One man, one trike, one state – and 245 airportsLooks like we’re not the only country to have a journeyman balladeer. After falling in love with flying, Craig Valentine decided that what he really needed to do next was become the first to land at California’s airports. All 245 of them.

The last 13 airstrips, the most difficult to reach, included a cluster of 10 stretched out along California’s beautiful but remote north coast. Successfully landing at these represented an elusive jewel in the crown...

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Do you believe in love at first sight? It happened to me when my friend Peter took me up for my first trike flight over San Francisco Bay.

We departed from oakland International Airport, circled low around Alcatraz Island, waving at the tourists, then flew over San Francisco to the beach and north over the Golden Gate Bridge. We checked out the federal prison at San Quentin, and when we were high over San Pablo Bay, he let me fly from the back seat.

I was hooked… I had to do this! That evening I got on the internet looking for an instructor, and a few days later I started my lessons.

That was 2007, and I’ve been flying ever since. Little did I know that I was seeking a substitute for the adventure sports I used to do – the ones my body baulks at now, like mountaineer-ing, back-country skiing and overseas bicycling trips.

I never intended to do anything unusual, but I just seem to be wired differently. While other guys might show up mid-morning on a Saturday to shoot the breeze before flying for an hour or so, I need to be aloft as many hours as possible.

It got to be my habit to drive an hour and a half to the airport the night before a flight, sleeping in the back of my pickup truck so I could be wheels-up at morning civil twilight.

This rhythm is natural to me, reminiscent of the early starts we got climbing mountains. I like to take to the sky when the air

is most likely to be still, and stay up as long as I can until dusk or afternoon weather patterns conspire to bring me back down.

As I got more comfortable I started to include multi-day flights and towered airports. It seemed like a big deal when I first touched down at Class C oakland International Airport, just 65 miles from my home field at Lodi, but even that became routine and I started looking for new challenges.

one night as I was scanning my maps seeking fresh routes, I decided to count the public-use airports in California and tallied 245, not counting three Class B. Next, I grabbed my logbook and figured that I had already landed at 58 of them. I’m not sure when the idea turned into a challenge, but from that night forward I knew that I would try to land at all 245. At the time, it certainly didn’t occur to me that I’d be the first trike pilot to achieve this feat.

Lucky for some: Plotting the final 13That was in September 2009. The previous spring I had upgraded my trike from the highly regarded Airborne XTS-912 to the cut-ting-edge P&M QuikR. In fact, I was the first in the US to buy the QuikR, taking delivery in Georgia and figuring it out pretty quickly by flying it 2500 miles home.

With this aircraft and its 100hp Rotax 912S and 90-100mph cruise speed, I began steadily picking off the airports through-out California. By the fall of 2010 I had landed at 232, and what

remained were the 13 most difficult to reach, scattered in the corners of the state and often situated in extreme terrain. A clus-ter of 10 stretched along the beautiful but remote north coast. Successfully landing at these 10 airstrips represented an elusive jewel in the crown.

The California coast is well known for its fog. This is particu-larly true of the north coast, home to the tallest trees on earth: the fog-loving coast redwood trees. During the summer of 2010, the entire area seemed to be fogged in for weeks at a time. Even commercial flights to the area were often cancelled, leading op-portunistic locals to show up at Redding Airport in minivans, charging stranded passengers up to $400 to drive them over the mountains to their destinations.

I watched the weather reports daily, and as summer turned to fall, I grew increasingly concerned that the weather wouldn’t al-low me to get over the coastal mountain range to reach these last airports until spring.

The interesting thing about looking at weather reports so often is that patterns become apparent. I noticed that after heavy fog for days on end, a weather front would move through from the west, clearing out the coastal fog for a day or two. I realized if I could wait at Redding Airport, 110 miles to the east of the coast (and a logical jumping-off point for the north coast airports), I would be ready to fly after the next front passed overhead. If the plan worked, this would give me at least one clear day.

one Monday in october I saw a weather front approaching the north coast. With luck, the front would clear out the fog, so I packed up and headed for the airport that night.

It was already warm by the time I accelerated down Lodi Air-port’s runway 30 the next morning. The 190 mile flight to Red-ding took 2.5h at 90mph into a strong headwind, and upon ar-rival the winds were blowing straight down runway 34 at 21mph.

I’ve stopped at this airport so many times during flying adven-tures over the past three years that as I got out of the trike, Steve the fuel truck driver recognized me and asked: “Where are you heading this time?”

That evening I settled into my motel not knowing if I was checking in for a few hours or a few days, but I’m used to waiting like this from my climbing days, when I’d make detailed plans and then be forced to wait for a window of opportunity to open. Knowing that my only chance of success would follow an early start, I went to bed early. Needless to say, I was not at all lulled by the sound of the wind picking up, and by the time my alarm went off at 3.30am, it was howling outside.

