In an earlier post I mentioned that my early flight education inculcated me with a healthy fear of flying in the mountains, and that I’m trying to build up my confidence. I’m “stretching” myself, pushing myself. Two weeks ago I flew to Steamboat Springs, a charming little town in Northern Colorado. Yesterday I flew to Glenwood Springs on the other side of the Rockies. In both cases this means flying through the mountains. Glenwood Springs is quite a challenging little airport, nestled down in a valley with mountains all around. To get down to pattern altitude (7000 feet) I was descending in a valley southeast where the airport was out of sight, and then flying around this little ridge to finally get into the pattern. The final comes over a little river which creates some little downdraft. And of course this is only a 3100 foot runway. Plenty of runway I suppose, unless you are as inexperienced as I am. I’m landing the twin at blue line, which is 120mph, so if I don’t get it down pretty quick I’ll run out of runway, and the other end of this runway is not very accommodating to running over. Experience pilots would laugh at me. Bush pilots put bigger planes down in much smaller runways. But I’m still pleased. I’m pushing myself, and I’m learning.