Camping

George and I recently completed the Sierra Club Wilderness Travel Course. The dedicated instructors and staff taught us all about snowshoeing, snow camping, rock scrambling, wilderness first aid, and having a great time in the backcountry. Last weekend, we had an opportunity to reciprocate by taking Caroline Lee, one of the staff members, on an airplane camping trip to the Idaho and Montana backcountry. An avid hiker, climber, camper, and backpacker, Caroline had never been airplane camping, although she did like to fly with me. (See the Fight Plan section of the May/June 2013 issue for a description of her first airplane flight over the Sierra Nevada mountains).

Normally used to backpacking, we reveled in the luxury of being able to carry more weight in my Cessna 185. We took our big tent, a two-burner stove, laptop computer, and even the kitchen sink—literally (we had Sea to Summit Kitchen Sink with us). When we stacked the daunting pile of gear next to the airplane, we feared we may have gone too far. The loading process entailed weighing each item and paring the gear down until we achieved a maximum weight of precisely 3,358 pounds. My Cessna 185 has a gross weight of 3,350 pounds, but there is a 1.4-gallon (8.4-pound) allowance for engine start and taxi, so we even had 0.4 pounds to spare!