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Some people fly to the backcountry for solitude. You set up your tent, walk in the forest, listen to the birds, enjoy a campfire, and marvel at the Milky Way.
Other pilots use backcountry airstrips as trailheads from which to begin hunting or fishing trips.
But for many, backcountry flying is a chance to connect with other pilots, and for those folks, the fly-in calendar determines much of their schedule. It’s a bit early to get exact dates for most of these events, but they tend to happen around the same time each year, so Plane + Pilot put together a diverse list of fly-in events for 2026 in Idaho, Montana, and Nevada…
Any of these events could be canceled due to weather or other circumstances, so be sure to check the suggested contacts for updates and details.
Idaho
The best overall resource to learn about Idaho fly-in events is the Idaho Aviation Association (IAA).
The IAA website provides an events calendar that is updated as soon as event organizers send in details. IAA members receive full access to the monthly The Flyline newsletter, which often swells to 50 or 60 pages in spring and summer, filled with flyers, articles, and photos of recent and upcoming fun fly-in events.
Membership is $45 per year. Here are just a few of the dozens of events you can expect this year.
Jerry Terlisner Memorial Father’s Day Fly-In
After he died a few years ago, this popular fly-in at Garden Valley was renamed to honor Jerry “JT” Terlisner, a founding member of the IAA. His beer pancakes at this traditional event became legendary.
The event has been continued by airline pilot Sarina Larson. At age 15, Larson was inspired to become a pilot when JT offered her a ride in his Cessna, let her fly it, and told her girls can be pilots, too.
Father’s Day weekend, Friday evening to noon Sunday at Garden Valley Airport (U88), about 33 nm northeast of Boise
The Idaho Division of Aeronautics has produced video and other materials that show SOPs at this airstrip. Click “Standard Operating Procedures.”
For Saturday evening, bring your own meat to barbecue (grills provided) and a side dish to share. Beer pancakes are served Sunday morning for a small donation.
Round Engine Round-Up
One of the more unique events in aviation is the Round Engine Round-Up in Idaho Falls. The event is organized by the Hoff family.
The Round-Up brings pilots from around the globe. I’ve met people here who flew in from as far away as Australia and New Zealand just for this event.
What brings them to southeast Idaho? The spectacular vintage airplanes, of course. But the people who come just to hang out and spend time visiting are as unique as these flying gems.
By Friday evening, the Aero Mark XL hangar is filled with rows of gleaming Staggerwings. Is there any other airplane that is more beautiful? I think not.
There are rare Howards, Stearmans, Beech 18s, and possibly the finest airworthy Travel Air 6000 in the world, restored and flown by Hank Galpin, who flies in from Montana. I spent a day with Bert Zimmerly, 91, who has flown 858 different airplanes and seemingly remembers every detail of every one. Zimmerly retired from flying Gulfstreams at 80.
Stories? These people have more tales than most pilots will ever hear in a lifetime. All this plus meals and locally made huckleberry ice cream.
The Hoff’s Rainbow Ranch farm has been family-owned since the early 20th century, and the family boasts four generations of pilots, too.
Current patriarch Bob Hoff, a member of the Idaho Aviation Hall of Fame, owns a beautiful red Beech 17 Staggerwing he first saw by chance as a boy and came to own decades later. He and his son James Hoff also fly matching red Boeing Stearmans (you may have seen James in the Idaho Potato TV commercials), while another son, Thomas Hoff, runs Aero Mark, the first-class FBO at Idaho Falls Regional Airport (KIDA).
Thomas Hoff is one of the best air-to-air photographers I’ve ever worked with. He puts together the beautiful Staggerwing Club News magazine, which I buy just to gaze at the incredible photographs and learn about the people who fly these beauties.
Thursday through Sunday over a weekend in the second half of June at KIDA and Rainbow Ranch. On Saturday, pilots can fly or drive out to Rainbow Ranch, the Hoff’s private grass strip, 8 nm southeast of KIDA.
Registration by June 1 is required to attend. You choose how many meals you want and pay for those, $19-$39 each in 2025.
