The North Fork Valley Airport near Paonia, Colorado, has a single runway. This, itself, is a wholly unremarkable fact. Many airports do.
Rather more remarkable, however, is that this particular airport rests atop a 200-foot tall, 4,500-foot long mesa. As it happens, “forty-five hundred feet” also exactly describes the length of the airstrip. Thus, a pilot who deviates from the intended flight path either plunges, Thelma & Louise–style, right off the mesa or smashes headfirst into Delta County’s impressive but unforgiving geology.
Such were my thoughts last Tuesday as I watched a Cessna 180 accelerate down the runway, point its nose skyward, and successfully not fall off the mesa. Immediately thereafter, a Piper PA-24 Comanche executed the very same maneuver. And so it was that two volunteer pilots slipped the surly bonds of earth and began the vital airlift of more than 400 pounds of just-picked Cascades to Left Hand Brewing Company in Longmont, Colorado.