This day marked the beginning of what we came for. It was our first encounter with terrain, and the first encounter with the associated turbulence. The headwind coming over the first serious ridge we encountered gave us a groundspeed of 40 kt. At times it was even lower as we climbed or at least tried to climb back to altitude after being carried lower by a downdraft. It gave us some concern in regards to our fuel situation, but on passing over the ridge the groudspeed picked up once again. Picked up all the way to 70 knots! The contrast of ridge upon ridge and different shapes and sizes of the hills was incredible. We flew directly over Roswell Air Center, beside the Sacramento Mountains, and skirted the edge of Area 51. To remain clear of that restricted airspace we headed south through El Paso’s Class C airspace, the highest class for many of the pilots so far, before proceeding west.

Throughout this entire leg we could see a cloud bank to the west of us associated with a cold front. Our paths finally met just west of El Paso. Our next stop of Santa Teresa lay just on the other side of a 6000 foot ridge. The lowering cloud left us a 500 foot gap from the top of the ridge – just enough for us to make it through. Our timing couldn’t have been better. Looking back ten minutes after landing the entire ridge, only five miles away, was completely obscured. Our stop in Santa Teresa was extended due to the rain and snow showers associated with the cold front. To pass the time some of us found a warbird museum right on the airport, while others found a flight school with internet access from which they were able to get a bigger picture of the weather ahead of us. Their conclusions were a go. There was a possibility of snow showers and lower visibility so our plan was follow roads into McNeill, AZ, where NTM Aviation has its base. This would keep us away from the higher terrain as well as provide a little more confidence in navigation should we encounter lower visibility. Furthermore, there were two suitable airports along the route should the weather prove too bad.

Five minutes out of Santa Teresa we flew through the heaviest snow showers some of us had ever flown in. This is five miles from Mexico! Ceilings were down to 1500 feet AGL with about a mile of visibility. This only lasted for about five miles before it opened up into a scattered layer of stratocumulus and even some towering cumulus. The clouds added their own beauty to the landscape. It was nice to see cumulus clouds again when all you’ve seen is low stratus all winter. The moving clouds provided a constantly changing picture of billowing white against many shades of blue. The sun filtering through and highlighting the rock formations made for a spectacular flight.

After passing that early snow shower the view looked clearer ahead so we picked up a more direct routing. Yet we still had three higher ridges to cross before reaching McNeill. Approaching those ridges we quickly realized our direct routing wouldn’t be possible as the tops of the ridges were obscured. We diverted to the town of “settlement” to pick up the road that would lead us around and between the last two ridges and to our destination. As we turned into the final valley, cloud still obscured the way. At this point get-there-itus was starting to become a factor. Our destination was ten miles away, just on the other side of that mountain! This is where having twelve pilots in four planes was beneficial. We had twelve heads to think of all the options; what one person didn’t consider, another one would and remind us all on the radio. On top of that four planes spaced out over eight miles allowed us to scout ahead while still keeping track of the weather behind. While DJO in the lead was checking if we could make it around the cloud ahead of us, HXS in the back was starting to notice that another cloud was moving in and blocking our exit. Just as we were about to turn around the blue sky began to show itself above that final ridge and in the direction we wanted to go. Above was a very defined stratocumulus layer. We climbed up to 8500 and headed over the ridge. HXS with its moving map GPS was there to help confirm we were clear of the MOA, and we came over the ridge into the beginning of a beautiful sunset over the far hills. New Tribes’ gravel strip came into view and we joined a straight in downwind for 17.