It was Memorial Day weekend in ’07 and aftertwo days of flying, Chris Dahl-Bredine and I hadmade it to the top of Carcass Gulch, high in the SanJuan Mountains of Southern Colorado. It was timeto turn back and rejoin the rest of our group whohad been waiting patiently at Mineral Co.Memorial Airport (C24) in Creede, Colorado, fornearly an hour while we took a quick look “aroundthe corner.” We had flown down the canyon over aseries of meadows and had seen a mirror-smoothmountain lake ahead, nestled between the sides ofthe valley. The pull of the lake was strong, andbefore we knew it, we were gliding over its surface.Its beauty, the experience heightened by a bit of fear,overwhelmed us.

Fourteen months later, my wingman FrankDempsey and I were flying back toColorado from New Mexico, following the

Rio Grande River. We planned to meet up withChris Dahl-Bredine and Rick Cooper at San LuisValley Airport (ALS) in Alamosa, Colorado.

We flew past Santa Fe, New Mexico, refueling atthe San Juan Pueblo Airport (E14) in Española.From there it was a short hop to the Rio GrandeGorge. We climbed high, maintaining a 45° glideangle to the canyon rims and flew right up the cen-ter. The next half hour was a pure adrenaline rush,and at the same time strangely peaceful (I’m find-ing this mixture of adrenaline and endorphin to berather addictive).

We took a short refueling break at New Mexico’sTaos Regional Airport (SKX). Shortly after takeoff,

I noticed my video camera had died, so I returnedto revive it. By the time I was back in the air,Dempsey was 10 miles ahead of me, out of sight,but still in radio contact – not all that bad. Now Icould fly wherever I wanted without worrying

about bumping into him. I centered up over thegorge for another hour of adrenaline rush.

Fifteen miles north of Taos I reached Wild RiversState Park, located on a narrow wedge of mesaabove the confluence of the Red and Rio Granderivers. Last fall, I hiked down from the observationpoint to the river with my neighbor Paul. Our con-versation inevitably turned to trike flying, and bythe end of the hike, Paul wanted a trike. Fourmonths later when my previous hangar partnerinexplicably abandoned trike flying for golf, Paulbought his trike and started taking lessons withDempsey.

The gorge snakes north for another 60 miles,although near the end where it enters the San LuisBasin, it’s only 10 feet deep. It’s a bit of a stretch tocall it “The Gorge” here. The colors suddenlychanged from brown to bright green. Dempseyknew some powered parachute pilots up here andhad mentioned dropping in on them. Far ahead, Isaw a white shape in the center of a green field. AsI drew closer, I recognized it as the wing onDempsey’s Aeros2 582 trike, and brought myCobra in for a landing on the smooth, hard-packedmeadow. The powered parachute crowd gatheredthere was impressed, and judging by the number oftimes I heard, “Wow, I want one of those,” we mayhave converted some of them to trikes.

We took off through a slot in some trees and con-tinued north to Alamosa’s airport. From the pat-tern, I saw Dahl-Bredine’s Air Création 582 triketied down next to the hangars. He had launchedfrom Taos that morning. Soon our trikes were safe-ly tucked inside the hangar, sheltered from devel-oping afternoon and evening thunderstorms.

The final member of our group, Rick Cooper, wasin Albuquerque, New Mexico, and couldn’t getaway until the afternoon. The afternoon thunder-storms seemed to fizzle out about 50% of the time,and if Cooper were lucky, he could take off in hisAstra trike after work and easily make it toAlamosa by sunset. I planned to fly downstream on

COMPILED BY JEFF GILKEY

PHOTOS BY JEFF GILKEY

EYE CANDY – Chris Dahl-Bredine and I had flown down the canyon over a series of meadows and had seena mirror-smooth mountain lake ahead, nestled between the sides of the valley. The pull of the lake wasstrong, and before we knew it, we were gliding over its surface. Its beauty, the experience heightened by abit of fear, overwhelmed us. I had shot all my video, but I was able to capture this shot of Chris’s trike cross-ing the lake. I stared at this picture for more than a year, longing to return.

