well, it is done.

For some reason, Amazon.com in the US has decided to keep the price down dramatically for the time being, so if you’re interested and able to order from that platform, it is the best place to get it for now.

It all started with getting fat shamed by European aviation regulations. Had I known that Europe takes a different view of weight in an aircraft than America, then I might simply have never moved here to begin with. I ranted mightily about the bucket of cold water in the face that is weight & balance in the Fatherland in 2016, so there is no need to beat that dead horse. Fast forward to 2022, and that left me with a Super Cub where I needed to get a gross weight increase installed.

The first shop in Switzerland agreed to do it, so I ordered $5,000 in parts. After 2 months of follow up to get the work scheduled after the parts arrived, they threw their hands up in the air and said that they are too busy….and to come back next year. That started a quest to find a shop that was actually interested in working on aircraft. I went on a wild goose chase of Europe…from Spain to Germany to Poland to Norway….and eventually landed on a reputable shop in the Netherlands. It is a sad reality that true fabric craftsmen are retiring and dying off; I literally seemed to be just 6-12 months behind most recommended professionals in Norway. Every name I got had just hung it up for good and retired. My father warned 20 years ago that this day was coming…and here it is.

After the 2022 binge of glacier flying in Norway, I flew directly to the Netherlands to drop off the airplane, then took a commercial flight back up to Norway, to then drive the car back south. Two months later, my airplane came back with fabric and paint work so utterly superb that one cannot tell both wings were significantly cut, repaired, and partially painted. Everything I asked the shop to do was done superbly, correctly, and, most importantly, without breaking anything else. I could tell far too many stories of mechanics that fix the item in question while breaking other things.

It may be that the discovery of this shop was the first since I became a pilot that a) actually does the work and b) does it correctly. I could further tell incredible stories of how hard it is to get work done. “The engine has a leak.” “It’s an airplane.” “But its half a quart per hour.” “It’s so hard to find out where it is coming from.” What happens? One finds me engaging in a spell of witchcraft to source the leak.

After picking up the airplane from its significant alteration, the most sensible flight to Switzerland was to fly virtually direct to Saarbrucken, Germany, then south into Switzerland. It heads from the Netherlands through Belgium, then Luxembourg, into the Fatherland, south into France on the west side of the Vosges, and finally into Switzerland. A friend aptly noted that “you flew through six sovereign nations in one day.”

I gave it some thought and, what do you know, that was a record…and I wasn’t even trying.

The thing is, when one finds a shop that meets my impossible criteria of doing work and doing it properly, it is best to milk that cow until it dies. Five months later, it came time for the 100-hour inspection on the airplane. Yet again, Garrett found himself flying over the Jura, to the west of the Vosges, over the origin of Joan of Arc, into the Fatherland, skirting the capital of fishy accounting, and then into the land of chocolate followed by a landing virtually below sea level. A routine inspection metastasized into something far greater, and sometime later, I found myself for the third time in seven months flying through six nations in one day. I suppose it is something of a commute.

I do not speak of maintenance that much on the blog, though it is a brutally expensive, complicated, frustrating, and a sometimes byzantine reality of flying. My grandfather, himself an A&P, used to say that “for every hour in the air, there is five hours on the ground” effectively making said flying possible. With two aircraft in the fleet, those words ring profoundly and painfully true, every time I make this butt-numbing commute to the shop.

Somewhere in Belgium.

Liège, Belgium. The power plant beautifully accents the image.

Luxembourg.

Apparently in Luxembourg, reservoirs are built on the tops of hills.

The Fatherland.

An airport somewhere in France.

The west side of the Vosges, France. Reminds me of Tennessee. There are probably far more similarities than most would realize.

Jura Mountains, Switzerland. 

Months later….leaving the Alps to head north.

Flachland of Switzerland.

Jura Mountains.

France. The weather clearly going south.

Crossing into the Fatherland. I stopped taking photos. It was too bleak.

“Routine inspection”…..two months later. Belgium. It is so pretty I am considering moving there.

The power plant was so moving that I had to see it again.

Luxembourg. It looks like a well taken care of version of Pennsylvania.

