Flying over mountains isn’t as scary (or hard) as you might think
“I shopped the Strip at Mahoney Creek only to see its windsocks voting in opposite directions.” (Julie Boatman/)This story originally featured in the May 2020 issue of Flying Magazine. My relationship with the mountains began on hikes with my family, camping trips up into the farthest corners of Glacier National Park that could be reached with a 7-year-old (me) and a toddling 4-year-old (my little brother) in close formation. We took what we could carry in our little packs—supplemented heavily with the resources my parents stuffed into their own.Fast-forward to my early flight-instructing years in Colorado, where one of my greatest joys was introducing pilots to the high country—famously high-altitude airports like Leadville, Telluride and Aspen. The “real” backcountry beckoned, though, and about 15 years ago, I took a condensed, one-on-one mountain flying course with well-known backcountry instructor Lori MacNichol, through McCall Mountain Canyon Flying Seminars. The flights I made...