Low-time Pilot Flying Telluride to Aspen VFR in a Cirrus SR22T

Mountain flying is not to be taken lightly. In this episode, witness a low-time pilot (me) with only 350 hours of experience navigate from two of the most dangerous airports in the United States.
We had a decent amount of mountain flying experience, but we need formal training in the mountains, which we have setup for August 2024. Fly with us around and through the mountains as we navigate our way with our two precious poodles Pip and Baxter by VFR - Visual Flight Rules. At the time of this video, I was a couple months away from receiving my Instrument Rating.
Both Aspen and Telluride are gorgeous cities that have become like home to us over the last 5 years. In this video you will see a quick recap of some of our favorite restaurants and a visit to our favorite Artist's gallery - Guadaloupe Laiz. Links to notable places to visit below:

Proud to be affiliated with Flying Eyes Optics. Use this link our our coupon code to save yourself 10% off:

- We fly for business and exploration. We use our airplane to visit our favorite places in (and out of) the country with our two dogs Baxter and Doll. We love aviation, our passion is to learn as much as possible and share the experience with others. I am an Instrument Rated Private Pilot with High Performance Endorsement.

- We unexpectedly lost our first rescue dog and the love of our life, Pip at 14 years old to liver failure in mid 2024. You will see her in our first several videos. Our love of dogs and ability to transport them allowed us to form “Pip’s Rescue Wings” an animal rescue charity (pending 501c3 status). Together with rescues across the country, we transport man’s best friend out of kill shelters and other life threatening situations to a safe haven. 100% of the proceeds from Pip’s Rescue Wings goes towards the Rescues we are helping. All flight and operational costs are covered by us personally. Please consider adoption before purchasing a puppy and please spay/neuter your pet.

- Some videography (the professional looking stuff) by Alex Weber of Alex Weber Photography. Thank you Alex!

- I am not a CFI, A&P or IA and our videos are not for instruction purposes, but entertainment only. Each video is intended for our own personal documentation of life experiences and flying improvement. Do not use any of our video content as instruction on how to fly an airplane. To properly learn how to fly you must visit your local accredited flight school.

[EduardoAbreu-Counsell]

I’m not sure what your experience level is.. judging by your body language, perhaps this was a flight beyond your capability/current level of exposure. And the look of complete terror on your wife’s face made for uncomfortable viewing. I hope you found time to debrief yourself on what you could have done better. Safe flying! Cheers.

[chrisquaintance]

Nice video! Side note, as a fellow SR22T driver: it’s a lot safer to get that seatbelt buckle much lower across your lap. In case of some sort of incident, you could slide under and out of the belt and/or decrease effectiveness of the seatbelt airbags. Mine rides up sometimes, too - I find I have to sit up straight, scoot back in the chair, pull the buckle as low as possible, and tighten the waist straps. Happy flying!!

[skycop]

Beautiful flight. The mountains can be deadly so be really careful. The crackling you hear when tuned to weak stations is most likely a leaky ignition harness. As the insulation gets older it will often allow some of the high voltage from the magneto to escape through cracks, etc. and the arcing causes interference. A new harness will fix the problem. Worked for my RV6.

[MrBrink]

Is that a dog with an oxygen mask on in the back seat? Thats too cute for words.

[teddyherrera]

I hope this flight taught you about what you dont know and that you took your steps to fix it. Fly safe man.

[dcgivx]

I am a Cirrus pilot who has never landed above 6, 500 field elevation. Telluride to Aspen looks epic, hope to try it myself someday. Great vid!

[krporsch]

Nice video. Landed at both airports during my mountain training last year. One thing to note is the POH says full flaps for all landings including crosswinds. 30 degree crosswind with 5 kt gust is no big deal in a cirrus with full flaps.

[TheRotorhound]

I don’t know how many hours you have but I think you did good. Now with that very capable plane get your instrument rating. Doesn’t take much to get into IFR conditions especially in the mountains. Comment about lap portion of seat belts was right on and hearing aids for dogs are hard to find. Nice flying.

[mattc]

if you haven't already, look into a mountain flying course. There's a school in KAPA that works strictly with Cirrus planes and owners called Independence Aviation. Best of luck!

[bartosullivan]

What a change since the late seventies. Ranch where I lived is now a golf course and almost as many private Jets as Bozeman. Have you guys flown to Jackson Hole? Thanks for taking me along one sweet ride. Crazy winds in them hills. Stay safe!

[RusscanFLY]

Man that density altitude was nuts! My heart started beating fast, just listening to the ATIS! Anyway, nice flying out in the west. I haven’t done that yet, and definitely a different animal for sure. Take care, and fly well!

[jmead]

Awesome Flights & Adventure with yall Thanks for the Ride really enjoyed ..not an Pilot here but Flown a lot ....

