Big Slide

Late Risers?

Date	Aircraft	Route of Flight	Time (hrs)	Total (hrs)
01 Aug 2020	N21481	SDC (Sodus, NY) - LKP (Lake Placid, NY) - SDC	3.1	2128.0

At the conclusion of July, hopes of visiting the Adirondacks and Lake Placid were dashed by high winds that would rend the atmospheric fabric into chaos downwind of the mountain peaks. August arrived with a balm of high pressure, calming the winds and encouraging those who sail above the Earth to journey forth.

Consistent with every flight since Warrior 481's reincarnation, I flew solo. Tom, Alicia, Brad, and Melodie squeezed themselves into Six Echo Sierra for the trip. On one hand, I was alone. On the other hand, I had room to spread out and not a soul on board to complain about my choice of in-flight music. So we'll call it a draw.

Climbing to 7500 feet along the edge of Lake Ontario just after 10:00 that morning, I was surprised by the lack of boating activity in and around Sodus Bay.

Could it really be a beautiful August Saturday? Where was everyone? For aviators, 10:00 am was a late start. Evidently, the same could not be said of our nautical cousins.

Peering forward at 7500 feet, I made a slight course deviation to the right. Otherwise, I was positioned to fly directly through a steam plume billowing upward from the nuclear power plant in Oswego. This was probably a wise deviation. In addition to counting as IMC (with my IFR currency is still lapsed), it would no doubt be extremely bumpy. 

The towering windsocks in the vicinity of Oswego gave silent testimony to the lack of wind at 7500 feet by standing perfectly upright. 

Ooo! Steamy. I think I may have discovered the Earth's exhaust pipe.

"Nothing. I'm all Right!"

At the east end of Lake Ontario, Tom and I took separate roads. I proceeded east and direct to Lake Placid. Tom turned north to follow the shoreline with a planned transition north of Wheeler-Sack Army Airfield followed by a route to Lake Placid from the low country south of the St Lawrence.

Several minutes after Tom made a 60° turn northward on his new route, I was amused to hear Wheeler-Sack notify Tom that he appeared to be off course. ("Luke, you've switched off your targeting computer, what's wrong?") Tom set the controller straight and we both continued on our divergent paths. 

He took the "high" road and I took the "low" road and, just like in the song, I got to Scotland Lake Placid before him.

My path took me through a garden of actively growing cumulus.

Aviation writer Lane Wallace once wrote about VFR pilots "sniff testing" their way through weather. As I studied the path ahead, diverting left and right as needed, I could think of no better expression to describe the choices that I was making.

Far off my left wingtip, I spied quite the "mushroom cloud". It seemed like a thing fit for a smurf.

ForeFlight ground track from the Williamson Sodus Airport to Lake Placid

As I transited the Military Operations Area complex southwest of Lake Placid, my course twisted among the build ups. I found myself wishing that I was on an IFR flight plan with the ability to drag my wingtips through each one with impunity. 

By the end of the day, Warrior 481's new engine would have over 30 hours on it and the Penn Yan-mandated moratorium on touch and go's and other flight practice would be lifted so that I could restore my currency and proficiency on instruments.

I passed the distinctly photogenic Cranberry Lake, sprawled crablike across the landscape.

On Tupper Lake, passages were cut through the vegetative surface ooze for facile navigation.

Stealth Mountains 

It was not until I descended below the scattered cloud deck that I finally spied the Adirondacks. I crossed through a particular altitude and, suddenly, they were there.

Lake Placid is surrounded by a broken circle of taller peaks and I entered the region through a breach in the stone curtain wall to the northeast. Seeing Lake Placid's distinctive eponymous lake and Whiteface Mountain instilled a deeper sense of place than any GPS navigator ever could.

The descent over Lake Placid was turbulent with the bumps inconveniently timed with attempts to photograph the beautiful scenery.

Left downwind for runway 32 at Lake Placid

Instructions for flying the traffic pattern to runway 32 are easy to follow: fly southeast behind the Olympic ski jump towers, then hang a left.

As seen on final approach, the Olympic ski jump towers are the "big slides" that inspired the name of our lunch destination, Big Slide Brewery and Public House. Yeah, people actually strap boards to their feet and slide down these things on purpose. Hard pass.

I found myself high on final approach and was about to twist the Warrior into a slip to expedite the descent when nature intervened. I entered a downdraft and plummeted rapidly downward to perfectly intercept an appropriate glide slope to the runway. Thanks, nature!

Big Slide Territory

Despite a surprising lack of activity at the airport for such a beautiful day, it felt great to return to one of my favorite New York State destinations. Warrior 481 carried her new engine there proudly. I was a few minutes ahead of the others and monitored their progress in ForeFlight until I had a visual on Six Echo Sierra joining the traffic pattern.

Forced perspective can be an odd thing. Six Echo Sierra looked small enough to fly through that windsock, yet I knew intellectually that four of my friends were on board.

Tom made a respectable squeaker of a landing in Six Echo Sierra. Not bad considering that he had three witnesses on board. Sometimes, Murphy's dour outlook is proven wrong.

Brad, Tom, Alicia, and Melodie

It was an expedient photo shoot. We were all very hungry.

"Real Town. Real Beer."

No...it wasn't really snowing in August. Photo taken 15 Feb 2020 on my first visit to Big Slide.

We arrived at Big Slide ten minutes after opening to a 20 minute wait for a table. Disappointing, but also a good sign. I noticed that the menu items had changed since my February visit in keeping with the "farm to table" theme of the brewery's kitchen. I ordered "A Respectable Attempt at a Good Chicken Sandwich" ("a nice roll, marinated chicken breast, melted cheddar cheese, applewood smoked bacon, potato chips, lettuce, tomato, sriracha mayo"). It was more than respectable; it was fantastic.

Of course, when you travel with pilots, it tends to be lemonades all around instead of beer. But the lemonade was refreshing and wet and did its job perfectly. Besides, I may be a weirdo outlier, but I am still not a fan of IPAs and those appear to be Big Slide's specialty.

My phone double-buzzed to herald a newly-arrived text.

"Doing a little ski jumping?" Darrell had been stalking me on Flight Aware again.

"Beer run," I responded flippantly. Fortunately, Tom picked up some beer to take home, and that prevented me from being an outright liar.

Ambiguous Cirrus

On preflight, we determined that both airplanes should probably take on fuel. On further analysis, Tom and I were both fooled by a sloping ramp that made fuel burn in both aircraft appear higher than it actually was that morning. But a fuel purchase served to support one of my favorite airports and came at a discount versus what we could buy at home.

Contrary to Tom's observation, the fuel was appropriately blue and not pink. Get your eyes checked, man.

As my friends taxied out for departure, a Cirrus entered the pattern, simply identifying himself as "Cirrus". Something about the Cirrus driver's radio calls reminded me of Buster Bluth declaring, "Army had a half day."

I held short of runway 32 waiting for "Cirrus" to land.

Climb out from Lake Placid is best described as shaken, not stirred. Still, I managed one last parting photo of the mountains before the elevated terrain melted back into the flat expanse to the southwest. Though they had multiplied over lunch, the clouds had also risen. I climbed to 6500 feet and cruised along below the bases while chasing Six Echo Sierra's ForeFlight avatar back to Sodus.

ForeFlight ground track from Lake Placid to Sodus

Without fluffy obstacles in the way, the flight home was more direct than the outbound ride had been.

Late Risers!

In a descent over Sodus Bay to join the Williamson Sodus traffic pattern, I saw that the boaters were out in force to enjoy the hot August afternoon. Perhaps therein lies the greatest difference between pilots and sailors. Pilots definitely tend to be morning people.