New Mexico to ColoradoFlying the High CountryFlying the High CountryNew Mexico to Colorado

www.ultralightflying.com 9

ADRENILINE RUSH – This is the gut-wrenching Rio Grande Gorge, south of Taos, New Mexico. We climbedhigh, maintaining a 45° glide angle to the canyon rims and flew right up the center.

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a sunset flight and meet him.Cooper headed out at 3 p.m., and made good

time, but when he reached Española, he saw a tow-ering thunderstorm and a wall of rain over Taos, sohe landed at Española, taking shelter in a friend’shangar, hoping for an early start the next day.

The next morning, ground fog and steady drizzlehad Cooper trapped in the hangar. Eventually theskies cleared, and he was able to continue north. Hearrived at Alamosa just in time to greet us as wereturned from our trip to Creede and get ready forthe return flight to Albuquerque the next day.Frustrating, but he still had a good time.

Colorado’s Mountain Valleys

The next morning Dempsey, Dahl-Bredine and Iheaded upriver through Colorado’s San Luis Valley.Lush green meadows lined the shores, with fishjumping out of the water to snag bugs out of the air.I could hardly believe that the same river I had fol-lowed north from Belen, New Mexico, fed this par-adise. Deer stood casually on the banks, watchingour trikes as we wound our way upstream, stayingwith every curve of the river in the calm morningair. To the west, the Colorado Rocky Mountains rosemore than 13,000 feet above the plains.

At the foothills, Dempsey turned back forAlamosa. The previous day, his fuel burn rate hadbeen nearly 5 gallons per hour and his paranoiaabout running out of gas climbed to record levels.He decided not to fly with us to Creede, saying hewould explore the San Luis Valley near Alamosainstead.

When Dahl-Bredine and I turned to follow themain branch of the Rio Grande River to the right atSouth Fork, the air was clear as far as WagonWheel Gap, but beyond that conditions were ques-tionable. Skies were clear above, but in the distance

a broken layer of clouds rested on the moun-taintops. We pushed ahead, flying aroundwisps of clouds hanging motionless next tothe wall of rock at the gap. This was a goodsign: no wind today.

On our left, Goose Creek Valley branchedoff from the Rio Grande into the mountains.We headed up Goose Creek to give the morn-ing sun a chance to burn off the clouds. Weflew 4 miles up Goose Creek until clouds atthe upper end of the valley forced us to turnback. By the time wereturned to the RioGrande, the clouds hadcleared. Here the river cutsa narrow slot in the rockcalled Wagon Wheel Gap. Istayed clear of the slot, fly-ing over a smooth hill onthe left side.

Beyond the gap, the CreedeValley opened up, wide, grassy,and clear. A few miles later, welanded at Creede’s airport andtaxied to a small ramp area atthe far uphill end. There wereclear signs of early-morning rain,but nothing was happening now.It had taken 2 hours to get here,and now the fun would begin.After a short break, Dahl-Bredineand I took off and headedupstream, retracing our flightfrom the previous year.

In the valley upstream ofCreede, the Rio Grande dwindled to a small streammeandering across a wide green valley. Ahead, itmade a sharp turn from the left, emerging from anarrow tree-filled canyon. The river’s source wasback there, somewhere. Intimidated, we turnedaway and followed Colorado 149, a road that even-tually crosses the Continental Divide at SpringCreek Pass, elevation 10,900 feet. Soon we foundourselves in Carcass Gulch. What we came here for,that beautiful lake, was the other way, so we turnedand headed down the valley.

In the distance I saw the lake. We knew its namenow, Santa Maria Reservoir. The image of thisbeautiful lake had haunted both of us for more thana year. A fortress-like outcropping of rock rose fromthe center of the lake, and beyond that the surfacewas mirror-smooth.

