Helicopter Picnic at Ranger Creek
August 23, 2020 — We don’t get weather like this all that often in the Pacific Northwest, so when days like this do come along we need to take advantage of the opportunity. With clear skies, calm winds, and comfortable temperatures in the forecast, we decided to head back out to Ranger Creek (21W).
Derek and I flew out there on our own two weeks ago, and he had an absolute blast. However, unfavorable weather conditions early that day meant that our original picnic lunch plan didn’t pan out. Today would be the day to fix that, and Crystal would come along as well!
We picked up from Boeing Field at about 1010 PDT (1710 UTC). The first part of the flight out to Ranger Creek almost feels like you’re just pointing the nose at Mount Rainier and flying toward it. We did that for about 10 minutes, which brought us to Auburn. From there we followed the Green River to stay out of the way of other aircraft at Auburn Municipal Airport (S50). Side note, we were listening in to a new helicopter student pilot flying his first solo. If you’re out there Helicopter 38A (I think?), congrats!
On a normal day this is where I’d start following the White River, but I decided to change things up and overfly the stunning Lake Tapps area. I’ve been looking at this lake from afar for years, but until now I’d never toured the area. The video thumbnail at the top of this post was taken from that portion of the flight.
Our next way point was the town of Enumclaw, which is roughly 7 nautical miles due east of Lake Tapps. Enumclaw is the last densely populated area you’ll overfly before entering the mountains, where you’ll eventually re-intercept the White River and follow that directly in to Ranger Creek. I can’t say this with 100% certainty, but I felt like I was generally following left branches in the river all the way out.
It was a beautiful flight, and unlike our previous trip we were able to see the summit of Mount Rainier. I also caught sight of a bald eagle hunting the river below us as we flew by.
We landed at about 1100 PDT. It was getting a bit hot out, so we didn’t want to lock our food up in the helicopter where it’d potentially spoil. We also didn’t want to carry it around with us as we explored the area on foot, so we decided to start with an early lunch.
With food taken care of, we went in search of another biological need: restrooms. For future reference, there are small outhouses at both ends of the runway on the east side of the field (across the guardrails). Derek and I had it easy compared to Crystal. That is not a face you want to see coming toward you!
Now that biological imperatives were taken care of, we moved on to the hike. The objective was to see how close we could get to the White River, and Derek was super happy to find that the answer was “close enough to touch”. He skipped some rocks atop the river, and we just sat around for a while taking it all in.
At the end of the day, we spent about 90 minutes in the Ranger Creek area. I feel like I say this a lot these days, but it really was an amazing experience. I highly recommend trying it out for yourself. And if you want to give helicopters a try your self, be sure to check out Atomic Helicopters.
