Reports, not necessarily epic, but good enough to look forward to again. Got one written? Send text and images to Ancil's email for posting here.
May 1, 2008 at 12:09 AM, Steve Forslund wrote:
Nice flying with Sam today. As we clawed up behind launch someone asked "are you coring sink?" That was good motivation and I followed Sam to the north. At the quarry Sam was climbing up and back while I stayed out front where the clouds were pulling me up. I arrived higher at the hatchery and found a nice climb. Sam was working hard and I wish he would have made it back up. There was a great possibility of flying to Oceanside and I know I could have done better with more patience and better climbing.
I made it past the RV park and was trying to ridge soar to the schooner
unfortunately the west wind was following the terrain making it a head
wind. I landed at the RV park. We went back and flew some more. Sam left
low made it to the clear cut and
climbed up to fly with Tingey at the north end. I was feeling stuck but
eventually it turned back on and I headed north. I was soaring the shore
and getting lift from the mud of low tide. I landed south of the Netarts
Tillamook turnoff on the beach and kited my wing to the grass. Link to
my second flight and I attached the first flight which had a problem
with the IGC signature.
Steve(work?)Forslund
http://www.paraglidingforum.com/modules.php?name=leonardo&op=show_flight&fli
ghtID=35239
Sollie: Mar 2, 2008, at 5:13 PM, Tobias wrote:
The wind indicator on launch hung sadly toward the LZ, but Tim, already in his flight suit and getting ready for his first flight in quite awhile, said, "It's just a thermal out in front pulling the flag toward it." He was, as usual, right. In moments, a light thermal worked its way up the slope, just enough for Tim to pull his glider up and get away from the hill. He began meticulously working some light lift out front of the point, patiently mapping out the sparse lift, turning as flat as he could and, all the while, slowly gaining altitude.
Of course, those on launch began to more seriously contemplate getting airborne, including me. I began getting my gear ready more enthusiastically. Jim Baldo was next off launch and found the slow elevator. I looked up to find Tim at least 1000' over launch. I got ready a little quicker. I think it was Chester who got off right in front of me and, not to waste the thermal, I pulled up right away and followed him within seconds. I found the elevator just out front near the point and worked it hard until I was about 400' above launch and a little lee side. I moved further out front and caught another, which took me higher yet, but again a little lee side. The wind was tracking slowly from the SE, which made flying just above the ridge a lot of sense. I continued to gain altitude as I moved along the ridge and then flew NW just in front of Kilchis.
I had no idea where Tim was. James lee was heading back toward Sollie. Ahead of me, aimed toward Bay City, was a red glider (Sam). I headed that way, crossing the Kilchis and slowly losing altitude. I passed the golf course and thought it might be fun to land there. But, I decided to push on and, hopefully, find something to take me back up. A thin cloud layer was shading the ground a little and thermal generation apparently had died down. So, I found a very nicely mowed lawn to land in, which was quite close to HWY 101.
During my little XC, I got to about 3500' ASL and landed just 2 miles short of Bay City. Sam made it past Bay City and picked me up on his way back. We ran into Tim and his dad Jim and we decided to make an early day of it and head back home. I don't know if there was more thermaling after we left. Some folks were on their way back up to launch. But I personally had a nice little tune-up flight and reminded myself why I love this thing we do.
Sam Muldar adds:
Earlier, there was a great street of clouds to the north, but by the time I went on glide towards that area things had pretty much smoothed out. I ended up farther north than I ever had before, landing at Hobsonville point, just over a half mile short of Garabaldi. Flight log here: http://www.paraglidingforum.com/modules.php?name=leonardo&op=show_flight&flightID=30317 It was great to see so many people out today. Big thanks to Kelly for the ride up the hill.
Hardy Ridge: Pete Reagan 3/2/08
So I went east instead. Somebody had to see what was happening that-a-way.
The wind was E at about 8 as I went past Washougal. But it was light
W by the mid gorge at at Dog Mountain it was honkin' west. when I saw
that I had hope for all you guys at the beach. So I was short of options.
