Chelan Bike & Fly and Banks Lake Paddle - September 21-23, 2007

An annual event, the Chelan Bike and Fly is a fundraiser for Chelan Butte. CBCC and NWPC contract with Washington State Dept of Natural Resources (launch area) and the Chelan County PUD (landing zones) for use of the site year round. This year the turnout was a bit lower than usual due to the forecast for "breezy" in Eastern Washington. We brought our kayak along so that we would have an alternate activity if the forecast turned out to be correct.

Friday - The forecast wasn't awesome but the weather looked better and better as we crossed Snoqualmie and Blewett passes. I t wasn't until we were cruising down the east side of the pass that I remembered that I had not put the tent in the Trooper. Dang! A quick stop at Wal Mart in Wenatchee solved that problem with a $20 el cheapo special. A more pleasant surprise was to find that the off season AND senior rate at Beebe CG was only $10 per night. Yay! Since we had noticed strong wind on the river on the way up to Chelan we staked down the new tent before heading over to the LZ and meeting up with the northern contingent - Delvin, Sid, Doug and Jeff Beck. Conditions were light on Between the Rocks - obviously the wind down river had not arrived yet - and we got an extended sledder to the soccer field. Jeff drove us back up to retrieve the Trooper and C.J. decided not to fly in the increasing wind up Green Monster. We went back to camp to prepare a somewhat early dinner in the light and end-of-the-day warmth. After assembling the propane stove I couldn't get it to light. I tried reassembling it and checking if there was gas, finally I looked closely at the valve and noticed that an earwig had been crushed into it and was blocking the gas flow. With tweezers and a stripped piece of twist tie I scraped out the bug and got the stove working so we could heat our zuke soup and rolls.

Saturday - The wind didn't come up until after midnight, but then it blew and gusted all night. The Wal Mart tent survived handily and didn't even deform that badly, surprising considering the small diameter of the poles and lack of guy lines. We went over to the soccer field at 0900 to help Lori set up the spot; pilots were already waiting to sign up -a good sign. However, the wind was seriously strong and we didn't even go up to launch but instead went back to camp and loaded the kayak and unloaded all the wings. After a stop to check out Larry's training hill at the old gravel pit, we continued up McNeil canyon and across the flats. We had forgotten that there was no gas in Mansfield so we had to drive past the Barker Canyon turnoff and get some expensive gas in Grand Coulee. While there we visited Crown Point vista which looks out over the town directly towards the dam. Back at Barker Canyon we found an easy place to put the boat in the water at a gravel beach near the boat launch. There was a pretty good south wind blowing and we tried paddling into it just to be sure that it wasn't too hard to make headway. It seemed to be no problem so we turned downwind and paddled a mile or so to a beach for lunch. After lazing around for a while we headed east along the smooth rocky shore until we reached the long, narrow inlet to the north. Paddling down the inlet under the rocky cliffs was easy but the wind seemed to be picking up and we didn't want to get stuck having to return to the car in even stronger conditions. As it was, there were whitecaps only when a gust would blow through and we were making at least 2.5 mph the whole time. It looked like there are multiple places to camp along the shore (and it was clear that there had been multiple people camping in the past). We met almost no one during our paddle but that may be different in the summer. Instead of heading back to Chelan through Leahy and Sims Corner, we drove back into Grand Coulee, through Electric City and on around Banks Lake. We made one extended stop a mile north of Northrup Canyon to walk out to the local swimming hole. It was too windy/cold for swimming and we had no intention of diving off the high rocks, anyway, but it is an interesting site. We saw a school (?) of a dozen large bass just hanging out on or near the water surface. I guess we'll have to return someday at least to check out the wildlife area up Northrup Canyon. We crossed the dam at the south end of the lake and continued west on SR 2 until Farmer where we turned north on 172 and then back down McNeil Canyon. to camp. C.J. took a shower while I reserved a table for dinner at Campbells at 1930. We definitely got our money's worth out of the "dinner for two" gift certificate which C.J. had won at the Beach'N last May. We had an appetizer, two excellent salads, steak and halibut, and dessert. All we paid for were the beer, wine, and tip. Thanks for the donation, Campbells! Back at camp we stopped by the northenders' campfire to see if we had missed any good flying and were surprised to hear that there was any flying at all.