The Fatherland…in the rain. When I called flight service on the radio, for routine flight following, I was told there were embedded thunderstorms and “not to take any risks.” It was very German. The storms had moved on before I landed at Saarbrucken.

The French, on the other hand, asked me if I could fly through a thunderstorm to avoid controlled airspace. Eventually they acquiesced when I told them the option was approach clearance or straight into IMC. At least they weren’t on strike this time….

The next day, after picking up the plane from Bern. I couldn’t make Saanen due to closing time, so I had to land at an open airport and take a 2.5 hour train, then return the next day. Interlaken below.

I took a circuitous route back due to weather. The Eiger from roughly 9,000 feet. At least the sun was out.

North of the Doldenhorn, 10,000 feet. Lovely spring weather.

Over the pass. 10,600′.

The valley on the left averages half the precipitation as the valley on the right of this mountain range. 

Crossing around to the west side of the weather.

The Alps….shortly before landing.

I have long grappled with the philosophical question: are my aviation pursuits truly my own, or is there an imbalanced devotion to the legacy of my grandfather? I will never know if or how I would have attracted to aviation had my first flight not been at age two in the back of his Piper Cub. I further will not have the ability to rewrite history and wonder if I would have attracted to the Cub to Super Cub taildragger line, or if that is a monument to subconscious programming, having taken more rides than I can count in them? I defer to my own reasoning, at roughly age 10, when I stood in the middle of the runway until my grandfather noticed my presence, forcing him to abort the takeoff run so I could hop in. He was not happy. “You have an airplane,” I thought, “I am not concerned if you’re unhappy. I want to go flying.”

Is it as simple as taking a ride in the plane that is available, or does it go deeper than that?

The subject got stirred up recently by two things. I saw a magazine article that had Cessna 120s in it. The 120 has tailfeathers and wingtips with a similar shape to the Cub, and I always liked them as a kid. So maybe it is the airplane model and not just the memory.

About a month ago, I was at an airport when a Bell 47 helicopter landed. It left me with warm fuzzy feelings, like all is right in the world. My grandfather bought one when he turned 76. I took one ride in it, itself of which was mildly disconcerting owing the circumstances around the flight (and a pernicious inadequacy of rotor RPM in flight), and that was it. Yet, here I am, looking “nostalgically” on it. Perhaps another vote for legacy worship?

My grandfather said frequently about the PA-11: “it flies the best out of all of them.” I assume he meant the Cub to Super Cub line, though he might have meant out of every airplane model on earth. It is hard to tell as he often spoke in reduction and by reference, interspersed with fusillades of inarguable condescension. Anyhow, he is correct, that the experience in flight in the PA-11 is literally superior to any other taildragger I have flown, as long as we’re not concerned with speed or cabin comfort.

The thing about all this mountain and glacier flying, along with the photography process, is that it just happened after the airplanes did. The aircraft of my youthful rides gave way to teenage training in the PA-11, which resulted in eventually owning it. A few months into owning the PA-11, I pointed a camera out the window and it was an instant knack for it. One should be honest: it is pure luck that the aircraft is a good platform for photography. If the wing, strut, gear, or anything else is in the way, one can’t use nostalgia or willpower to fix it; it just doesn’t work in that case. It is further luck that these airplanes are nearly perfect for high mountain flying: high lift, high drag, and slow. If I had a Stromberg carburetor with a C-90 engine instead of a Marvel-Schebler with mixture control and an O-200 engine, the PA-11 probably would have never gotten above 12,000 feet, which means I would not have taken it to Colorado, which means none of this would have happened.

Maybe it boils down to the carburetor that happened to be sitting in my grandfather’s hangar.

At the same time, I am if anything persistent. Carburetors can be changed. As John Muir is quoted as saying: “The mountains are calling, and I must go.” I am quite sure after a bunch of spitting and sputtering at high altitude, I would have found some “airport geezers” (quote from “Flight of Passage” by Rinker Buck) and asked them how to supercharge the damn thing. After telling me that I am an idiot (that has already happened), somebody would have figured it out, and there I would be, wandering around in the flight levels in a Cub.

