Ranger Creek

White River Leading to Mt. Rainier

Had a chance this weekend to take the 182 into 21W (topo) with one of the other airplane owners. I'd been to this mountain airport a few  times by car and have camped nearby, but always wanted to experience flying into the airport. It was a calm and fairly sunny day, so I loaded up my survival pack and filed a VFR round robin flight plan; KRNT-21W-KRNT just in case. The flight plan had a two hour time in route so that was plenty of time to get into the canyon and make a few landings with some up close flying near Mount Rainier and return to Renton. After departure we activated the flight plan and headed South East towards Enumclaw to pickup highway 410 which leads right up the canyon along the White River and eventually going to the Sunrise entrance to Mount Rainier National Park.

Approaching Runway 15

The skies were a little hazy due to fires in Eastern Washington, but we found the highway and radome that marks the entry up the mountain pass. The plan was to fly up the pass at 5500' and then drop down to 1500' AGL or so over the runway and get a look for animals, campers, and wind direction. Winds were calm and the runway was clear, so we continued South through the canyon to make a 180 to fly back over the airfield. The canyon is about .7 miles wide at the base and 1.5 miles near the ridge line, so slowing the airplane down for a tight turn is required. With flaps at 20 and 75 kts the 182 negotiated the 180 degree turn in the narrow canyon nicely. After another pass Northbound over the airport, we set up for a landing and went straight in for runway 15. Landing South requires you to make a slight dog-leg as you pass through a quarter mile wide part of the canyon and then picking up the airport as you turn the corner.

The parking off of the runway looked a little dicey with so many rocks, so we shutdown on the runway and took a few minutes to explore and snap some photos. Then it was back in the air for a trip South through the canyon to get some closeups of Mt. Rainier and then back North to setup for one more landing.Following a textbook landing and a long roll to the departure end of runway 33, we turned around and departed to the North and back to KRNT.