I've done a few long trips in a PA-28-151: YKF to Cali / Bay area a year and a half ago, few trips to Florida, that sort of thing, and I'm considering YKF to Sedona March break.
First: do it. The California trip was fantastic, great scenery, great experience.
Couple of things (from someone who knows just enough to be dangerous, so take with grain of salt!):
- For sure read up on mountain flying, high elevation operations, leaning engine before takeoff, and such. Maybe talk to a local instructor just before entering the mountains?
- Get the COPA / AOPA guide to cross border operations if you haven't done that yet, worth the membership fee just for that.
- For customs, follow the approach of clearing US customs just after the border with a fairly short leg so your arrival time is solid. They give you a +/-15 min window. I plan to arrive just before the -15 min and circle if need be. Always call (not just fill out the computer form) and always write down the officer's name/badge no. I've had them lose the paperwork before and not expect me. The officer's name saved the day. They are really friendly if you do it right.
- There are a couple of US wide charts available (VFR planning chart?), good for long planning.
- Sites like skyvector.com are good too.
- There are a couple of apps that download sectional charts to iPad, however test them carefully before flight to make sure the data is actually on the iPad not being downloaded live. I always take paper maps.
Mountains are an interesting feature of the Western half, for sure. My previous experience with mountains was the Niagara Escarpment
. Read up on mountain route advice. There are a few different options. I did the MBW-OCS-Salt Lake City route on the way down. Terrain was no higher than 8500 to 9000 ish, some more like 9k-10k west of SLC in the Lake Tahoe area, but no narrow mountain valleys like in BC. In the end, not nearly as much of a challenge for the plane as I'd thought. I was "light" though, me and two younger kids.
Having said all that, I'm not an expert mountain flyer. I was also pretty cautious on weather so good conditions. But those routes didn't seem like "mountain" flying so much as high elevation terrain flying. I was never in a valley with terrain above me, at least not closer than 10 miles. BC and the "real" Rockies are a different story from what I've heard.
The way back I did Page AZ then up to CKW-MBW. I had one time the plane didn't want to climb over a ridge, presumably wind blowing over from the far side, so had to circle back. This was after departing a nearby airport (well 10 mins or so, still climbing out) and wasn't a surprise or anything.
I didn't look into the routes north of SLC, wasn't where I was headed, but seem to recall there are some do-able ones. Looking now at skyvector, the HLN-MSO-Spokane route looks rugged, but sector altitudes are only about 8500'.
FYI, the oxygen regs in the US allow up to 12.5 without oxygen, if I recall correctly. The Canadian limit of 1/2 hour above 10K is a bit restrictive for some of those routes. It could be done at 10K but some places it was more comfortable up at 12.5 just for extra margin of safety.
Grand Canyon overflight is strongly recommended, high terrain though. The special airspace restrictions there are much simpler than they look -- just fly above it all.
If you haven't already, check out airnav.com. The fuel price info is handy, but also really useful reviews and hotel / courtesy car info too. I use that to plan out how easy a lunch stop will be.
In my experience, lots of really friendly airports with good service in the US. Some completely isolated ones too. There are less airports in the mountains and SW that on the route to Florida for eg, so IMHO always take full tanks.
Make sure you have a cell phone, and check coverage in each area. I landed at a couple of places later in the evening and turned out to have no cell coverage, but got lucky with finding a local. I had bought a US roaming SIM card (forget the brand) which used AT&T. There was no coverage in a lot of the small US towns we stopped at. Locals were not surprised, other networks were better there. It might have been better to just use a roaming package on my Canadian SIM which would have picked up whatever network there was.
The post ended up longer than I'd meant... hope there is some useful info in there, or at least enthusiasm if nothing else!