Eric T. Benefit at Dog

And a Hike near Sunrise, Mt. Rainier National Park,

15-17 Sep 2012

Eric was seriously injured when he crashed his hang glider while launching at Chelan Butte early this summer. He has insurance but the uncovered expenses are very high. Folks in the flying community wanted to do something more than what individuals have been doing (e.g., Brian Scott remodeled Eric's bathroom). Tina Jorgensen and the rest of her family came up with the idea of a Frostbite-style fly-in at Dog.

15 Sep, Sat - C.J. and I got down to Dogpatch early (for us) and found a large crowd already there with tents, trailers and motor homes, a stage for entertainment (and auction), and a rock climbing wall plus an inflatable "bouncy house". The wind looked a bit strong with some whitecaps on the lake but, after setting up the Aliner, we found another passenger and went up to launch. People were setting up and launching but we waited around for an hour or two for better conditions. C.J. launched as the winds moderated and had a good 1-1/2 hr flight. I waited until 4 p.m. or so, even though the other four paragliders (Ross and Kraske among others) were launching. Finally, when Ruaraidh launched a second time I used the launch-from-the-face technique and got off easily (on my second attempt). The wind was strong enough that I popped up over launch and then crept only slowly forward. I made a couple of 360s but basically I flew out over the lake and then came back to land in the LZ a bit short of the spot. The number of people present for the fly-in seemed larger than the number who usually show up for

Sierra, Tina and Jasmine auctioning desserts

Frostbite. The burgers, dogs and potluck selections were just as good, and the dessert auction started up right after folks had eaten dinner. Jazzy did a great job as auctioneer and got some amazing donations (One that sticks in my mind was Steve Kincaid who bid $45 on his own box of HotPot donuts - he said he had already eaten half of one of them.). There were also flying and non-flying items for sale (David Lundquist had a couple of his Grateful Dead t-shirts.)  and people were making donations, as well. The total, including donations on Sunday, came to over $7000. Wow!

Little Tahoma and Mt Rainier from Emmons Moraine

16 Sep, Sun - It looked like another beautiful day although a lot of people had gone home after the entertainment (Val Gallagher was just one of the talented people who played and sang on the stage.) Saturday night. C.J. had had a good flight and was Saturday ready to do something else so we broke camp and drove over Cayuse Pass to the Sunrise entrance to Mt. Rainier. There was a really slow-moving line at the ticket booth and we were glad when another ranger showed up and let those of us with passes through another lane. We were a little concerned about crowding on the trail especially after we saw that the trailhead for the Wonderland Trail at Fryingpan Creek was totally parked up. But when we got to White River Campground there were most of the sites were vacant and we found a pull-thru next to a rushing stream in the first loop we came to. A family in the next campsite had a map of the local trails and we found that the Glacier Basin trail started right in the CG. By then it was close to 1300 so we didn't even open the trailer but started right out to hike the 3.2 mi to Glacier Basin. The trail paralleled the White River mostly in cedar, spruce and fir forest. We passed some old mining gear (and a big pile of bear scat) before the forest opened out in the basin. We continued on another quarter mile or so toward Inter glacier and Sherman Rock before stopping for the day at about 6064 ft (according to the GPS on my new smartphone). We were on our way down by 1600 and it was a gentle enough slope that my knees did not give me any problem. We were beat by the time we got back to camp but C.J. prepared a nice dinner and then we crashed early, but not before finishing up the editing we had also worked on Saturday night.

17 Sep, Mon - C.J. had to get back home so she could finish her article for the magazine and get all the November edits uploaded to the USHPA server. We were on our way out of White River CG around 0900 down the Mather Memorial Parkway and US 410. We hadn't been over this route for a couple of years so we were commenting on the changes (not many actually). We had put $20 of gas in on the way through Packwood Sunday and today we stopped at Costco in Covington to fill up. Home by noon.