Another Fall Flight at Rampart

9 October 2014

Rick Lai's photo of Rampart launches

The forecast was for changing weather - back to normal fall doom and gloom after Friday so C.J. and
I joined more than a dozen parafolk at the Rampart launch. Just as we got there in Owen's Toyota earlybird Iain was about to launch for his first Rampart flight. He had come up with Wheely, Mer and Brian F. and launched a bit early for a soaring flight. I think Milroy went next after a long wait and managed to stay up for a long time but below launch. Matty and Heather let me go in front of them and I used a forward inflation again to get off cleanly. Then I groveled for a while until I ran into a good thermal to the right of launch. It got me high enough (but not as high as C.J. who had used the same thermal to get to at least 6300') to go to the lower cliffs and get up. Then I went to the south end of the ridge so I could look down at where we had hiked two days ago - Lillian and Laura Lakes. As usual my aversion to getting high above the ground kept me from climbing up to join the pilots flying above the high ridge, but I did go all the way north past Gold Lake to the end of

Rampart Ridge looking south

"The Ramp". Ahead of me was the large gap before reaching Alta Mtn so I turned around - and immediately ran into a wall of air. My forward speed dropped to single digits (in kph) and I realized how far I was from the lake and a good place to land. Fortunately, it must have been just a compression zone because once I got past the corner, I got back up to speed. After flying for about an hour I passed the PG launch and saw several people still lined up waiting to take off - it was a slow day for getting off launch. I headed west across the lake and found lift almost all the way across so that I was not getting below 4200 ft and was wondering how I was going to get down. Since

Matt and Heather

we had parked at the Gold Creek bridge, I was planning to land at Wheely's recommended spot - a large brown field north of the island reputed to be soft as a mattress. I reached a point over the parking lot of Hyak and turned back flying over the ridge with an American flag in the trees. The lake had "filled in", meaning that the wind was stronger than when we had gone up and was rippling the previously glassy-smooth surface. I finally found enough sink to get down and landed in pretty light conditions, but this time I was ready to grab my rear risers (not as easy to do as I remember) to kill my wing. I packed up and put a wind streamer on a nearby stick. I was on my way to the car just as another glider landed. It wasn't until later that I found out it was Brian. It was a shorter distance (than from the Gobi) but harder going with the heavy pack back to the bridge. People were still landing on the road, turning at the last moment to land into the north breeze. I hopped in the car and drove to the HG landing area where C.J. had just finished packing up. We gave Andrei a ride back to the bridge and then headed home glad to have caught another good fall color day soaring at Rampart Ridge.