9 April, Wed - After missing a few days that looked really good for flying, we went to Tiger and caught the 1230 shuttle. Conditions were remarkably good although somewhat turbulent. I had to scratch for a bit until I found a good climb over near the Yaher Wall. That gave me enough height to squeak over to the North Ridge. After searching back and forth for a while, the clouds started working and I was able to cross to the Sammamish Plateau. I rounded the hospital and headed SW over Issaquah and back to the LZ via Squak. Meanwhile, C.J. had reached the ceiling at 5000 ft and considered flying home. But no one else seemed to be going that way so she also returned to the Tiger LZ. Both of us encountered strong sink on our approaches and had to cut our downwind legs short. As we were packing up imagine our surprise to run into Laddie Shaw from Anchorage who was just passing through after picking up a Craigslist RV in Minnesota. We also had a chance to catch up with Mike Schildt who was just heading up the trail for a hike and fly.
11 April, Fri - Laddie and Linda came over for dinner. They leave on the 15th for the Alaska Highway. and home.
12 April, Sat - Since the weather on Sunday was not looking too good for Dog Mountain, we just went down for the day. We left around 0900 and stopped at Aaron's to pick up C.J.'s glider so we didn't get there until almost noon. Winds were north and people were deciding to land in the gravel west of the usual grassy LZ which let them avoid some of the rotor. We threw on with Chris and Christine Culler along with Xan and Eric Troili. Conditions on top looked too strong for me and there was some crossing from the east on the north launch. C.J. set up and I hung out until several hangs launched including Chuck Williams who hadn't flown since his serious illness. The next pilot didn't spend any time balancing his wing on his shoulders and launched with his nose high. The glider weathervaned into the east cross and swung right around into the trees to the right of launch. Fortunately the glider stayed in the trees with one wing in a fir and the nose in an alder. Scott climbed up the fir and Stas went up the fir to the left of the alder, both carrying whatever they could cobble together for rope - mostly tiedowns and towstraps. Larry Jorgensen climbed up the fir above Scott. Stas was able to get a line to the pilot and secure the glider from slipping out of the trees and plunging down the very steep north face of the mountain. At about this time I saw that more rope would be needed and drove Chris's truck down to get my climbing rope and 'biners. When I got back up to launch with Tim and Kenny, Larry had gotten a line to the pilot from his tree and they were starting to lower the pilot who had to cut his hang strap to get free of the glider. Stas did not have enough line and my 11.5 mm perlon was useful to lower the uninjured pilot all the way to the ground. The next job was to recover the glider which had at least one broken leading edge. After a couple of tries, we decided that the alder would have to be cut. I put my Sven saw together and we took turns sawing until the 9-in diameter tree was cut through and the glider fell to the slope where it could be taken apart and carried up to the road near the outhouse. By then several hours had passed and the predicted increase in wind velocity had arrived and the direction was still cross. Conditions were marginal for launching but good for soaring as Larry and Lenny proved as they flew to the airport at Packwood. C.J. decided to break her glider down and we drove back to the LZ with Christina who left her glider to be flown by Aaron (who had arrived after all the excitement). We were too late to get gas at Covington Costco - the warehouse closed at 1830 on Saturdays. We were home around 2000.
13 April, Sun - The wind predictions for Saddle looked good. C.J. sent a post to the CBCC and NWPC email lists that we were going and then we got out by 0900. We had to buy enough gas to get to Ellensburg at the 76 station in North Bend. Along the way we heard from Preacher who was going to Kiona, Mer who was almost to Saddle, and Beth and Ernie who were undecided. C.J. got text messages from B&E and Mer that she was down east of the LZ so we went to pick her up even though Joe Stermitz's wife was driving down to get him after he took off. We all met at the LZ and went up in two cars leaving ours with C.J.'s Falcon in the parking lot. Pilots from the Rainier Paragliding Club were soaring above launch, some pretty high and quite a ways out in front. Randy Sprague was on launch and Steve Messman landed on top to be sure that their vehicle got back to the LZ. I launched and didn't find anything right away but as I flew to the east, I ran into punchy thermals and climbed enough to keep going. Eventually I passed the M/W and reached the lone cabin. I wasn't enjoying the texture of the air -perhaps I was too close to the terrain - and turned back to the west. I noticed Ernie sinking out and C.J. low and heading for the LZ so I squeaked in for a nice toplanding just before Beth launched and went to the LZ. I packed up and drove Ernie's Suburban down. I met Ernie at the LZ just as he was leaving in Meredyth's Toyota, Hank the Tank, to chase her up the river to Vantage. Beth then followed in their car. Meanwhile, C.J. had reached 5200 ft after finding a thermal near the LZ and headed east above the Crab Creek Road. The east wind was pretty strong so her forward speed was in the single digits. C.J. returned and, to avoid the many dust devils in the LZ, she landed in a sandy patch a short walk away. It was still early but we did not feel like flying again (and everyone else had left) so we consulted the Desert Hikes guidebook and decided to go to the Priest Lake Wildlife Area just west of Mattawa. We found it okay but the sloughs were swollen possibly as a result of the unusual runoff from the cracked Wanapum Dam. We should have been able to hike from the parking lot across the dry sloughs to some higher ground along the Colombia but we had to settle for walking on the east side of the sloughs. We got in a couple of hours of exercise then headed home. The view of the much-lowered pool above the Wanapum dam was impressive with large flat sandbars stretching out from the usual high, basalt-cliff river banks. We didn't run into much traffic and the DOT had opened up a second lane for westbound traffic through the construction area along Lake Keechelus. We were home around 2000.
15 Apr, Tue- We went to the NWPC monthly meeting which we've been missing because Tuesday nights are when the KT Squares workshop usually is. We got to Pogacha's early so we could have dinner with Matty and Heather and get his take on what we should do in New Zealand. He agreed with our choice of February but he thought that we should spend only one week on the North Island and three on the South where he grew up (Nelson). He pointed out that the atmosphere is pretty stinky around Rotorua where our North Island WorldMark resort is located. Apparently, Wanaka (WAN ah kah) is a good location for flying and other things - that's where the other WM resort is.. Later, the meeting topic was "cross country" and Brian Franklin gave a very good introduction for pilots new to XC from Tiger. Dave Milroy gave a presentation for more advanced pilots. There was also a slideshow/video about the Oceanside Fly-in by Derek and on Matty Senior's tour operation in Thailand by Shannon and Matt.
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