Tanglefoot Splash-In
Here’s another completely unique aviation event, organized by the Washington Seaplane Pilots Association (WSPA). It’s staged at Tanglefoot Seaplane Base (D28) on the southern end of beautiful Priest Lake in North Idaho, 31 nm south of the Canadian border.
This place is so special; these Washington pilots hold their biggest yearly event in Idaho. It usually attracts over 50 seaplanes, including some truly rare ones, like Addison Pemberton’s N3N-3 Yellow Bird on a single float, several Grumman flying boats, a PBY Catalina, and last year, a huge, turbine-powered An-2 biplane configured inside like a flying RV, with a full kitchen, showers, and more.
Like the Round Engine Round-Up, these unique airplanes are owned by uniquely interesting pilots. Also like the Round-Up, you get time to just visit, relax, watch the beautiful airplanes, and make new friends.
Tanglefoot is owned by Loel Fenwick and his wife, Olson. Their kids grew up flying in seaplanes. Olson flew them out to school.
Attendees arrive on Friday, and most camp near their aircraft or along the lake. The ramp provides space for dozens of planes. Dinners take place on the lawn by the Fenwick home and in the spacious hangar built into the slope and almost invisible from the lake. No seaplane? The impeccably manicured grass runway of Cavanaugh Bay Airport (66S) is just a few hundred yards away.
Friday through Sunday, usually at the end of June. On Saturday there is a fly-out to a beach on the northeast shore. Saturday evening’s guest speaker last year was new Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association president Darren Pleasance.
Registration is mandatory and limited to WSPA members. Membership is $60 per year. Check out the Summer 2025 and 2024 newsletters for dozens of photos that will give you a feel for this event. Tickets include all meals, an event T-shirt, and camping. Upscale toilets and outdoor showers are provided. Price TBD—last year it was $150.
Huckleberry Pancake Breakfasts
Pancake breakfasts are a universal aviation fly-in theme, but if you’re in north Idaho, drop in to Bonners Ferry for the best.
Organized by EAA Chapter 757, for about $10 you’ll get all the huckleberry pancakes you want plus other goodies, and it’s all to raise money for student aviation scholarships. Rain or shine, fly or drive, last year the events attracted as many as 60 aircraft each month, and the chapter raised over $3,000.
Last Saturday of the month, May through September, 8 a.m.-10 a.m., Boundary County Airport (65S), 15 nm south of the Canadian border.
Check the IAA website or Flyline newsletter for details.
Other Unique Idaho May-June Fly-Ins
STOL Clinic at Council (U82): Not a contest. The newly resurfaced runway will have markers so you can practice short-field operations in May.
Carey Airport (U65) Breakfast Fly-In & Raffle in early June.
McCall Municipal Airport (KMYL) Open House: This family-friendly event becomes more popular every year. Booths, raffles, a beaver drop (the kid who guesses closest to where the stuffed toy beaver lands after being dropped from an aircraft wins it and a basket of goodies), seminars, and a backcountry-themed slideshow on June 20.
Straight-Tail 182 Fly-In at Smiley Creek Airport (U87), camping, lodge across the road with restaurant usually in the second half of June.
For more on these and all other events, check the IAA calendar as dates draw closer.
Montana
Work Parties
I spoke with Scott Newpower, Montana liaison for the Recreational Aviation Foundation (RAF), who said he schedules three work parties each year.
Never been to a work party? Boy, are you missing out. It’s good to let the organizer know you’re coming, in case any special tools are requested or for last-minute updates.
Bring work gloves, basic tools, and some snacks, and you’ll have fun and meet new people while you help mow the strip, whack weeds, repaint runway markers, replace the windsock, repair a fence, or whatever else is needed. Lunch and coffee are usually provided.
Many pilots fly in the night before or stay and camp afterward. Wherever you are in the U.S., or wherever you plan to visit, check with the appropriate RAF state liaison to find out when they might have a work party, and sign up.
These are the Montana dates and locations for 2026. Be aware any event can be canceled due to weather, so check for updates:
- Spotted Bear (8U4): June 13
- Meadow Creek (0S1): June 20
- Schafer Meadows (8U2): July 18
P.S.: Oregon RAF liaison Bill Ables, who is also an IAA director, has work parties each year in Hells Canyon on the Oregon-Idaho border.