Sunday - It was barely warm enough to make breakfast enjoyable, not that we spent much time on it since we were still somewhat stuffed from last night's dinner. The wind in the LZ, when we arrived around 0930, was pretty strong from the east so we didn't hold out much hope for flying. Surprisingly we started getting reports from the top of the Butte that people were flying the lake side (which faces west). We headed up and, sure enough, it was soarable and it looked pretty smooth. I got set up and off before C.J., and found the air a bit twitchy but I headed west anyway to try to reach the ridge. By the time I had gotten to the saddle I was below the top of the next bump so I turned around and returned to the spine near launch. I got back up and then flew over launch where C.J. was just getting into the air for a nice long flight to 6200 feet to Farnham Canyon and back to the soccer field. I worked sink and managed to topland smoothly near the porta potties. Apparently C.J.'s radio battery had died and I wasn't able to reach her, so I waited on top for a while trying to decide if I would fly again. I was just about ready to go to launch (it was still Lakeside) when Peggy's husband had a collapse, spin and general ugly maneuvers clinic. I packed my gear and drove down to find C.J. just finishing packing up. After a bit we went back to camp and packed up the new tent, the old gear and the kayak, made a last stop at the LZ and headed for home. The Orondo Ciderworks sucked us in with the promise of good cider and after a sample we agreed that it was good enough to buy a gallon. We got home around 1730 and C.J. immediately went back to work since Jamie had sent the .pdf of the back half of the magazine.

Northern Lights Fly-In Sept 14-16 2007

The Rainier Paragliding Club, established by Kim Smith when he moved from Issaquah and Tiger Mountain to Cinnabar and Bremer Ridge, has branched out geographically from its roots. There are now eight or more pilot members in the Port Townsend/Bainbridge Island area. So it makes sense for one of their fly-ins to be held on the Olympic Peninsula.

We arrived Friday afternoon after a leisurely start and various detours to avoid traffic congestion, and a stop for lunch at a park overlooking the recently completed second span of the Tacoma Narrows bridge. Mike McIntyre's wife, Arliss, welcomed us to their yard where we set up our tent, then offered us a map to the Blyn site where Mike had taken Don Daly and Chris King for a flight. It was about a 30 min drive to the LZ and then maybe another half-hour to the launch, which looked a LOT better than it did 15 or 20 years ago when Dave Chuljian, a surfer, hang glider and dentist from PT, took us up there. John Erickson, who had ridden up with us, decided to drive so Mike launched just as the wind speed went to zero. Neither C.J. nor I felt that our wings were sufficiently pressurized to make the transition from launch to air over a steep log pile, so we aborted and drove the vehicles down. On the way back we stopped at QFC in Hadlock and picked up a roasted chicken and some good bread for dinner. By the time we reached "camp", Mike had a campfire going and more pilots were arriving.

Saturday we got out of camp around 1100 and rendezvoused at the Brinnon Motel where we parked some cars and carpooled to the 2Bear LZ, then up the winding a brushy road to launch. It was in fact the same one C.J. and I had launched from twenty-five years ago with our old Dove when Steve Hollister, Rolf Johansen and others had taken us here on a road trip. Conditions were very light but got better, if not good enough for the locals to launch. However, CC Cunningham had seen two turkey vultures climb out from below launch, and he was convinced that it was time to go. That was good enough for us and we followed CC off launch with forward inflations. We all had nearly 20 minutes with some definite good climbs in very smooth air. The three pilots who followed us were a little too late but had smooth sledders. It may not have been quite dinner time but we had all skipped lunch and were ready to adjourn to the Geoduck Tavern in Brinnon. In spite of the Hood Canal seascape visible from the windows, burgers and beer were the predominant choice, although C.J.had the chowder and calamari. We made another stop at QFC on the way back to camp to pick up fixings for smores which were a big hit around the campfire that night.

