Saturday, April 28, 2012 410th Cobra flight, 422nd PIC, 4 landings Flight to Grants with Jayne, Flight over Malpais with Larry, Return flight to Belen At my Over New Mexico lecture last summer, I offered Larry and Jayne, a husband and wife team of geologists at the Museum of Natural History a trike ride. When I called Jayne to make good on my offer, she remarked that they had talked about me earlier in the week. They were doing some field research at The Malpais lava flows south of Grants, and thought how a trike would be the ideal way to view them. Belen: 6:25am Grants: 8:02am Grants: 8:40am Grants: 10:20am Grants: 1:09pm Belen: 2:30pm Today s Airtime: 4.6 Total PIC Time: 1052.9 Total Logged Time: 1073.1 We can do that, I replied. Our initial plan was for Paul and I to meet them at the Grants Airport early Saturday morning to survey the Malpais. Jayne gave up her seat to Jim, a visiting geologist from the Smithsonian who was part of the field team. Feeling bad for Jayne, I called the next day to offer her a trike ride from Belen to Grants, where I would switch passengers. She readily accepted my offer so I picked her up at 4:00 am so we could launch at dawn. We were in the air as the sun cleared the horizon. Left: Jayne in my trike.
On our flight I heard lots of Wow, this is beautiful comments mixed in with descriptions of how this layer of rock was deposited during the Cretaceous Period or something similar. The in-flight geology lesson was fun for me. We cruised along the edge of the Caldron Hell and flew out the end to the Mesa to dive into the Jaws of Death. I have seen wild horses on this mesa, and I saw a pair of animals standing near the cliff. Not horses today, it was a pair of elk. We cruised over the Caldron and crossed over to Cerro Verde and over to the cliffs east of Acoma.
I crossed the mesa and approached Needle Pinnacle south to Acoma. Paul and I circled around it a couple a times, gazing up the canyons that converge at this point.
We turned north fly past this small butte south of Acoma Pueblo. 12,000 ft Mt Taylor is the dark shape on the horizon. I flew a mile off to the west of Acoma, not wanted to bother the residents this early in the morning. We passed a fractal arroyo on our way to a gap in the mountains that put us near the center of the Malpais. I wanted to make sure Jayne got to see the Malpais as well today.
I flew along these sandstone cliffs at the edge of the ocean of black lava fields to the west. Then I reversed course and followed them to the north towards the Grants Airport.
We ended up arriving at Grants about 45 mintutes later than I planned. We were a few minutes late on launch, plus we had a 10mph headwind on the trip out. Right: The crew in Grants gathered around my trike as I entered coordinates of spots Larry wanted to overfly into my GPS. It was cool that morning and Jayne got a little cold towards the end of the trip. I was glad I told her to wear all the cold weather gear she had. After a few moments I took off with Larry in back and Paul with Jim in his trike.
The first waypoint was where the lava flow narrowed to about to 30 ft across. The last lava flow, 2500 to 3000 years ago, erupted from a small cone 21 miles to the southwest. We would see the source later in the flight. Somehow that lava passed through the narrow part in the picture below to create the extensive lava fields east of Grants.
As we headed south, Larry took this photo looking over the side of my trike. He really liked surveying the fields this vantage point.
We headed south along the sandstone cliffs Jayne saw earlier that morning.
Upper left: Kowina ruins, the ancestral home of the Acoma people. Upper right: La Vieja, a limestone tower at the edge of the Malpais. Lower left: A frame capture off my Aiptek video approaching La Vieja and La Ventana natural arch.
La Ventana, the window
Larry took this picture going over the top.
Further south was wide green valley with a stand of tall ponderosa pines. If you look closely, you ll see hundreds of pine trees in the Malpais.
I dropped down low for a closer look at the tall ponderosa pines and then cruised of over the smooth green meadow.
Larry and Jim had hiked through these fields the previous week.
A small cinder cone was at the source of the lava flow.
We headed north to Bandera Crater, the largest crater out here. It is huge, about 2000 ft across.
After landing, we checked the weather forecast and it was for light winds all day. There was no need to rush home. Paul and I secured our trikes and Larry drove us a mile down the road to the WOW diner for lunch. Jayne and Jim s wife met us there later. Larry told me his skyblue classic bronco was in the movie Twilight. After lunch we retuned to the airport and took off. It was an uneventful flight, except for the booming thermals that I played in for fun. Below: Flying by Petoch Butte on our way to Belen.
Here are my GPSs track for this fun flight. Outbound flight Jayne Malpais loop with Larry Return flight to Belen Jaws of Death Mt Taylor Acoma Grants Needle Pinnacle M pa al Bandera Crater is Cinder Cone Belen