[safetycheckoops]

Brother, love your videos! Keep them coming.

[zacharynorman]

Hey, thanks again for a great video! I really enjoy them for the flying first and foremost, but appreciate the look into other cities, and the tour around too.

In other news, I just yesterday got to fly a G7 SR22 for the first time. Wow, amazing. But going to take some getting used to.

[RA-pvbr]

Love your videos! My wife and I recently did two full ski seasons in Telluride (100 days on the mountain each season!) and fell in love with living in the town... It's one of the most magical places we've been in the US, and we've been all over the country. We also have both been flying a bunch and are down to just our checkride for our PPL for both of us... Would be awesome to connect with you guys some time!

[johnmcevoy]

I got to give you credit you have some big ones to attempt that landing at your level of flying. Aspen is a very difficult approach and landing as well as takeoff because of the canyon affect.

[evansneath]

I'm a private pilot w/ IR based out of a mountain town in CO and though I'm low time too, all of my time has been spent in and around mountainous terrain. There are a few red and yellow flags that came up for me watching this.

Flying GA in CO anywhere in the summer is a morning sport. Based on the daylight, turbulence, comments about the heat, and DA for both departures you were leaving waaaay too late and making this flight so much more dangerous and difficult than it should have been.

The comment near the start saying something like "we had no choice but to fly into Aspen VFR" set off some alarm bells. I know that you were trying to get at the fact that you couldnt fly IFR, but it also implies some level of get-there-itis when attempting to fly between two of the most complicated airports in the world with a high powered plane for a low time pilot. Your options were way more than that including flying into Grand Junction or Eagle and renting a car or just going to Aspen in the first place.

Its pretty obvious from this flight that you've never seen the start of how dangerous blue sky mountain weather can get with high DA and mountain wave/rotors in the summer. A good chunk of the comment section seems to see that too. Next time you come out here you should stop in Denver before going further and get some serious mountain flying training.

Every year there are experienced pilots from non-mountainous areas who become smoking holes in the ground because they junped into the deep end while thinking that the DA calculation from PPL training and a vague understanding that mountains have weather and turbulence will keep then safe. Margins in the mountains are slim and if your trip isn't boring then youre doing something very wrong. All of the legs of this trip for you were exciting as best. Its really easy to see that you were one or two small holes away from that swiss cheese model.

All the best, and stay safe out there. I hope you enjoyed your time in CO and learned a lot on your trip.

[KutWrite]

Interesting. I felt the pressure you and your lady's faces were showing. For similar reasons, I had a slightly more tense flight out of Catalina Island. Just wrote a short story about it.

Cute O2 rigs your dogs wear.

Do you have a video with your history, what you do for a living, etc?

[jimmydulin]

We old instructors still call non-tower airports uncontrolled airports. Pilot controlled is very deceptive and your comment pretty much points out the problem. The FAR effort to make is as safe as possible is "See and Avoid." Assuming air traffic control where there is no ground control is dangerous.

A major consideration in the mountains, it should be everywhere but is not, is total energy management. Fuel energy is considerable in your Cirrus, but is not finite and is not total energy. Teaching in the 85 hp C-140 at Monte Vista, a bit over 7611 MSL, level in low ground effect energy to cruise airspeed was at least 50% of my total energy available. I expect your Cirrus is not carburetor fueled, but in a C-172 we get at least 300 more rpm by leaning to max rpm before takeoff. Down drainage egress, as is 27 departure at Telluride is provides critical potential energy of altitude when we need it most.

In most small trainer airplanes, most of mountain flying is maneuvering flight, where horizontal space available may be less than vertical space available. Staying near one ridge, hopefully the ridge downwind of the valley for updraft rather than downdraft, gives us more horizontal space available for turnback down valley as is your base to final at Aspen. At high DA it is more critical to allow the safety of dynamic neutral stability (what Wolfgang means by what the airplane wants to do) work as designed in turns...all turns. What does the airplane want to do in turns...all turns? It wants to get its nose down to stay at trimmed airspeed and not stall.

Very nice dynamic proactive elevator movement on landing. Hopefully the same dynamic proactive rudder movement (no aileron) as well. I couldn't see the centerline but saw no lateral stick (aileron) movement. Good job. Did you fly tailwheel airplanes?

[grumman]

Watch your video and make note of your left hand pumping the controls in pitch. To get your flying to the next level you will need to break this habit. Usually this happens because pilots are trying to get some feedback on “how much energy is left”. In other words, how slow is the aircraft getting?
When I flew large cabin jets career pilots weren’t allowed to flying into ASE without special training and several trips with an experienced crew member. You can go around a corner too slow as many times as you choose but only too fast once! Safe flights!