Sunday dawned gray and gloomy and the forecast was for rain, although some pilots tried to convince themselves otherwise. We got the tent (the new condo-size Tomie Peak) down and everything packed up before it really started to rain around 1000. After a tour of Arliss' impressive stone carving workshop, we left for Port Townsend and the West Coast Sea Kayak Symposium at Fort Worden State Park. There was no charge to walk along the beach looking at the hundreds of demo kayaks and booths of other gear. We talked to a New Zealand exporter (Incept) who had a bunch of inflatable sea kayaks and one nice-looking white water boat. We also stopped at the Seda display and, just for fun, tried picking up the Tango remembering how heavy the one we borrowed from Annie was. We were shocked to find it felt lighter than our Gemini even though it is much longer (3 ft longer!). That's something to think about for the future.

From Port Townsend we headed south and across the Hood Canal Floating Bridge to Port Orchard where we spent the rest of the day visiting with Michelle DeVoe. Later, Bill Beck showed up and we had a delicious dinner of eggplant parmigiana. Home by 2200.

Saddle Mtn XC Flight Sep 8, 2007

Weather forecast looked good in the morning. Patti and Steve agreed, so we were on the road by 0945. We found the gate at the LZ locked and a second gate of barbed wire beyond that. Steve left his big white van at the Crab Creek ORV park and we headed up. The road has a coat of coarse gravel and the upper gully has some deep sandy spots but we were on top by 1230 or so and were surprised to find no one else there. The wind was light and straight in so we wasted no time getting geared up. However, by the time we were ready to launch, it was gusting and blowing pretty hard. It wasn’t until after 1400 that the cycles became more regular and the gusts less violent. I launched first in a lull and started sinking as I headed right so I turned back and returned to launch, still getting lower. Finally I turned east and headed to the microwave tower where I began climbing in edgy thermal lift. At that point I cut the ties to the launch area and the LZ and continued east.

The air was pretty turbulent and I spent more time just flying straight at first but gradually either I got more comfortable or the air smoothed out and I was able to make use of the thermals. At one point I hit lift that caused my vario to fill the scale and begin the second scale so it was more than 1000 fpm up …and smooth. As I approached the first power lines at about six miles, I was getting low and this was the low point on the ridge anyway. I was too low to safely cross the lines so I turned away from the hill and stumbled into some good lift which I cored up well above the ridge and power lines. At some point I reached my highest altitude of the flight – 4600 ft. msl. My goal had been to fly more than ten miles so I could count this flight as a cross-country flight but as I passed that mark I was in full XC mode. My track on Google Earth shows the typical pattern of spiraling up in a thermal and then going on glide to the next thermal and spiraling up again.

The ridge changed character becoming less cliff-y and developing a secondary ridge north of the main ridge. I could see the tower on Wahatis in the far distance and thought that it was unlikely I would get that far. At 12.7 miles I passed the point where the Crab Creek Road turns away from the ridge and a smaller road continues to the east. I started getting low again and radioed my position. There were big “pivot” fields below on the bench but it looked like it would be a pretty long walk out just to the road. So I started heading northeast hoping to cross a canyon and land on a farm road but I was sinking pretty fast. Just then I hit another good patch of lift and climbed high enough to make the valley road easily. It seemed like a smart thing to do, so I continued heading out and found still more lift in the valley. The buoyant air allowed me to stretch my flight to a good field 15.98 miles from launch and just about even with Wahatis. After packing up I started walking along the road; only one car passed me before Steve and C.J. pulled up in the van. I was glad I didn’t have to walk too much farther even though the weather was pleasant for Eastern Washington.

