Cubs, Eagles and Tiny Mountain lakes

whew, what a day.  the temp got into the 30's and no wind to help keep comfortable. Despite that, we decided a walk through forest along the Fraser river would be a good idea, and slapped on some sunscreen, donned a hat, filled up a water bottle and headed off.
The thing about living on an airfield is that there is all these interesting planes which get pulled out of hangars on a weekend (yesterday was Sunday) towed out to the fuel bowser and then flown off somewhere where I've never been! Actually, anywhere here is somewhere I've never been, so they don't have to be going far!
I mention this, as the route (pronounced "row t") to the riverside forest walk goes past the fuel bowser, and it ws because of this, that I abandoned Ali (again) to go and caress (I know..  it's sad!!) some really lovely aircraft, and chat with their owner pilot people.  One such was a loverly PiperSuper Cub on floats, that I was quite keen to watch get airborne off the river.  This meant retracing our steps, to the water ramp (the place to launch a plane on floats) which we managed just prior to the pilot jumping on board.
"hi..  nice plane" say's I..  "yup" say's pilot..  and "I've got a spare seat, do you want to come along"
"let me think about that.... ok!"

Wave goodbye to Ali, don life jacket, get shown where all the emergency gear, food, clothing, beacon, fire lighting stuff etc (all needed should one end up not being able to fly home) and we are off.

Mike (owner/pilot) is off to a little lake in the mountains to meet with a few other float plane drivers for a coffee and hotdog.. cool!

For the non aviation people..  a Piper Cub with a 180 hp (horse power...!!!  keep up!)  is one of the sexiest planes ever built.  Granted it is limited to only pilot plus one passenger, but who cares when they (Cubs) are such a great plane. (sort of like the plane you might have if you don't do aerobatics)

To watch a short video of the landing click here

The photos pretty much tell the story, some of the most interesting flying I've been part of for awhile, and what a setting for a coffee and hot dog. You could probably find Widgeon Lake on Google map..  just west of Pitt Lake.

Kyle, Wendy and Fred (chef, coffee maker) and aluminium float thingy!

 The large aluminium tank thing is a large aluminium tank thing, from a large aluminium aircraft that either dropped it on purpose or even possibly is stuck somewhere up those mountains, slowly shredding parts! It is old..  so no need looking for people!

Widgeon Lake, on the way in to land! Picnic spot, top left 

The next little (like,  seriously too small to land on..  or at least that was my impression) was way up further in the mountains, about 4500ft above sea level. What an amazing thing to do, land on a little remote lake, nobody around, no footprints, just us and a Cub. whew, talk about awesome.!

We landed there!!!  woohoo.

Mike rowiing us ashore.

One Super Cub and One happy owner/pilot in his and it's element

As for eagles,  on the way back to Pitt Meadow, we almost collided with a largeish bald eagle!  quite a moment. Mike didn't see it, but it went under our right wing by probably 8ft after I saw it approaching with no more than 1 second until we passed.  Close!  but no feathers ruffled!  whew  :)

the image just after the eagle went past. It was in the front windscreen just left of Mike's helmet.

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