Monument Valley UT25 trip report
Thanks everyone for the input on Monument Valley (UT25). We flew our RV-6 there from San Diego the last week in June 2009 to float the San Juan river and had a great time. Here's a few photos. (Click to see a larger version.)
UT25 doesn't have fuel, so we planned a stop at Valle AZ (40G), about 18 miles south of (and with cheaper gas than!) the big Grand Canyon National Park airport. A very neat small airport with several hangars full of meticulously restored old cars and planes. As it happened a couple Mustangs and a Corsair (and a B-25 not shown) were ready to depart as we showed up, so we got a group photo:
As a side note, on the way to 40G, looking for better winds we put on the O2 and got a popup clearance from LA Center for a climb to FL 190. 27 degrees F, IAS 106 kts up there... not too bad considering we were about 1720 lbs GW at this point.
Departing 40G we took the Zuni Point corridor over the Grand Canyon; here's a shot looking west:
Leaving the corridor, we followed Marble Canyon north toward Page AZ.
Here's a view of the Page airport (KPGA), the town of Page, Glen Canyon dam, and Lake Powell:
Monument Valley (UT25) is 60nm east of Page. Here we are about to turn wide left base to land south on the narrow paved 4000' runway, with Goulding's Trading Post, lodge and restaurant up against the sandstone formation at the far end.
And here we are tied down and buttoned up, with our kayaking friends helping out with the ground transportation.
The plane was tied down there for 5 nights as we floated the river. We didn't stay at the lodge, though we did have a dinner and a breakfast there (pretty good food, too). We had emailed Ronnie, the manager of Goulding's, with info about our planned arrival and departure times, and that we carried liability insurance.
--Paul