A2A Piper Comanche 250 | HIGH TIME V3 L1 | "The Front Range Climb" – Denver to Steamboat Springs

🌄 Lost on the ground. Found in the clouds. Welcome to the Rockies. ✈️ Our Rocky Mountain adventure begins with a little unexpected realism: getting lost while taxiing around Denver International! By the time we finally find our way to Runway 17L, the sun is rising over Denver, painting the hazy skies in golden light. We lift off and head northwest, with the morning sun spilling into the Comanche’s cockpit as we skim beneath the clouds toward the mountains. Then the scenery takes over. Misty clouds drift above the rugged peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park, and the Comanche glides through smooth air as the mountain ranges unfold beneath our wings. From the distant silhouette of Twin Sisters Peaks to the awe-inspiring high country, this is the kind of morning that makes you forget everything happening on the ground. After crossing the mountains, we begin our descent toward Steamboat Springs and the Yampa Valley. Denver’s taxiway confusion is long behind us, the Rockies have delivered their grand introduction, and Volume 3 is officially underway. Welcome to “The Front Range Climb,” Volume 3, Leg 1 of HIGH TIME: A Jam-Band Pilot’s Guide to World Update 22. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✈️ THIS FLIGHT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Adventure: The Front Range Climb Tour: HIGH TIME – World Update 22 Volume / Leg: Volume 3, Leg 1 Route: Denver International (KDEN) → Steamboat Springs (KSBS) Aircraft: A2A Piper Comanche 250 Simulator: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ FLIGHT HIGHLIGHTS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 — Intro 02:23 — Engine Start & Taxi 20:31 — Line Up & Takeoff 22:29 — Takeoff 31:32 — Cruise 41:17 — Twin Sisters Peaks on the Horizon 45:40 — Rocky Mountain National Park 1:05:48 — Descending into the Valley 1:26:06 — Final Approach 1:32:42 — Landing 1:34:31 — Shutdown & Salutation ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🏔️ THE HIGH TIME EXPERIENCE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ This leg marks a new chapter in our World Update 22 journey. We leave the Pacific Northwest behind and head into the Colorado Rockies, where soaring terrain, thinner air, and changing elevations make mountain flying a different kind of adventure. Rocky Mountain National Park was established in 1915, and its high country is a reminder that altitude is more than a number on the instrument panel. The Alpine Visitor Center sits at 11,796 feet above sea level, making this region an extraordinary place to experience the scale of the Rockies from the air. HIGH TIME brings together scenic VFR routes, aviation and regional history, points of interest, and a curated Grateful Dead soundtrack to turn every flight into a story. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎸 THE SOUNDTRACK: “STANDING ON THE MOON” ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ For this high-altitude journey, we’re pairing the flight with “Standing on the Moon” from the Grateful Dead’s Built to Last (1989). It’s a song about distance and perspective—and there’s something fitting about hearing it as the Comanche rises above the Front Range, where the ridgelines, valleys, and distant peaks come together in one breathtaking panorama. The mountains are immense. The world below seems far away. And for a little while, you’re right where you need to be. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🧭 FLY THE ADVENTURE YOURSELF ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Want to explore World Update 22 from your own cockpit? HIGH TIME combines VFR touring adventures with scenic destinations, aviation history, regional stories, and music-inspired journeys. 🔗 HIGH TIME: [Coming Soon!] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎥 THE GOLDEN ROAD (TO UNLIMITED FLIGHTS) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Join me for more Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 adventures, scenic VFR journeys, and stories from the sky. HIGH TIME: You don’t just follow the route. You follow the story. The Golden Road: Every pilot gets the same route. Nobody gets the same flight.