There is the nagging question of childhood. Sometimes it leaves its mark and that is that. Over 35 years ago, my grandfather had a yellow Piper Cub and a blue and white Super Cub. He would ask me which one I wanted to take a ride in. Recently, it occurred to me that I have a yellow Cub…and a blue and white Super Cub…and ask myself which one to fly. One must confess that glaciers weren’t part of the picture; in fact, my grandfather thought mountain flying was stupid and told me over and over again I would die if I went near them.

After all the introspection and musing, I think two things are true: my grandfather probably figured out the most enjoyable planes and helicopters available to fly. He lived as these machines came to market, whereas I see them only as novel antiques. I also think that I unquestionably would have always attracted to a Cub and a Super Cub, and I probably would have in every version of alternate history taken them into the mountains and to the glaciers.

I thought it would be fitting after this missive to pictorially demonstrate what I consider to be a pleasant evening flight, which stands in stark contrast of my grandfather’s version of the same. His ideal evening flight is over farm fields, 700 feet above the ground, barely going fast enough for the airplane to stay flying, with the door open. Were I actually to spend any time with warm summer evenings over farm fields, then I would agree!

Blüemlisalpgletscher.

Kanderfirn and Petersgrat, with the Doldenhorn ridge in the foreground. 

Doldenhorngletscher.

Summit of Altels, with Balmhorngletscher in the shadow.

Glacier de Plaine Morte.

Tungelgletscher, entirely under the snow.

Spitzhorn.

Final for runway 26.

The flight was in mid-October, at 8,000 feet above sea level, in the Caribou Range of southeastern Idaho. It was a delightful early evening west of Afton, Wyoming, with an uncharacteristically thick pine and aspen forest, set against the arid rangelands just to the northwest of the deserts of Wyoming. The aspens were in bright autumn color, with thin high clouds partially obscuring the deep blue of the American West.

It wasn’t the stark beauty of the flight that made it memorable. One could say it was the opposite that made it stand out. After a summer of hundreds of hours of the most incredible flying I had experienced, it was a non-descript tail of a largely unknown mid-tier mountain range, photographed on an average day, with no outstanding reason for the flight. Those were the precise conditions for a person to engage in a reflective form of flying.

The plane would be heading to Europe a little over a month after that flight. It was on that evening that it occurred to me that, “you won’t be able to do this in Germany.” While I was heading for what I understood to be a next phase and an improvement in life, this was the first that I allowed myself to admit that the path would not be linear.

That flight in 2015 was part of a record-breaking year. 346.8 hours I flew that calendar year, from the Outer Banks to bottom of Colorado, including almost everything north to the convergence of Alberta, British Columbia, and Montana. It was something that I didn’t see coming, though I certainly wanted to repeat it. The problem that I did not know then was that it would take quite a long time before I could.

To fly that much in a year means that almost everything is working well. Health, finances, family circumstances, weather, free time, and location have to converge positively. They all aligned, living for less than a year on Alpine Airpark, Wyoming, what is now unquestionably a place limited to a very few. The Airpark had undergone a renaissance but was nothing of the expense that it is now. Health insurance was affordable, rent was laughably small, avgas was $4.25/gallon, and car fuel was $2/gallon. I was putting $10/gallon automotive fuel in the Super Cub last summer, having paid $15/gallon for avgas last spring. For 2015 to happen as it did, much came together. A practical view is that it was ultimately too early. Most who live in such places are almost retired, not in their early 30s as I was at the time.

It would take seven years to beat the record, with circumstances vastly different than the first round.

I didn’t think I would beat my calendar year record in 2022. I joked about the idea in late Spring, noting that I stood a chance, though I wasn’t sure it would happen. After flying 100 hours in Norway for the glaciers, I understood the idea to be in reach, though I still thought it was a bit silly, as the days would be getting shorter. Continuing my extended glacier season in the Alps, I still had a chance. By the beginning of November, I realized I could do it.

December was always the wildcard. It took some logbook analysis to understand that I fly very little in December. There is no reason other than length of day. Of all the places I have lived with a functioning aircraft in the month of December, I can pin the lack of flying on a motivational issue due to short days for most locales. The weather hasn’t always been a problem; Spain was often nothing but sun, and in one year I just didn’t fly the whole month. To break the record would mean flying in a way I never had.