St. Ignatius Fly-In BBQ & Huckleberry Pancake Breakfast
Flathead Lake lies west of the three airstrips mentioned among the work party dates. About 20 nm south of the lake, you’ll find the St. Ignatius Airport (52S) in the Mission Valley, where “Good Ol’ Days” is a long-standing area tradition.
In conjunction with this festival, the airport and local businesses offer a free barbecue and a huckleberry pancake fly-in. Check www.MontanaPilots.org for details.
Usually in mid-July. Helicopter rides are offered for about $50.
Free barbecue and fixings, 4 p.m.–8 p.m. Saturday: huckleberry pancake breakfast, 8 a.m.-noon Sunday.
Door prizes and avgas giveaways.
Red Lodge Fly-In/Cruise-In
Red Lodge Airport (KRED) is situated at the east end of the Beartooth Highway, one of America’s most scenic drives, traversing the Absaroka and Beartooth mountain ranges. The annual Wings & Wheels Fly-In/Cruise-In features aviation booths and showcases vintage, homebuilt, aerobatic, and warbird aircraft as well as classic and antique cars.
Generally held on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend.
Free pancake breakfast, 8 a.m.-11:30 a.m. Donations gratefully accepted to benefit Friends of Red Lodge Airport. Check www.MontanaPilots.org for details and updates.
Nevada
Two large events take place annually in the Silver State, both on desert playas (dry lake beds).
One is aviation-centered, and the other is not, but an official FAA runway is created there each year on the bare lake bed, so you can fly in. Playa dust is a way of life at both these events, so get used to it and wash your plane when you get home.
High Sierra Fly-In
The High Sierra Fly-In (HSF) was conceived around a campfire about 15 years ago by Kevin Quinn and a few friends.
Since then, it’s been conducted over one weekend in October and has grown into an aviation cultural phenomenon. This is the birthplace of STOL Drag, so popular it has a national league. It’s part of the National Air Racing Championships as well, now hosted in Roswell, New Mexico.
Lately, Nampa, Idaho, pilot Steve Henry and his Highlander are nearly unbeatable. Henry earned the 2025 crown in Roswell and followed that with the HSF championship a month later.
Hundreds of people fly or drive into the Dead Cow Lakebed, about 30 nm north of Reno and 9 nm west of Pyramid Lake. Here they celebrate their freedom to fly on land Quinn purchased from the Bureau of Land Management for this event.
It’s a party and family atmosphere, as people decorate their planes with lights and gather around a bonfire. But safety is paramount. There’s a thorough, mandatory safety briefing before the competition.
Food and beverage trucks are available, and the raffle features fantastic prizes. Some pilots make short fly-outs to local landmarks, including the site of the annual Burning Man festival, where they spot traces of roads traversed a couple of months earlier by tens of thousands of revelers.
Registration and tickets are mandatory. Admission for kids 16 and under is free.
Land at your own risk. Study the NOTAM before arrival.
Visit www.STOLDrag.com for rules and more info.
Burning Man
As mentioned above, Burning Man is another event you can fly in for. The FAA sets up an official runway.
At Black Rock Desert, this is an all-out bacchanal of festivities, art, carnal pleasures, drugs, and who-knows-what else. But I know pilots who go every year and love it.
I personally think the originators got the idea from Zozobra at Fiesta Santa Fe, an historic event in New Mexico that can be traced to a promise made by the Spaniards after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
Artist Will Shuster created the first Zozobra in 1924, a giant marionette of paper that is burned in early September each year, taking doom and gloom with him. At Burning Man, the giant man fulfills many of the same fiery functions and serves as the event’s climax.
But Burning Man is an entire city that emerges from the desert with much more going on, around the clock. And then it vanishes, almost without a trace.
For 2026, Burning Man will be August 30-September 6. This year’s theme is “Axis Mundi” (axis of the world), a universal cultural principle of interconnectedness spreading out from a central point.
Tickets are required. Check the website for details.
Remember, these events are just a tiny fraction of what’s happening this year. Check all the above sources for more. Many events happen on short notice, and calendars are updated daily.
This article first appeared in the January/February 2026 issue of Plane + Pilot magazine.
