Dan Heath Memorial Party

and fly-in

"Business card" by Ray Kehl

9-12 August 2013

Dan succumbed to cancer a month or more ago but this was the first opportunity for his pilot friends to gather. Dave Verbois hosted almost two dozen friends and spouses at his cabin near Winthrop where Dan had been a frequent visitor.

Sunday morning balloon fly-by

9 Aug, Fri - Since nothing was scheduled for Friday, we got a late start, but around 1330 we pulled the Aliner out of the driveway and headed over Snoqualmie and Blewett passes. Traffic was minimal and we arrived in about 4.5 hours including a stop to top up the gas tank in Cashmere ($3.769) (GasBuddy app had pointed out that gas was over $4 a gallon in the Winthrop area). We had dinner with Dave and Jaro Lahulek and Leslie got home a bit later from her part time job at River Run Resort (or Riverside or River-something else). Ray Kehl and Forrest "Frosty" Keller arrived later and so did Steve and Susan Stroming. Dan "Sparky" Peterson dropped in for a while on his motorcycle then headed back to his lodging in town. We were glad that I had put the roof straps over the Aliner roof and the painter pole extended from A-wall to A-wall because we had strong winds, some rain and lots of thunder and lightning.

10 Aug, Sat - Patti Fujii arrived in her new 2010 Honda Insight; she had camped in her car at the local KOA not being sure if she could find the cabin in the dark. Ida and her husband of two years, Terry, showed up in a big motor home. Jim Lorenz and Roy Olson drove up together but just for the day. The forecast was pretty good for flying at Goat but there was a 30% chance of thundershowers and big cumulus development could be seen over the North Cascades. We all headed up to Mazama, minus Leslie who had to work, plus Leslie's daughter Julie and her friend Todd. We milled around at the Mazama store for a while and walked out to the corral LZ. Finally it looked like the wind was switching from down-valley to up-valley so we drove to the launch. Since Jim and Roy weren't staying for the dinner and informal memorial, they recounted some stories, mostly about trips to Mexico with Dan. Dave had brought Dan's cremains and we spread some around launch and put some in baggies to carry into the air. Just about every pilot flew including C.J. but I decided to drive down instead. C.J. landed after a good flight just as I got to the LZ. We hung out at the store for a while after getting packed up then most people headed back to Dave's. C.J. and I went back to the LZ and ran into Carl Bevis who had just arrived. Steve Stroming was finally heading out to land between Flagg and Bear Mtns and Carl found him first and gave him a ride home so C.J. and I were on our own. Back at Dave's there was a big tub of cold beer, wine and soft drinks plus a bunch of chips, salsa and chunky guacamole to eat while we told tales of Dan's exploits. When Leslie got back from work we had pulled pork and cole slaw for a main course. Ellen and Chaffee came in a bit late because he had gone up to hike and fly Bowen Mountain, but there was plenty of food. If anyone had any room left, there was rhubarb crisp from C.J. and brownies and ice cream brought by Ellen. Julie was doing some video interviews during the evening but neither C.J. nor I could think of anything significant to say. We headed off to bed and another night of gust fronts and thunderstorms.

That sure looks like a bear in the woods...

11 Aug, Sun - By the time we got up and joined the group who stayed over, Leslie had just about finished cooking up a bunch of scrambled eggs and sausage to go with the leftover rhubarb crisp and cherry coffee cake. Most folks started packing up and heading home after breakfast; unfortunately for some, the North Cascades Hwy had been closed by massive slides caused by the heavy rain up there overnight. Since the Sunday traffic  was going to be even worse than usual on I-90, we decided to stay another night. Flying didn't seem like a good idea since the chance of T-storms was 50%, so we took Steve's suggestion and headed north of Winthrop for a hike. It was about twenty miles to the Freezeout Ridge/Tiffany Mountain trailhead.along the east fork of the Chewuch and Boulder Creek. In fact, we drove through much evidence of the 2011 Boulder Creek Fire and even hiked

Wildflowers on Freezeout Ridge

through some burned area. It was a surprise to reach the trailhead (1200) and find a half dozen cars already there since the last few miles of the road were gravel and pretty well washboarded. Starting from 6500 we climbed steadily through forest (some burned) until we broke out on the ridge which was covered with grass, rocks and lots of wildflowers. As we passed the jct leading R to Whistler Pass and started climbing more steeply toward the 8200 ft summit, the sky began showing signs of overdevelopment closer to us. By the time we had reached 7900 ft it was pretty clear that we were in for a storm. Another hundred feet or so higher we felt the first raindrops and the temperature dropped along with the increase in wind velocity. We pulled on cagoules and rain parkas and headed down after a quick detour to look over Whistler Pass and the Conconully valley. Thunder was rumbling in the near distance but lightning was fortunately so far absent. On the way out we saw one other couple heading down and two other folks coming up (!) the ridge. It never rained hard which was just as well since we had not brought along rain pants and I didn't have a fleece jacket, not having expected it to get cold. Most of the cars were still at the trailhead when we left (1530 or so). Back in Winthrop it was hot and dry and we stopped to get an ice cream cone and window shop the nifty-gifty stores along the main street. When we arrived back at Dave's cabin he and Leslie looked pretty tired so we decided to move on and camp somewhere different. We drove down through Twisp and then up US 20 to Loup Loup Pass and a Forest Service CG of the same name. It was in the forest at about 4000 ft and was nice and cool - great for camping - and uncrowded. We had no storms there overnight.


12 Aug, Mon - After breakfast we drove back down almost to Twisp and then backtracked as far as Chelan where we got enough gas ($3.879) to get us to Cle Elum at least where gas was supposed to be $3.559, but when we got there we found that the credit price was 10 cents more. Oh well, that's something that GasBuddy could improve. [Later we found out that gas prices had been dropping and in Issaquah Costco was selling regular for $3.559.] We were home by 1600.

13 Aug, Tue - Took the 1430 shuttle to fly at Tiger.