POISON SPRING, UT

Part two. Shows further down the strip.

This is rated as THE most difficult strip in "Fly Utah.”

"It's short, it's ugly, it's chopped up with unusable sections, it's got dips and humps, it's got blow sand, brush, cactus, slick rock and, oh yeah, it's got a 1,000-foot vertical drop off the approach and a 1,000-foot vertical cliff on the end. Sound almost impossible? You're starting to get the picture."

- Galen Hanselman - FLY UTAH

Todd Peterson in his KING KATMAI does Poison Spring the hard way ... from the direction of the canyon wall.

In November 2009, I flew to Monument Valley with my flying buddies Paul and Mike. We continued on for 3 days of flying and two nights of camping at Utah backcountry airstrips strips. The first was Nokai Dome, on a rise overlooking the San Juan River and Lake Powell.

The red rock bluffs outside of Hanksville Utah seem to be about as barren as you can get. There isn't even a hint of green as the boulders and canyons snake their way southward. For Dale Bartholomew, architect of the new Utah Trail Map CD, this is the perfect place to explore and add new trails to upcoming map CDs. What he found on one of his excursions surprised even him, so he decided to bring the Pathfinders ATV Club with him to see what took his breath away.

What Dale found was a world defined not by the rocks and sand, but by water, with an amazing amount of rivers and streams cutting their way through the desert. Poison Springs is the name of the area, but there is really nothing poisonous about it. The Dirty Devil river makes for a hair-raising crossing on an ATV, but for the most part these streams just add a different paradigm to what is expected in the southwestern deserts of America.

Coming back from a little time in the desert, doing science. Playing around with a different camera mount this time and ended up taking a plant to the lens! Our first (but definitely not last) off highway video. Plenty more drives coming up too! I've got footage from Blanding to Moab and Grand Junction to Montrose, and will be driving/filming Delta County to Hotchkiss and Grand Junction to Vernal, Utah later this week. Stay tuned!

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Cold Funk - Funkorama by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100499
Artist: http://incompetech.com/

A late spring camping trip to Keg Knoll airstrip to checkout the Colonnade Arch.

Approach and landing to the east at Happy Canyon, UT airstrip in the Utah back country with my Super Stinson 108-2.

This is a old rugged mining airstrip - soft sand on the edges of the runway, but overall is in good condition year round. No facilities. Hazards including soft sand, short narrow runway, up to 2ft shrubs on edges of runway, density altitude, and canyon / mountain weather, windshear. Please proceed with caution and make sure the weather is on your side. Also, make sure your piloting skills are top notch, planes have crashed at airstrips such as this one.

Shot with Drift HD170 Stealth and available at www.MyPOV360.com

Also, please support the Recreations Aviation Foundation ( RAF ) and the Utah Backcountry Pilots Association ( UBCP ).

A ultralight trike flight following the Dirty Devil River north from Lake Powell into Utah backcountry.

We cruised up this spectacular canyon and landed at the Dirty Devil airstrip at sunset. After camping overnight, we followed the river upstream past towering sandstone cliffs.

Somewhere around 140th flight of the Phantom 2 Vision.

Flats 6/29/15