Pagosa Springs
Hello, Mitch,
I live in Pagosa Springs and fly our RV8 from Stevens Field. We do a lot of Mountain Flying here! First piece of advice: Never fly IFR or at night over the mountains - it leaves you no "outs." Coming from Indiana, you could route to Vigil Intersection south of Pueblo, then over Mosca Pass (9740'), just north of Latvia Pass and Alamosa, taking you over Great Sand Dunes National Park. Then turn west using Rominger airport (KRCV) as a waypoint for Wolf Creek Pass (10,600'), where you will pass by Wolf Creek Ski Area, then a 15 mile descent towards KPSO. The no wind runway is 19, but caution for the Corporate jets who seem to think that 1 is "their" runway. I would recommend that you make an upwind entry to 19 to get a look at the runway environment and the wind sock. The wind is usually from the southwest.
Do you know when you will be traveling to KPSO? We can get your RV7 into our hangar (we have our RV8 and a RV12) no problem. Upon landing, go to the end, and turn left on Taxiway Bravo; our hanger is at the far northeast end of Taxiway bravo. I will need to meet you there to get you into our hangar. We have self-serve (and truck) fuel available, but a bit expensive at $6.95/gal.
Pagosa Springs has a great Experimental community with our RV8, an RV12, two RV4s, a RV14, two GlassAir III, a GlaStar and a couple RV7s in progress. We do a lot of formation (FFI rules) flying.
Nearly activity you might like is here. Hiking, camping, mountain biking, skiing, fishing, hot springs, great motorcycle roads and wonderful flying scenery. Winter is a great time to fly here, as the air is usually very smooth. In the summer we say "off by 0700, on by 1100" to avoid turbulence.
Finally, read the book
Flying Colorado Mountain Weather by Margaret W. Lamb. It is a bit of a doomsday book because of the limited power of "Spam Cans" but the better power/weight of the RV overcomes much of the downside of mountain flying; the book is a good primer.
Hope this proves helpful.