It is a bit complicated when the sun goes down at 4:37PM. One must plan to leave around 1PM or 1:30PM to fit pre-flight, fuel and a reasonable flight in. That times a tad poorly against work and other commitments, though more regular and shorter flights seemed to work. I then hatched a brilliant scheme to fly to Spain with the Super Cub. After all, people use aircraft to get from point A to point B (or so I thought). That went to hell in a handbasket, though it knocked off a pile of hours.

I was left with the last bit in Switzerland, with the unheated PA-11. I managed to rig up a camping battery in the backseat to jack up the power to my heated motorcycle jacket. Aside from an ever-present terror of an in-flight fire or frying my overpriced electrical system, it helped blunt the self-induced misery that is sitting for hours above 10,000 feet in the middle of winter without heat. It didn’t help that the last two weeks of December were nothing short of windy the entire time. Who would ever think that sitting in 45kt winds in the Alps in a Cub for 2 hours is normal?

Finally, on December 30^th, I limped not only past 346.8 hours, but past 350, the round number I was after. 350.1 is the new record, set seven years after my last one.

It took two aircraft instead of one to pull it off, a grinding pressure of the Glacier Initiative to give a reason to fly so much in the summer, and a bunch of other factors for it to work out. I am reluctant to say that everything is comparably ideal as before; I think I am too old and circumspect to make such a declaration. If anything, the sheer motivation of doing it was one factor, which forced the priority.

That 2015 flight lingers prominently in my mind. I have wondered if it is a proxy for the eternal question of which is better: flying in the Alps or the Rockies. That question cannot be answered in a simple form. I rather seem to think that the single flight represents the magnitude of the differences of both places and the path life takes, including how little we often know about it. Maybe I had a window into my older self or was just turning the page in my mind. In many ways, everything was simpler then, though it is something of an illusion of hindsight to put too much stock in the thought.

Trying out the low light settings on the camera, well after sunset. Base to final runway 26.

The flight that broke the record. Overlooking the Rhône Valley with Lake Geneva on the horizon. Unnecessarily windy.

Mediterranean Coast of Spain with an eminently sore posterior, wondering why people think airplanes are used for transportation.

Flying around in wind and cold rain.

After getting pummeled by wind watching the sun set near Mont Blanc, racing past Dents du Midi at full speed, to land minutes before closing.

Wandering around the desert north of the Sierra Nevada in Spain. A few weeks later, a “pop up rave” would materialize not far from here, where 5,000 people converged, got as high as kites, and danced the night away. The police just watched. In the same week, a smaller pop up rave occurred in Bulle, Switzerland. By midnight the Swiss police had ended it and carted the organizers off to jail.

El Ejido, Spain. I have wanted to see this for over 8 years. Star Wars fans would mistaken it for Coruscant.

The camping battery electrical test flight. After sunset….turn on all the lights, crank up the jacket, and see what happens. Don’t worry, I tried it on the ground first. I had a Portuguese guy point a leaf blower at the wind-driven alternator while I tried to see if anything smoked with all of it running in the hangar. The best part about the Portuguese is that they do not think the involvement of a leaf blower with pre-flight planning is at all unusual.

This was a fun flight. 35kt south Föhn all over the Alps. There was a “Guggiföhn” phenomenon during the flight near the Jungfrau, with hurricane force wind gusts. Something seemed fishy with the erratic wind observations so I stayed away from it, and then read about the phenomenon on a weather blog.

I have this one labeled “Himmelflug” in my catalog. That is German for “Heaven flight.” 

La Cerdanya in the Spanish and French Pyrenees. My first visit there since we left the valley. 

Solitude. Nothing short of heaven, provided that the propeller continues to spin.

Another windy sunset flight.

Exceptional wind as I chased a front that was heading east. It revealed brilliant sunset tones in its wake.

What 45kt winds look like at 11,500′. This is taken using a zoom lens from afar, of the Mont Blanc Massif. It is of blowing snow on the ridges. I got to enjoy this view for a solid hour, cruising at 23kt ground speed due to such ridiculous wind. It was not bumpy though.

