Day one ✔️

We made it to Drummond, MT last night.

Drummond Airport. I highly recommend booking your next layover here.

It’s not bad. My first flight was from Polson to Arlee and it was awesome. Super smooth, very cold, I had my hands in my pockets for most of the flight. And I made my very first mountain pass crossing!

Lara has made her first mountain pass crossing

— Icarus Trophy (@IcarusTrophy) September 24, 2017

For the second flight, I’d planned to skip the bigger Missoula crossing and airspace, and pick up east of Missoula in what I thought was a sweet empty field. Things look a lot different on the ground than they do in Google Earth though so I decided to skip ahead about 15 miles to an airport along the route. I’m super happy with that decision, as my takeoff on a cleared grass strip specifically meant for taking off from was, let’s call it mildly sketchy.

Thus followed the scariest flight if my life. Considering I’ve only been flying for the time it takes to incubate a human, that’s not saying much, but it was scary. It felt like the hills and clouds were just shoving me around like a couple of jerky older brothers. Not that I know what that’s like either but I digress. I made it the 30 miles to my first checkpoint and called it a day.

With an hour of sunlight left, I probably could have made it a good bit further but fuck it, I’m here for the leisurely sightseeing. And to make the boys wait for me at the finish line as long as possible.

So today brings Anaconda, MT, and its reportedly awesome hot springs, then Dell, with its reportedly boring nothingness.

Follow along live at tracking.theadventurists.com/#icarustrophy/icarustrophy2017/lara-kjeldsen/. I plan to fly from 7-ish am mountain time to 10-ish, then 5-7:30-ish pm.

Posted by Lara Kjeldsen in ICARUS