Upon arrival at the airport we found that all of the aircraft were covered in a layer of frost and ice that was more than an inch thick in places. Gracious! We had not anticipated the low temperatures and had not even considered that we should hangar the planes. Wowser! There we all were at 6AM, scraping ice, brushing off all of the surfaces, using spray bottles to apply hot water and commiserating about frozen planes and cold hands. We rotated the plane once to take greater advantage of the rising sun rays, then back again to favor more leading edge areas. By 7:30 we had finally cleared all of the ice and frost from the plane. Final weather checks and.... Let's go! Pinedale was still intermittently reporting marginal VFR and IFR but we thought we had a chance to get through and we were nearing the now or never point for completing the race in time. Many thanks to team 49 for being gracious and realizing our near-oops prior to taxi for take-off. In our frenzied efforts to respond to the aircraft ice we nearly proceeded with the pitot tube cover and tow bar in place for the parked plane. Yikes- a good reminder for diligence with our checklists.
We were the second plane to depart that morning. Fog had dissipated and the sun was rising.
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