In article ,
Larry Dighera wrote:

On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 12:28:24 -0400, Pixel Dent
wrote in :

On a recent flight I took the ceiling was about 4500' and
there was ice in the clouds, but the MEA was about 5000' due to some
hills which were easily avoidable VFR. If I had filed I would have been
forced into icing conditions instead of enjoying a safe VFR flight at
3500'.

That must have put within 500' of the surface terrain at some point.

No, not even within 1000'. It was coming out of Roanoke, VA which is
more or less surrounded by a circle of hills of greatly varying heights.
The Departure procedures and the IFR routes in the direction I was going
all took you right over a 4000' hill, but if you zig out to the East
like I did you just need to cross a 2000' hill before you're out of
mountains and over the lowlands.

Yeah, I suspect I could have eventually negotiated an IFR route which
took me over that 2000' hill instead, and maybe they would have even had
radar coverage at the lower altitude I wanted to fly (although they said
I was too low for flight following), but this is one case where I felt
safer picking my own route and altitude VFR than flying IFR.