On most days, when the forecast calls for 50 knot winds (57 mph, 92 km/h) in the mountains, I pass on the idea of flying. It is the logical choice, as the aircraft cruises at about 80 knots, which means one wouldn’t go very fast. There is also the matter of rotors and waves, as the winds get bent initially upward, then equally downward, with rotating tubes of air in between. A small aircraft cannot overpower these realities on engine power alone.

That is not to say that all wind is untenable. Conventional wisdom states a maximum of 20 knots, though that finds no reference in the law or in official regulations. 30 to 35 knots are a reasonable maximum if the conditions allow, though as mentioned before, anything more risks sitting still, “cruising” at 80 knots airspeed into the face of raging winds, going nowhere fast.

I will never really understand why, on some days, I look out the window, get a feeling, check the weather, and find the idea of 50 knots not a problem. On the day in question, it was closer to 35 knots over the western Alps, with higher speeds toward Mont Blanc, owing to an interaction with the famous Mistral wind. Winds also at 10,000 feet were of much lower speed, so I could pop up into the current, surf a bit, and come back. A quick calculation of GPS speed into the wind and briefly with it behind me at 16,000 feet confirmed that it was indeed 50 knots at altitude.

The interesting factoid that materializes on this flight is that it was the first in the Super Cub to Mont Blanc. I owned the aircraft for a year before I bothered to take it to the summit, though I did take the PA-11 there multiple times in the intervening period. Sure, the fact that the Super Cub spent a fair amount of time outside of the Alps is part of the equation, though wouldn’t the presence of more heat, power, speed, and climb rate instill the necessary motivation to take the easier aircraft? I took the Super Cub to Morocco and Norway before I took it a short distance to Mont Blanc.

Anyhow, it was an interesting ride clearing the turbulence layer at 13,000 feet. Once I reached about 14,000, it was up like an elevator in the ascending wave, staying on the north side of the summit. Had I slinked over to the Italian side, well, things would not have gone well. Winds are smooth on the windward side and are what I call “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” on the other, where if one gets caught in it, he must take the “royal flush.” Once sucked over the ridge, expect severe turbulence, the loss of 3,000 feet or more, and a vain attempt to get back. It likely won’t work due to downdrafts….so one merely flies to Turin, Italy instead. Best not to toy with it…which I did not.

I would have gladly ridden the wave as high as it would go, though warnings about Class C airspace from my iPad and airliners overhead meant that ATC would not have allowed it there. That is for another day.

Approaching the aiguilles from the east, with some blowing snow on the ridges. 12,500 feet.

The first sign of an issue. The snow is blowing from north to south on the ridges, though the blowing snow in the foreground is going in the opposite direction! Where the two winds meet would be displeasing, so I kept a bit of distance.

Approaching 14,000 feet. More blowing snow. 

Up we go in the wind!

The summit on the right. Such blowing snow I find to be delightful. It is not frequent in an aircraft, as it is a sign of silly amounts of wind.

14,500′. Drifting snow below. 

And the summit from 16,700′. The summit is 15,771′. Italy on the other side.

Working my way back down to reasonable winds (and altitude).

On a flight prior to this one, I had noticed two odd black shapes on the north summit of the Eiger (3.967m / 13,057’). I thought at the time that it was two cliff-face tents, affixed by climbers that felt the need to sleep 8,000’ feet above their potential graves. When I flew past the Eiger again some days later in the Cub, the “tents” were still there, which meant one of two things: they are not tents, or the occupants were dead.

I made a swipe of the summit, from the Mittellegihütte to the east, southwest along the north face, with my telephoto lens in hand. In the end, the mystery appeared to be solved: it is a pair of rocks that, for some unknown reason, repels snow from them. Perhaps in my wanderings, I have discovered some kind of sneaky Swiss espionage installation.

The rest of the flight carried on, photographing late season glaciers for my upcoming book on the glaciers of Switzerland. While I have already published a book of the glaciers of the Bernese Alps, it seemed silly to include the existing photos, so I have been working on redoing the range. The supposition is that readers of my books purchase every single one of them, mentally catalog each photo, and get indignant that some are repeated. Perhaps I am overthinking that notion, though photographing glaciers a second time never hurt anyone.

