This information is really exciting. With talk of clouds, mountains, and wind I now have additional things to consider when flying. I continued my flight up BC to Alaska and learned that clouds can be seriously dangerous! I will not take them so lightly anymore.
I did another IFR flight which had me very close to the mountain peeks at FL06. I thought that was a bit too low and eventually requested ATC to increase it to FL12. I struggled to reach that flight level. These peeks were covered in clouds and as I traveresed them I experienced quite a beating. I have NEVER experienced such wild fluctuations in my variometer before. Since I was surrounded by clouds I couldn’t tell where my plane was. I used the G530 to navigate to water to immediately land at the closest airport. It was utterly scarey cause I try to play the game with one life.
Either way it was a ton of exhilarating and exhausting feelings. I tried to take a shortcut and realized it’s not worth it. Sometimes the boring route is the correct route.