With no future for me in the skies today, I rolled over and went back to sleep.

Twenty-four hours later, when I awoke again at 3.30am, the air was calm. It was the moment I’d been waiting for, even though there was a strong risk of turbulence on the backside of the weather front.

Facing pageThe author and his QuikR (photo: Tom Palmer)

This page Californian coastal lighthouse

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Craig in trike

A few weeks back, near Palm Springs in southern California, I’d flown into high desert winds which dropped the trike from under me and yanked me upwards against my safety belts, fol-lowed by a crazy turbulent ascent of 1000ft/min, as if a god was grabbing me in his hand and flinging me through the sky at a crazy angle. At 1500ft, it stopped as abruptly as it had started, and I was able to land in a perfect calm. It was 9am, 115ft below sea level and 38˚C.

Hoping that conditions today would not be as extreme, I took off from Redding half an hour before sunrise into smooth air and climbed to 8500ft, to give myself a safety cushion over the 6000ft mountains, then flew around their 8000ft big brothers.

Canyon turbulenceAt that hour and altitude, I turned on my heated jacket, insoles and handlebars to keep warm. There was plenty of time to watch the rising sun illuminate the land below as I flew an 85-mile leg to reach the Trinity River Canyon, landing on the Hoopa Indian Reservation airfield.

From there I flew on to my old college town of Arcata, and then followed a zigzagging 60-mile flight path south to land at the four airports surrounding Eureka.

So far it was easy pickings: I had six airports in the bag, the weather had been absolutely perfect, and it was not yet noon. Still, the most difficult territory lay ahead. It was not yet time to relax.

I turned my trike north again to follow Highway 101 90 miles up the coastline, past Patrick’s Point towards Crescent City and the next airport on my list. This was the stunningly beautiful McBeth strip, a small runway set in a canyon carved out by the Klamath River only two miles from where it empties into the Pa-cific ocean.

This is the area with the tallest coastal redwoods in the world,

including Hyperion, the tallest of them all at 379ft. Looking down at this idyllic setting as the river started to widen, I was flying low enough to spot a bald eagle watching me from a nearby tree.

After McBeth, a brief stop in Crescent City gave me the day’s eighth airport and offered a chance to get fuel into myself and the QuikR. The final two airports were in mountainous terrain, and the return flight to Redding would take me over numerous mountain peaks and past the towering Mt Shasta at 14,179ft. It was important to cover as much ground as possible because fog was forecast to return the next morning and I could easily be stranded for a week or more.

The terrain outside Crescent City quickly becomes rugged. Just 14 miles east, in the bottom of the 2000ft deep Smith River Canyon, lay the next target: Ward Field.

Flying swiftly, it took 20min to reach the canyon and circle a few times to formulate a plan. The canyon is so narrow at the bottom that it might be impossible to turn around in turbulent conditions if I didn’t nail my first landing, and the layout was such that I needed to land from the west and take off toward the west, regardless of wind.

I began a careful circling descent to test the air conditions. At about 500ft, the turbulence hammered me hard, giving me a cheek-clenching scare, so I poured on the gas and climbed straight out.

Backtracking to Crescent City Airport to think it over, I found myself in conversation with the guys who habitually work at the airport. As I described the attempt to land, one of them said: “Man, there have been a lot of crashes at Ward Field. A coupla years ago there was a guy in a Cessna 172. The canyon turbulence flipped him over and he landed upside down in a tree. He was lucky because he was able to walk away from the accident. Most haven’t.”

I headed for the motel, not knowing if I should – or could –

About CaliforniaThe geography of California is diverse. There are foggy coastlines, hot deserts, and a fertile central valley, all existing in a largely mountainous terrain. It is 770 miles long and 250 miles wide and is home to both the highest points (Mt Whitney at 14,505ft) and lowest (Death Valley at 280ft below sea level) in the 48 contiguous states. Its area is 163,707 square miles, compared to the 137,745 square miles of the UK.

About the airports:Craig landed at 244 of the 248 public-use airports in California, the exceptions being:• ClassBSanFranciscoInternational• ClassBLosAngelesInternational• ClassBSanDiegoInternational• ClassGAvalon:CatalinaIsland(nextonthelist)Note:ElkGroveAirportcloseddownafterCraig’slanding, so the official tally for California is now 247 public-use airports.

Self-imposed rules• Mustarriveatalltargetairportshavingflownfrom

home base.• Mustlandordoatouch-and-go.(Afterdamaginghis

propeller and punching holes in his wheel spat on the gravel airstrip at Jacumba, 100yd from the Mexican border fence near Calexico, Craig allowed himself a 3ft low pass at the few other gravel airstrips).