I recalled before the flight that I was approaching image number 700,000, though I forgot about it until I landed. That left the image as a rather authentic selection from my binge of rapid-fire photography. I happened to be alleviating the perpetual boredom of looking up at the glacier from below, instead circling into a mid-glacier flat spot, looking away at the tongue that flows toward the Berner Oberland foothills.

Gstaad. Mildly pretty.

Gspaltenhorngletscher.

Lauterbrunnen from the southwest, literally the “Valley of Death.”

Gutzgletscher. This kind of photograph is quite challenging and better obtained from the PA-11 than the Super Cub. For the record, I was up in the PA-11 for this flight.

Oberer Grindelwaldgletscher. This image will make it into the book, among others.

Approaching the Eiger, to investigate the mystery.

Mittellegihütte, on the east ridge of the Eiger.

Summit of the Eiger. Two black spots lower center left.

After blowing up the images and examining in great detail, they are just rocks. It still seems fishy. How is there no snow on them for days on end? The Swiss intelligence services might be eminently displeased with this image.

Silberhorngletscher, coming off the Jungfrau with Stuefeistigletscher in the background.

Tschingelgletscher, pointing toward the Jungfrau.

Slope of Wildi Frau. Wild woman….

Blüemlisalpgletscher, traditional view.

700,000th photo! Blüemlisalpgletscher, looking to the foothills. Thunersee in the upper right.

Altels.

Chüetungel, Lauenen.

The last days of southern Norway were something of a whirlwind. It featured a final 8-hour glacier flying day with thousands of photographs, the next day flying to Bergen for the annual inspection, one day off, and then a two day minor flying binge to the southern part of the Netherlands. A long-awaited modification was due to be installed, so as part of repositioning the plane out of Norway, it went to the shop for some weeks of work.

By this point, I had flown the west coast of Sweden to Lolland Falster, Denmark twice. Since I was not heading south, but rather west at the bottom of the Jutland Peninsula, the more expedient routing was to hop over the water from Sweden to Skagen, Denmark, which would shave some time off the flight. I was on a bit of a crunch, as I had to make a stop in Norway for customs purposes, land at a viable customs airport in Denmark, and have enough fuel to have these points all work out. As it turned out, I could only make Texel for the night, which meant that I couldn’t do the whole trip in one day. There was enough daylight, just not enough opening time at airports. Why not just have them open when the sun is out? Perhaps we ought to close roads at 7PM also?

Anyway, the flight from Sweden to Denmark involved roughly 35 miles over water, which is 23 miles longer than my prior record, other than an ill-fated adventure in November of 1999, when I rented a 172 and flew from Buffalo, New York to Toronto, Canada, straight across Lake Ontario in strong wind and 6-mile visibility with water temperatures of 43 degrees Fahrenheit (5C). My rationale at the time was that “there are plenty of cargo ships heading to and from the port in Hamilton, so I can glide to one.” I admit a slight bit of pause when I was out over water and could not see land in any direction, but alas, downtown Toronto appeared out of the murk and life was good. I planned a return flight to the USA at night…in November….except I was saved from my own stupidity by the sheer fortune of the door falling off the aircraft before I started taxiing. We took a car home. Upon explaining ourselves to US Customs, we were “selected for random additional screening” at the border.

Somewhere since that monument to teenage stupidity, I developed a mortal fear of water. I don’t like it. That’s all. There is nothing more to it. It makes my skin crawl. I get the heebie jeebies. Everywhere I look, I see nothing but doom when over water…. images of an airplane cartwheeling in the water flash in my mind, along with sinking below, gasping for air, sharks, and the like. Oh wait, there was that kayak incident in Colorado when I sank in the middle of a 40F/4C lake, was gasping for air in the cold water, and had to swim to shore….

Water is not my thing.

The problem is, I had this grand plan to fly 300 miles over the North Atlantic for some silly adventures in the future. As soon as I pointed the nose to the wests-southwest at 4,500’ toward Denmark, I immediately hatched a brilliant idea how to not fly 300 miles over water in the future.

