Women’s Fly-In and Halloween Party

October 27-28, 2007

This must be about the “umpteenth annual" women’s fly-in, and we’ve attended almost all of them from the early days at Saddle Mountain in the early 90s.

This year we got a jump on the flying by heading for Saddle on Friday. Even before we arrived at the LZ, we could see paragliders in the air. We picked up Mike from Spokane who had sunk out and headed for the top where we found that the velocity had increased enough to keep everyone on the ground. C.J. fortunately had brought her Falcon and quickly set it up and launched into 15-20 mph NE winds. She got quite a long flight all by her self before winds moderated enough for us para-people to take off. I flew two short (10-15 min) flights toplanding each time in fairly strong conditions. C.J. chose to land in the LZ rather than risk the turbulence during a landing on launch, and I drove down to pick her up. By the time we were on the road at 1700 or so, people were still flying and apparently conditions even improved as the full moon rose around sunset.

We checked into our free room at the Best Western (winnings from the Beach’N last May) and bought a roast chicken at Safeway for dinner. Saturday morning’s sky looked clear but the temperature was only slowly rising out of the 20s. Since there was no rush, we met Peter and Naomi in the Chelan Falls LZ around 1100 and rode up to launch with them. I spent most of the early afternoon helping lay out wings on launch while C.J. got two flights. As conditions started to improve (slightly, the breeze continued to come up the east launch), I gathered my gear and launched from the south launch and had to apply considerable correction to keep my wing from flying me into the left-side rock. There was enough lift toward Green Monster to climb above launch and maintain for a bit but it was short-lived and I ran for 3-Tree and on down the spine working scraps of lift here and there. Finally, I reached the rocky ridge just above Chelan Falls and my vario indicated another piece of rising air. I managed to hang out and climb enough to extend my flight to close to a half hour. Later we drove Peter up to get his truck and C.J. got another flight. Back at the hotel, we readied our costumes: C.J. was a rat from the Rat Race (paragliding comp at Woodrat Mtn. in S Oregon) and I was a GPS complete with buttons and a screen showing my track, altitude and distance to goal. Other costumes at the party were either more elaborate or more skimpy, and the Canadians were hilarious with their theme “rock stars in rehab” complete with a soundtrack. Murdoch and Jan took best couple with their ‘Dead Elvis’, ScoobyDoo was the best male, Jaye had the best pie, and Colleen’s ‘Courtney Love’ took the prize for Best Butt of the Butte. For once there was more food than could be consumed, although the influence of a local WalMart could be easily detected.

Sunday looked to be a repeat of Saturday except that the wind was a bit stronger on launch. Nevertheless, some people were still crashing through the bushes as they tried to take off. I waited until 1400 to launch and then, when I got in the air, found that I had not unzipped my flight deck cover or turned on my instruments. After dealing with that I was far from the lift around launch and had to fly the 3-Tree route again. Fortunately, the same ‘last chance’ ridge was soarable again and I gained a couple hundred feet flying wingtip to wingtip with one or more gliders, and once again extended my flight time. After packing up and having lunch I waited around for C.J. to fly again. Late in the afternoon Terry Crippen had a spectacular crash in the LZ when he got distracted by a paraglider landing on the west side of the field and his right leading edge hit a tree and spun him into the ground. Aside from pretzeled down tubes and a possible damaged keel, he was unhurt. We packed up, gave Peter and Naomi a ride to the top, and headed out early enough to have light for the drive over Blewett Pass with its bright yellow larch.

As a fund raiser, this had to be one of the best fly-ins ever with at least 80 pilots signed up for a gross of $2000. Absent from the festivities were Dan Nelson, Lynn Bentley, Heather St. Clair, Jared, and practically all the old timers who were flying in the early years when we got started in paragliding.