I really thought a lot about how similar the flying was to my experience in Iquique, Chile, last year. You could just keep flying along the ridge and even when you were sinking, you could be pretty sure that you would run into a thermal before you hit the ground. Also, knowing that we had a retrieve vehicle in the LZ freed me up from feeling like I had to topland. Patti did the noble thing and landed on top near the microwave tower so we didn’t have to drive up to retrieve the Trooper. Both C.J. and Steve decided to land in the sand at the bottom because the air seemed too squirrelly for a toplanding.

Riggins Resurrection Fly-in - August 31-Sep 3 2007

We got off with a reasonable start time of 0900 for the expected 9 hour drive, made a couple of gas stops in Ellensburg and Clarkston, and pulled into Riggins around 1730. There was surprisingly light traffic for the Friday before Labor Day weekend and the weather was changeable with the occasional shower. We stopped at Whitebird summit to check out the possibilities of flying there – good for PG with lots of landing options [Later we found out that the launch was nowhere near where we had been looking.] Farther down the grade we could see that there were some flat fields down near the valley bottom for HG. Arriving at the Best Western Salmon Rapids, we got checked in an went out for dinner at the River Rock Café which had just opened that day. We shared a prime rib and it was excellent but when Vince and Delany joined us it took forever to get their simple orders of soup-and-salad and a spinach salad. On the short walk back to the hotel, the street lights went out along with all the lights in town and the hotel was without power also. Fortunately, that did not interfere with the nightly cookies and milk service at 8 p.m. Power did not resume until 0400 or so and it knocked out the internet access so C.J. can’t get any work done that requires uploading or email.

Saturday 9/1/07 I woke up early thinking that the time on the hotel clock was correct when it was at least an hour too early due to the power outage. Breakfast was almost as good as at the Chelan Best Western lacking only the waffle maker. Rick Shalman called and said something about people meeting at 0800 to go up and fly a site just above town, “Darwin”. We drove to the city park around 0900 and met up with Mark Hollon and his wife, signed our waivers and got our packet with tickets for the Septemberfest. Then we went over to the high school football field where the early flyers were landing, met some more pilots and gave Patrick from McCall a ride back to his car in Seven Devils Canyon. Back at the Park at 1000, Mark had not shown up and Scott Ernst from NM convinced most of us to follow him to Whitebird based on the NOAA weather report of light east winds early becoming west later. We drove 30 miles to the Whitebird LZ, shuffled gear into Vince’s truck and drove up the old highway to the top of the grade then down (left) about 100 ft to a gated road. Our leader lifted the gate off its hinges and we drove up the rocky (but basically 2WD) road through two more gate (also lifted off their hinges) then down a bit to a great launch overlooking the Whitebird valley. The view off the west side of the ridge was down to the Salmon River canyon as it neared the confluence with the Snake in Hells Canyon. The wind was over the back and didn’t seem about to change so we all decided to follow Scott again to the launch above Lucile. Vince dropped us and our gear off back at the car and we drove south to Lucile trying to guess where everybody had gone. Fortunately David Lundquist showed up and led the way up a bunch of private “No Trespassing” roads to where the rest of the group was hanging out trying to figure whether the west-facing launch was going to be working in the north wind. Finally a bunch of us went up and hung out on launch for a couple of hours before Jerry, Doc and Mark Ostby (HG) launched and soared. C.J. waited until later to try to launch but the steep slope and line-grabbing vegetation kept her from a successful launch. Don from the Tri-cities and Armand from NY, on the way to San Diego, managed to get off for a late sledder to the LZ on a plateau above Lucile. We got back to the city park expecting to be too late for the spaghetti feed and barbecue but instead found that there was lots of food and drink left. After C.J. spent time interviewing Doc for the USHPA Observer post he wanted, we listened to the band for a while then came back to the hotel for a much needed shower. (C.J.'s wing above Lucile)

