"Shave the Dog" Weekend

13-14 March 2010

We had considered going to Dog Mountain to help clear the area below launch of rapidly-growing alder on Friday, but my unplanned trip to the emergency room for what seemed to be chest pain forced us to a Saturday morning departure. We were still in time to do some widening on the East Dog road by cutting back the encroaching alder branches and blackberries. David Carrol and Kenny Richardson seemed to have been the guys with the fastest chainsaws and longest endurance as they shaved the slope and re-shaped the air flow from 0800 to noon.

Later the conditions picked up to marginally soarable - well, marginal to everyone but Larry and a few select others. I managed to launch between some of the hang gliders and, after sinking below the road, got up over launch and flew for an hour. C.J. had had a good hang gliding flight with a really smooth launch not long before I flew.

Tina, Larry, the Dog Mtn Fund and supporters provided a hot lunch and dinner for all the work party, family, friends and dogs. The bonfire which followed was welcome because the temperature began dropping as soon as the sun went down. Fortunately there was no precipitation or we would have had another dose of snow like that on Saturday morning. C.J. and I retired to the comfort of our mini trailer long before the fire and the enthusiasm burned down.

Frost on the exposed aluminum inside the trailer clued us in that the temperature had dropped below freezing overnight. Since we were now on daylight savings time, we stayed warm inside until the sun came over the ridge (an hour later than it had yesterday). While the wind started off light and variable, by the time it had warmed up it was pretty clear that we were going to have an east wind day. Larry went off to work on the Dragonfly and we packed up the trailer and headed home.

Not bad, two Dog trips in the last two weekends, one camping trip, and a work party.