After about 15 minutes of teeth itching, I was over Denmark. Down to Billund for fuel, where I had the “Legoland approach,” then back in the air, crossing into the Fatherland for eventual landing in the Netherlands. I could have taken a longer flight and stayed close to land. The thought toyed with me repeatedly: out over the water, or close to land? “There is no good reason to take an extra risk.” “It doesn’t save much.” “But it isn’t that much risk.” “But its water.” “And I don’t want to fly an extra 20 miles. My ass hurts.” I suppose the logic behind the addiction of crime comes into play. If I did it once already without getting caught, why not do it again?

So, 50+ miles out over water it was, cruising over the German island of Helgoland, which has an airport. I suppose having a landing option in glide range for a tiny fraction of the crossing somehow made a difference. At any rate, I eventually reunited with the German coast, crossed into the Netherlands, landed at Texel, and completed the remaining 100-mile leg the next day.

85 total miles over water with only some modest heightened fear, yet I refuse the 300-mile trip. No one ever said fears make any sense. I’d take a forced landing on a glacier at 15,000 feet in the middle of winter any day over a water ditching.

What took 8 hours of Super Cub flying time and one overnight took 36 hours, a bus, tram, three trains, and two commercial flights to do in the reverse, arriving back in Norway….to begin the three-day drive south.

The Norwegian Air Force giving me an honorary overflight as I depart Voss, Norway.

Over the Hardangervidda Plateau. This should bother me just as much as flying over water….and it doesn’t.

West coast of Sweden, about to turn over the water. 

Even though I can see Skagen, Denmark on the horizon, I do not like it. At all.

Skagen.

Helgoland, Germany. A pilot friend noted that it is common to see visiting general aviation aircraft arrive here with an entire family (with small children) disembark, none of which have life jackets and no flight plan. If the engine quit, it likely would be the end of them given the water temperatures. Ignorance is bliss.

German mainland on the horizon. Clearly since I didn’t sink the first time, I am immune to risk now.

While one could argue that the scenery along the Dutch coast is pretty, it is hard to notice when one’s rear end is in a pitiful condition from too much flying.

I didn’t come to Norway for the fjords, per se, though they go hand in hand with the existence and location of the glaciers. Where Ice Age glaciers were largest, meltwater channels and other such geologic activity drove the scouring of the depths of the valleys that later filled in with water from the ocean, becoming the fjords as they are. Some of them are thousands of feet deep, in effect an extension of the orography present above the ground.

Of all things, the Alps offer an above ground perspective of what the depths of a fjord might look like, as similar deep valleys are all above ground. One could even argue that such lakes as Lake Geneva, Vierwaldstättersee, Lake Constance, and the Italian Lake District are effectively fjords without connecting to the ocean. The difference pertains to the elevation of the plains abutting the mountains. In the Alps, it is above ground at the base, whereas Norway’s mountains terminate at the ocean.

In any case, the Sognefjord is the longest fjord in Norway. It is also the second longest in the world. Given its proximity to the base of operation, it was a regular feature of flights to and from the high terrain. My default cruising altitude when crossing the fjord was 5,500 feet above sea level, as I had to clear either a ridge, or the Fresvikbreen, a plateau glacier on the south side of the fjord. I was also frequently at 5,500’ to 6,500’ when wandering around the Jostedalsbreen and nearby glaciers.

It is unfortunate that I did not have a chance to fly the length of the fjord in an east-west direction. My crossings were in various places, at various times, mostly on a north-south axis. In any case, it is not a land flowing with milk, honey, and emergency landing locations. Much of it was rather severe, with a farm field or two that I regularly kept in mind, or just resigned myself to getting wet if the prop stopped spinning. I wore a lifejacket for virtually all flights.

Aurlandsfjord, an arm of the Sognefjord. Any other fjords mentioned from here on out are branches of the main one.

Fjærlandsfjord. Jostedalsbreen hiding in the clouds.

Nærøyfjord, from a mile above.

A breezy Sognefjord, looking east.

Westward view above Vikøyri, with a tad of rain.

Aurlandsfjord again, from a mile above.

From the north…

Lustrafjorden, something like 120 miles from the ocean.

Convergence of Aurlandsfjord & Nærøyfjord. The emergency landing locations are delightful.

Nese.

Lustrafjorden again, with an offensively large cruise ship.

Nessane.

Fjærlandsfjord again, looking westward toward the ocean.

Looking south…

A nice evening…