The Low Altitude Route – Via Cheyenne, WY to Boise, ID

By Paul Martin (traildog@wolfpacks.com)

My first trip through the Wyoming Rockies, I looked for the lowest altitude route following a good sized highway, and found this one. There are several more interesting routes, but this one worked for a novice pilot, without any surprises. I would really only recommend this route to someone who doesn’t want to fly over 10,000 feet. I used a GPS, because I am lazy, but it would be very easy to follow this route without one, because there are very few large roads to confuse your visual navigation. In fact, through most of this route there are very few of anything (except mountains), to confuse navigation. The last couple of times through these areas, I’ve taken the more interesting routes through Yellowstone National Park, and through the Salt Lake City area. Most short wingers could easily use those routes instead of following the route described below.

Flying westbound you would probably plan to spend the night in western Nebraska (someplace like Sidney (SNY) or Kimball (IBM)). Then, next morning, roughly follow I-80 over Cheyenne, WY,(CYS) and then Laramie (LAR - 7,300’) (*LAR), to a popular refueling point at Rock Springs, WY (RKS-6,760’). The early morning air should allow even a heavily loaded short wing to easily cruise over the highest point along this route, near Laramie, where the highway is roughly 8,400’. This leg is around 280 statue miles, so without a head wind, it makes a nice distance, including the time to gradually climb to around 10,000’. You may find that you want to continue on to Kemmerer (EMM – 7,300’), or you can stop earlier in Rawlins (RWL-6,300’), if the coffee disposal urges hit you.

Rock Springs is only 6,800’ elevation and they have a 10,000’ long runway, so short wingers can still get airborne even if they got a late start this morning. If you are refueled and on your way well before noon, the next leg to the Snake River will be a pretty one with the sun somewhat behind you. From Rock Springs you would pass over Kemmerer (EMM) and Bear Lake, ID (1U7 – 6,000’). Here, I followed the valleys NW to Tigert (U78 -5,800’); where I turned west and followed more valleys to Pocatello, ID (PIH – 4.450’)(*PIH). As you can see, the elevations are getting lower as you go, but by this point it’s probably getting warmer on the ground.

From Pocatello, you would follow the Snake River to the Boise, ID (BOI) (*BOI) area. Then it’s off to Oregon, as you head for Grant County (5J0 – 3,700’)(*5J0), and you’ll roughly follow Hwy 26 to the Madras City-County Airport ( S33 – 2,400’) (*S33). The rest is a beautiful flight around the south side of snow covered Mt. Hood and into the Portland, OR area.

Welcome to the Pacific Northwest!