13 April 2016

Frostbite 2016

George above Area 151                         by David Le
 Three days of glorious sunshine (ignoring the gloomy mornings) provided more flying than any recent fly-in that I can remember. The wind was too strong during the middle of the day for paragliders at Dog, probably a good thing, but in the evening the white caps on the lake went away. Meanwhile, Bremer and Area 151 were producing good PG flights with four pilots making the 12.5-mile trip to Dog from 151 on Friday. There was a great turnout of hang glider pilots at Frostbite but C.J. was not among them having left her wing at home – she had had surgery to remove a skin cancer on her upper right arm on Tuesday and her doctor gave strict instructions to do nothing that would rip the stitches out.

8 April, Fri. – We got started around 0930 with the trailer but no hang glider and reached Dog before noon (gas at Costco in Covington - 207.9). C.J. helped Tina by doing the registration while I helped Brian Scott and others gather driftwood for the bonfire. C.J. had realized by now that she had forgotten to pick up her Ozone backpack with her computer so she would not be able to work on her article for the magazine during the weekend. Later, as the sun got lower, Larry and Tina figured that everything was set-up and went up for an evening flight. I got a ride up with them. While they set up, a mini-wing pilot flew. I waited until all the HGs had launched and the wind had switched to the north before setting up. Kim and the mini-wing pilot showed up and launched before me after several tries. [Before they took off we saw more PGs in the air – they hadn’t launched from Dog. Later we found that they had come from Area 151(Brent Taylor, Gene Beaver, Dave Auman and ?)]. It took me several tries as well and Tim had set up and launched his HG before I got off. It was nicely soarable on the north side and I climbed to 3200 feet but didn’t try to reach the microwave. Hang gliders were over at Elk but I didn’t think I could get back if I went over there, so I tried flying north to the ridge near the boat ramp. I was almost there and down to 1700 ft when I saw a hang heading back low. Figuring that there was no lift, I turned back and zoomed to the LZ and then climbed on the point and all the way back above TO where I saw another PG struggling with the launch. I went back toward the north again, then turned back to the LZ. While I was still pretty high I got rocked with some big turbulence, and when I was flying my cross-wind leg I was hit by a gust that blew me downwind into the high grass. I turned sharply back and it looked like I was about to land outside the mowed area when another gust lifted me and slid me left into the field for a good landing. Later C.J. and I had dinner in the trailer where it was relatively warm compared to the dropping temperatures and breeze outside.

9 Apr, Sat – Cold night and a gloomy, low-cloudbase morning. I hung out while C.J. worked on registration hauling in money hand-over-fist as a record number of hang glider pilots signed in. Around noon I was surprised to see a paraglider setting up to land because I hadn’t seen any PGs launch. It turned out to Matty Senior on a paramotor; he and Josh had launched from the airstrip in Eatonville and flown past Mt. Rainier to reach the Dog LZ. Josh had run low on gas and had turned west to almost reach the Morton Airport. Matty thought that he could borrow someone’s car at Area 151 so he could retrieve his van from Eatonville. I gave him a ride over there and picked up Josh on the way at Skaggs Road. A few PGs were flying down from Area 151 and after packing up Vince and Adam and David Le decided to go back up. I threw in with them. On launch we could see a number of wings at Bremer, some sinking to the bailout, some getting up. After some time, two of the pilots reached 151 and began soaring near launch. That was a good clue that it was soarable; Adam (he of the Einstein hair) took off but missed the cycle and sank out. I was luckier and got into the lift; I flew a ridge lift pattern with a wing from Bremer for a while then started trying to circle in thermal lift. As I got a bit above the trees on launch I tried going back into the bowl behind and working the face. After a couple of tries I was able to stick and Vince and David came over and climbed with me and above. At one point I was
George at Area 151
high enough to look directly at snow-covered St. Helens and realized the other peak must be Adams, not Rainier. [Probably we were all thinking about the flights to Dog on the previous day but no one made a move to fly to the next ridge (Hopkins?) and I had left my phone in the car anyway.] I tried going back toward launch and then headed west from there gradually climbing until I got over the valley rim at around 2500ft. The air was getting somewhat more textured and I decided to fly out into the valley. I circled the edge of Area 151 and worked down. I was rocked by turbulence on a high downwind leg and again when I turned on final but landing was smooth. After packing up I and most of the paras went over to Dog for the dinner which was just beginning at about 1730. At least four went up to join the two PGs which were flying now that the wind had moderated. Whether on purpose or just by happenstance, there never were more than five PGs in the air at any time. Dinner was good with lots of tasty stuff including C.J.’s “blubarb crisp” (with a can of whipped cream). I hung out a while around the fire but I wasn’t prepared to sit through a lot of amplified music from the stage (back of Dave’s U.S. Army flatbed truck) so I headed back to the trailer pretty early. When C.J. got back it was cold enough that we ran the heater for a while before going to bed with an extra quilt. It turned out that once the cloud cover formed, it didn’t get very cold after all.

10 Apr, Sun – Another cold and gloomy morning with low cloudbase. I hung around the trailer for a while, took a walk to the north on the delta as far as the creek, came back and had some lunch. Matty and Josh were already back from their Sunday flight from Packwood up toward Rainier and back. The sky had cleared and people were flying so I headed over to Area 151 to see what the PGs were up to. I had missed a trip up to Bremer again; some had flown back to 151. Kraske had headed to Dog to pick up a Dog key, Brent had packed up his trailer and headed home, Vince was gone. Rob, Adam and another ex-HG from Portland were still around and eventually decided to go up to 151 TO. It was gusting on launch and didn’t feel like it would be friendly air so we waited for an hour. Finally I decided to give up and everyone but Adam agreed. He launched and sank right out. We drove down and I returned to Dog where I packed up the trailer while the spot landing awards were given out. C.J. and I left around 1700 and were home around 1900. It was a different Frostbite without C.J. flying.

11 Apr, Mon – I disconnected the trailer and washed the accumulated grime off it. Then I set it up and unloaded the fridge and dumped the porta-potty. As I was setting up the trailer I noticed that the aluminum trim on the driver’s side A-wall was loose near the front. I drilled a 7/64-in hole and put a bolt in to keep it in place. Then I sliced and scraped and used solvent to remove some worn weather-stripping from the curbside aluminum roof support. I installed a new length of open-cell foam weather-stripping. That should be good for a while although every time I close the roof, one side scrapes against the weather-stripping and abrades it. I left the Renogy solar panel in the trailer; it had worked very well at Dog keeping the battery fully charged so that we could run our lights, water pump and the propane furnace (as well as charge my phone). I blew a fuse when I hooked it up to the wrong polarity – but that’s what fuses are for, I guess. (I need to replace 15A fuse.)

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