With a Bird's Eye: USA 2006: Bryce Canyon to Mammoth Yosemite

Leg 1

Date	April 18, 2006	Type	Cessna C172S
Origin	Bryce Canyon	Origin ICAO/ location identifier	KBCE
Destination	Cedar City	Destination ICAO/ location identifier	KCDC
Approx. distance	45 nm	Flying time	00:48h

With our last takeoffs having been somewhat "interesting" mostly due to the high altitude, we decided to get up early in order to use the cool morning temperatures to help make our takeoff run shorter.

And cool the temperatures were. In fact, we found some snow had fallen over night and we needed to first clear our aircraft from that. A friendly soul equipped us with a brush and off we went to clean the aircraft - freezing fingers included (us Europeans going to the "desert" in spring had not quite anticipated this wintery climate - I had duly prepared for many things, but not for that).

Having readied the aircraft, we soon checked the weather on the ASOS system, announced our intentions on the UNICOM frequency and taxied to runway 21 for takeoff. The actual takeoff ended up being quite underwhelming, with the dense, cold air and the long runway making it a lot easier than the last ones.

The flight to Cedar City was brief, but with great vistas on Panguitch lake (still largely frozen over) and the surrounding mountains, some of them higher than 11,000ft!

Descending into Cedar City we came back into the desert climate, landing at Cedar City Regional airport at a perfect spring day.

Hungry as we were (having skipped breakfast for the benefit of the early takeoff) we were disappointed to learn that there was no food at the airfield. But the friendly guys at the FBO suggested we take a ride into town... and if we wanted to use their courtesy car! When I started searching for my driver's license in order to present it, the reaction was "nah, not needed, you know how to fly a plane, so you must know how to drive...". And with that, the keys for a (slightly aged, but still very cool!) 7-series BMW was dropped into my hands and off we went for breakfast in town.