I'm starting to plan a flight out to Yellowstone then Mt. Rushmore. Seems like a pair of nice flights.
1. Can anyone suggest best airports? Should we land in Bozeman and get a rental car, for instance, or try something like West Yosemite airport? Same for Mt. Rushmore, looks like Rapid City is probably the closest airport with rental cars.
2. Thoughts on crossing the rockies? I'm in a normally aspirated Cherokee, 160hp, and no oxygen. I haven't sat down with the sectionals yet and really worked out a route, but I bet there'll be some challenges. I got some mountain-dual during my primary training, so I'm figuring an early morning crossing is a good place to start, and I'll go from there. But if someone here happens to have plotted the same type of flight already, heck, I'd be silly not to take advantage of that.
3. To give myself nice performance margins, I figure I'll probably ship some clothes ahead to whatever motel/hotels/whatever we stay at to minimize luggage and leave room for basic survival gear. Has anyone done this? Is it crazytalk, or pretty normal?
Just blue-skying it now, sounds like a much nicer way to get there than in the family minivan.