Sunday 9/2/2007 – After a quick meeting at the park we arranged for Frank Mignerey, the local photographer, to drive our vehicle down from launch and drove up the steep 4WD newly bulldozed road to the “Darwin” launch 1000 ft above town. Great views of the bend in the Salmon River as it enters Riggins! Launch was smooth, rounded and covered with dry grass so taking off was easy. There was no lift and we were quickly setting up our final approach over the school to miss the goal posts. The plan was then to go to Lucile while it was still early and conditions somewhat mild. We drove up from an unmarked intersection at milepost 206. And found a possible launch spot that was more south of the HG launch which some PG used yesterday, but not as far S as the launch that Scott had found. As more and more pilots arrived C.J. and I carried our gear down to the less steep take off and I helped C.J. lay her wing out. Scott launched, did not get up and landed not too long afterwards. His radio message from the LZ said that it was “bubbly” in the LZ and that he did not recommend that Christina, a P-2 pilot from Mossyrock, launch. C.J. got into the air on her second launch and had some big surges before heading turning south and trying the ridge that worked yesterday. There was not enough good lift and she had to land in a very active LZ. Even though Doc Shalman had joined me on our launch, I decided to pack it up and climb back up to the road. After thanking Maggie for offering to drive the Trooper down, I drove to Lucile and picked up C.J. We went back to the hotel for leftover quiche and Gatorade for lunch. For the rest of the afternoon we drove up the Big Salmon River road 15 miles to Manning Bridge. There were lots of people camping by the side of the road, rafting, or just playing in the rapids. One stretch of river was calm and permitted a pretty reflection of the steep canyon walls and dark green trees. When we got back to town we drove over to the park and found most of those pilots who were still in town (out of the original 20-some) hanging out. We joined them and talked a while with Scott before all heading over to the Rodeo Club Steakhouse (used to be the Way Back) for dinner. We got back to the Best Western around 2300.

Monday 9/3/2007 – Expecting to fly “Darwin” again we met a much-diminished group at the city park and convoyed over to the high school. No one was really enthusiastic about another sledder but the deal breaker was that the school was watering the football field with an industrial strength irrigator. On the way out we ran into Mark on the street and he must have gotten a new forecast or he listened to Scott who had heard that wind was going to be strong SW later in the day but was forecast to be light E early. That sounded good for “Whitebird” to Mark and the rest of us quickly agreed. With only ten people including Mark’s son Cade and Jerry’s wife, we only needed two vehicles so we left a car or two at the park, left John’s truck at Whitebird, and drove our Trooper and Jerry’s Suburban (?) up to launch. Amazingly, this time the wind was coming in light and straight and we lost no time setting up. I followed Scott and C.J. was right after me. There was lift on the ridge but it was sort of brittle-feeling and, after climbing raggedly over the top, C.J. and I headed south down the ridge slowly losing altitude with occasional climbs. Scott had already crossed the highway and was searching for lift along the spine between US 95 and old 95. We crossed while we were still north of the Whitebird Battlefield information point and I ran into some mellow 200 fpm up just beyond the pond. I climbed above C.J., who had been higher than I was, but lost it and headed for the LZ. C.J. and Scott landed in a field short of the LZ to avoid coming near the numerous power lines, but I had enough altitude to clear them easily and follow the first hang glider into the LZ. Mark and Jerry landed soon after. Great site and friendly LZ owners! On the way back to town we noticed that the atmosphere had gotten smoky from the fire(s) to the east. We all ended up going to lunch at the River Rock Café then split for other activities. C.J., Scott and I stopped at Frank’s photography studio to look at the photos he had shot. Scott headed off to relax under a tree near the river – he had heard that fishing hadn’t been good - while C.J. and I went to the sidewalk outside City Hall/Library/Fire Station to use the wireless hotspot to send the PDF to Jamie. Vince and Delany were at the Chevron station getting a flat tire repaired; they had been out to Florence ghost town that morning. Returning to the Best Western, C.J. kept working on the magazine until I went out and noticed that the smoke was gone and the scenery was clear again. Around 1630 we headed out to drive up to Heaven’s Gate Lookout, 8400 feet up on the edge of the Hell’s Canyon NRA. It was an 18 mile drive and then a short walk up to the rocky summit where the fire tower was situated. The views were good and there were plaques that indicated what you could see (if the air was perfectly clear and not hazed over by the fires). On the way back we checked out the Seven Devils campground – I’ll bet it’s cool there at night at 8000 ft. We got back to the hotel at 1945 or so, ate our lunch for dinner, and had the BW cookies and milk for dessert.