Above Hangared overnight with the big boysFacing page TheimposingMountShasta,14,179ft

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About the authorCraig Valentine, 57, shares a Victorian-era cottage in Alameda,CaliforniawithhispartnerCarmiWeiningerandtheirtwocatsandtwodogs.Heenjoysflyingtrikes, hiking, bicycling, gardening, travel, Zydeco dancing, morning rants triggered by stories in the newspaper and get-togethers with family and friends.

HefliesfromLodi,asmallagriculturaltowninnorthern California that is becoming known for itsZinfandelwines.Backinthe1960s,itbecameinfamous thanks to one of Creedence Clearwater Revival’shitsongs,Lodi.CheckitoutonYoutubebyjusttypingLodiinthesearchbox.

land at Ward Field, but knowing it was time to call it a day. Maybe there would be a better chance tomorrow.

Next morning, I woke at the usual 3.30am, and knowing the forecast was for fog, I was apprehensive as I walked to the win-dow. Pulling the curtain aside, I gazed up at a sky which was clear enough to reveal a thick carpet of stars overhead. I had been granted another day and another chance.

Happy Camp: Last on the listAn hour before sunrise I fired up the engine to warm it up and waited for the right moment. It was only 14 miles to Ward Field, and I didn’t want to fly into that deep canyon in the dark. on the other hand, fog was forecast and I didn’t want to be grounded, either.

Just before sunrise I could see the ground fog forming up, so I quickly took off. It turned out to be impeccable timing. As I rose into the air, I could see that a large fog bank to the west, invisible in the dark, was just yards from the beach and rolling in. I headed east into clear skies, leaving the fog and the airfield behind.

As I approached Ward Field for the second time, the descent looked even more intimidating, after talking to the guys the pre-vious day. It seemed a very long way down to the bottom of the Smith River Canyon.

I began to spiral down slowly, feeling for turbulence while keeping an escape route in mind if necessary. I put yesterday’s stories out of my head and concentrated on the terrain below. It was a remarkably smooth descent, marked now and then with a gentle bump. I spiralled all the way down, marvelling at the per-fect conditions. Sadly, the only witness to my smooth landing was an uninterested shaggy brown dog.

I got out and walked around for a few minutes to shake off the tension. Then, back in the trike, I took off westward, spiralling upward within the canyon walls. There are 32 miles of incredibly

rugged country between Ward Field and the last airport on the list, Happy Camp.

The terrain is mountainous, with deep river canyons and steep, heavily timbered slopes providing no opportunities for emergency landings, so to keep a margin of safety, I again flew high, ultimately climbing to a cruising altitude of 9500ft.

The flight to Happy Camp was bumpy but the trike can handle more turbulence than a man can endure, and the landing was straightforward – almost an anticlimax to achieving the 10th and final airport of this leg.

While I refuelled from the collapsible jerrycan I carry to give myself longer range, a local ambulance crew drove up.

one of them, obviously excited to see a trike, said: “There was a guy with a trike thing like yours once and he crashed it here on the airstrip; and some time ago a man flew into the mountain behind us in his airplane and we had to go pull the body out. It was a hard thing to see. Good luck to you, and be safe.”

I was tired but elated to have reached all 10 airports success-fully, and I departed for Lodi, carried on the wings of my trike and the paramedic’s words. The next leg was a beautiful and beautifully uneventful 45-mile flight toward Montague, the exit airport from the north coast.

I had more than a half-day’s flight to reach home over 7000ft mountains and past the imposing 14,179ft Mt Shasta, but now the occasional ranch along the Klamath River Canyon presented possibilities for emergency landings.

For the first time in many hours, I relaxed into the luxurious feeling of flying over known territory with 10 new airports in my logbook and the trike’s nose pointed solidly toward home.

After the adventures of the past four days, flying past Mt Shas-ta was like visiting an old friend. I’ve flown by it a number of times now, sometimes so close it feels like I can almost touch it as it towers above my trike by thousands of feet.

I know this mountain well, and always see as I fly past it some of the lines of ascent I followed when I climbed it many winters ago. As I do, I remember the dreams I held then – a young man’s dreams of climbing Himalayan peaks and sheer alpine walls, most of which were never realized.

Now, decades later, as I flew past this monument of my youth, I recognized that I was realizing new dreams, of flight.

A few weeks later, I landed at the last two mainland airports on the list. Departing Lodi early on 5 November, I flew 800 miles to the Arizona border and landed at both Needles and Cheme-huevi Valley that same day.

There is just one airport to go. As I write, I am watching the weather, waiting for a window that will allow me to reach south-ern California so that I can fly over 22 miles of open sea to the island of Catalina, off the Southern California coast.

Left to right Wing down for shifting winds and incoming weather (photo: Tom Palmer); strong winds at Kneeland made for an interesting touch-and-go and a wild ride; and California sunrise

Facing page, bottom LookingsouthtowardsPatrick’sPoint(photo:GaryTudorofft)

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