More waves of adrenaline and endorphin rushedover me. Mindful of their intoxicating effects, Ishook my head and kept the muddy shoreline with-in reach. After three passes over the lake, we decid-ed not to press our luck any further. Flying beyondthe south end of the lake, we climbed high and tothe right, re-entering the main valley of the Rio

Grande.Ahead, the Rio Grande

emerged from the narrow boxcanyon we had seen earlier inthe flight. We climbed to 10,000feet so that if we had any prob-lems, we could reverse courseand easily glide back to themain valley. Beyond the boxcanyon, yet another valleyopened up and mysteriouslywrapped around another cor-ner. We weren’t going to findthe river’s source today.

Reluctantly, Dahl-Bredineand I turned back towardsCreede to meet Dempsey andSteve Colmans, who had flownup in Colman’s Cessna 172 tomeet us. We were a long wayfrom Alamosa and we wantedto be back in the hangar wellbefore afternoon thunder-storms began their reigns ofterror for any pilot in the val-ley. Someday, I hope to followthis seemingly endless chain oflakes to the Rio Grande’s

source. Then, if the weather allows, I’ll cross themountains to reach Williams Lake and the myste-rious Weminuche Valley on the other side.

Dempsey’s Flying Adventure

When I returned to Alamosa airport and landed,I was feeling a little depressed, wondering if Ishould have followed those crazies, Gilkey andDahl-Bredine up to Creede. No, I had made the

right call. There was no gas at Creede and with myburn rate approaching 5 gallons per hour I wouldbe on fumes in 3 hours. Still, I wished I could havegone. That picture Gilkey took last year of the lakewas spectacular.

Steve Colmans, a local mountain pilot who hasexplored the area for years, saw me wanderingaround the airport and invited me to fly with himand meet Gilkey and Dahl-Bredine up at Creede.That sounded great, but what was with this, "Doyou have what it takes to fly with me?” stuff.

We took off, following the Rio Grande upstreamto Creede. As we approached the mountains,Colmans explained that his Cessna 172 didn’t haveenough power for a brute force climb over the13,000-foot mountains. Colmans said he would usethe thermals to carry us up and over the moun-tains. He looked directly at me and asked, “Are youready?”

I rolled my eyes. I had flown hang gliders overthe Sandia Mountains, and heard my wing crack afew times in a 1,500-foot-per-minute thermal. I wasmore than ready.

“Are you ready”? Colmans repeated, dead seriousthis time.

“Sure, I'm ready,” I replied, but in the back of mymind I was wondering, Ready for what?

Colmans turned his plane nearly parallel to theridgeline, angling in towards the mountain. Theengine was at full throttle and although we weremaintaining altitude, there was no way we wouldclear the mountain. Closer, closer we approacheduntil the rocks were only 100 yards away. Wherewas the lift?

The sky was overcast and it looked like it hadrained earlier. There would be no booming thermalstoday. Any lift would be weak, and right next to themountain. I was starting to get a little uneasy now.Seventy-five yards, 50 yards now, still no lift.Closer, closer, and finally, when it felt like the wingswere about to scrape the rocks, only 25 yards way, Ifelt the first nudge upwards, then a steady 200-foot-per-minute climb. Higher and higher we went,then up and over to the next valley.

I started to get comfortable. Colmans had notrouble finding lift as we penetrated deep into themountains, far beyond where Gilkey and Dahl-Bredine would be able to explore today. Ahead on ahigh mountain plateau, Colmans pointed out ahuge herd of elk. Suddenly the engine died. No, ithad not died, but in comparison to the roar of theengine at maximum rpm, it may as well have died.

WING SHADE – The ranch dog at the powered parachutepilots’ field takes advantage of shade provided by JeffGilkey’s Aerotrike Cobra Stream wing.

NO WIND -– Wisps of clouds floated motionless next to the wall of rock.This was a good sign: no wind today.

CLOUD TURNAROUND – We flew up Goose Creek Valley until clouds atthe upper end forced us to turn back.

10 Light Sport and Ultralight Flying • August 2009

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