(Heavens Gate Firetower at Heavens Gate 8400 ft msl)

(Fire cloud generated by big forest fire east of Riggins from Heavens Gate)

Tuesday 9/4/2007 – C.J. finished up some work, sent it off from in front of the City Hall and then we hit the road. The Little Salmon River valley climbs from 1800 msl at Riggins to over 4000 msl at New Meadow and close to 5000 at McCall. We toured the Worldmark resort at McCall, snapped a photo of a bear sculpture and studied the maps of the forest fires burning throughout the area. Heading back to New Meadow we detoured to check out the location of a hot spring we had bathed in many years ago. It might still be there but it’s no more obvious now than it was then. Hwy 95 wound south through Council and Cambridge where a fire camp was set up in the fairgrounds. The smoke from the several fires to the east was easily visible. We turned NW and headed for the bottom of Hell’s Canyon, crossed near Oxbow dam and climbed back to over 5000 ft on the west rim. If we hadn’t been so hungry, we could have waited until we reached the rim overlook and had a truly scenic lunch spot. As we approached Joseph, the clouds thickened and we got showered on . That didn’t stop us from continuing to Wallowa Lake to see what the lowered lake level produced in terms of landing area. It was huge. The gondola was already closed (closes at 1600) but the ice cream shop was open. Since we had lost the directions to David Lundquist’s house on the Lostine River, we had to fake it, but managed to remember his description well enough to make it there with no wrong turns. We found Tony from Ellenville, NY there with Stanley, both looking for land to get away from the high, and growing, population density of NY. David kept us entertained with his stories of his early days with the great rock bands, and the early days of flying as well. We all watched the lightning storm from the deck while eating Tillamook “Udderly Chocolate” ice cream. C.J. and I crashed on a futon while Tony and Stanley made a semi-camp in the big Quonset hut.

Wednesday 9/5/2007 – Shortly after we woke up we were serenaded by David’s morning flute recital. He’s clearly a very capable musician, as we heard, whether on his new set of drums, various flutes, or piano. He also makes a mean smoothie for breakfast. We had to turn down an opportunity to go flying (the clouds were breaking up as we left) since C.J. had proofing to do. We took the usual road towards LaGrande but turned off at Elgin and crossed the Blue Mountains mostly in the forest. There were many sno-parks and we passed Spout Springs ski area at around 5300 ft. near Tollgate. Descending to the plains, we turned north toward Walla Walla, crossed the Snake River and bumbled through the Tri-Cities looking for the Costco so we could get gas. The results of the recent fire on Kiona were evident as we passed that flying site. Trying to avoid construction traffic, we detoured through Yakima and Selah. A lack of signage, or our own lack of attention caused us to miss our turn and we had to backtrack a mile or so to get to Hwy 821 through the Yakima Canyon. As usual, the wind was howling in Ellensburg, causing whitecaps on small ponds, and the wind continued strong over Elk Heights. We made a stop in Thorp to pick up some corn and a box of tomatoes and finally rolled in to North Bend around 1720. That’s probably twice as long as it would have taken if we had not taken detours and stops, but it felt more like a vacation this way.