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.