I drove back into the light west zone and there was Hardy Ridge, the
next one west of Hamilton Mountain. Part of the usual approach is closed
so I ended up doing a good solid 6 miles and 2000 feet to get up to the
south end of the ridge, the old Terry Taggart launch (I think its total
paragliding history is 1 launch by Terry from which he terrified himself
by flying to Hood River, and one launch by me with a hop to Hamilton
and a glide into North Bonneville. I wanted to hike up to the top of
Hardy Ridge which is not in Beacon Rock State Park, but it was too snowy,
and the circuitous route I took to get into there took too much time
(and energy) so I just went back up to the south end. At 3PM I was getting
5-7 mph with fairly gentle thermals to 11. The launch is pretty comfortable
but all the LZ's are behind you and downwind, so you can't mess around
a long time trying to get up. I got two nice little puffs that held me
above launch for a little while, but then things got sketchy so I peeled
over the back and headed toward Hamilton. I came in below the ridge line
of John Benedict's launch over there and was again able to ride little
jets to a couple of hundred over briefly. The lift was spotty though
and the geography over the back side of there pretty savage,and I had
a few miles to go before I could land, so I gave up trying to bench up
Hamilton, and flew out and landed in the baseball field in N Bonneville.
Intriguingly, there is a lot more real estate down there than last time I looked.
One old LZ is full of houses and the baseball diamond itself has a lot more fence.
Nice afternoon. not much driving. Lotta exercise and an auld lang syne flight.
June 27, 2000 Jay Carroll has the new highest altitude record for the Gorge at 10,800 ft. He flew 28 miles from Cliffside on Tuesday and landed near Appleton Rd. (I only got to 10,031 ft).
I launched just before Jay and got to 5,000 ft on an APCO Allegra DHV 1-2 and was half way to Hwy 97 and flew back into the valley between Maryhill and Centerville. I worked small dusties and stayed at 5-6000 ft and drifted straight west north of Dalles Mt. I was low and heard Jay say that he was at the Texaco Station and was past 9,000 ft. The heat low was working! I stayed with a weak thermal and took it past 10,000 ft east of the Klickitat River. I went west toward Snowden, which is above White Salmon.
I got low and worked one of the weakest bubbles of lift and stayed with it and got up past 10,000 ft again. I took lots of photos! Jay was still up and raced behind me and got low near Fisher Hill and landed. I was cold and heading for Underwood Mt. I got to the top and worked one small thermal and decided to glide past the top and land in a big field next to Cook-Underwood Rd and Driver Joe Lawry. I flew 43.0 miles for a new Cliffside XC record. It took 3 hrs and 10 min. I went back to Bingen and did a tandem with a guy from the Bay area. Just another day in the Gorge. Thanks Driver Joe! Rick Higgins
Prairie is a mid-coast range site that is rarely flown due to remoteness, locked and un-locked gates and because we are not always sure of what to look for in weather. My longest flight from the summit was only six miles, but it crossed a bunch of forest where I did not want to land and I followed the farmland valley to its terminus on a day when the wind was light from the northwest, there was a good lapse rate and I was able to get to 3500' before heading away from the mountain. At the time we had permission to land in a couple of the fields in the valley, but now it is more limited to what is described in the site guide. The x in the photo below represents where we now have permission to land. The first half of the flight was high, going from 3500' to about 3000' as I headed toward the farmland. Over the farmland I began my descent and got to about 500' above ground level only to discover thermals popping off the grass. I tried to ascend the northern side of Taylor Butte but met with sink in that direction so I stayed over the fields, bobbing along on thermals at 500' over all the way to the T at the end of the valley, where I picked an empty patch to land in. The folks at the farm welcomed me and I radioed for a ride back.
Sollie Tuesday November 13, 2007 Sam Mulder
I'm very pleased with the way Tuesday turned out. It’s really nice to recognize a good forecast for a site and capitalize on it.
Over the last couple of years I've tried really hard to get the most out of Sollie as far as XC goes. With the help of Joe Evans, and watching a lot of other hang dudes, I've tried to visualize what kinds of flights are possible for the site with paragliders. What I've come up with is that it is really, really difficult to get away from the hill on a para rig. This is even more true given the types of days that we typically fly there. There are a lot of great days that it's soarable at Sollie and Sugar, but few in a year that we can realistically break free of the hill and get south of the Trask river.
We usually fly Sollie on NW (lee side) days in the spring and fall. First day post frontal is best with a good laps rate, medium-ish pressure (I really don't watch pressure at all; I should, but I haven't tracked the numbers at all to make them relevant to me). You can get a good morning and sometimes a good evening flight on high pressure blue sky days, but the vast majority of blue days you'll be hard pressed to get over launch (with that said, one 100% blue sky day with a good lapse rate I went to 4k+ when everyone else went to Sugar and sunk out....go figure). Typically most high pressure days the sea breeze picks up between 1pm and 3pm and blows all the thermals apart, which can make the flying terrifying.
Sollie can be a very good site on forecasted l and v days, especially those with a southern component. As long as base is high enough (ie over the ridge, or at least over launch) the ridge can be just fantastic to soar in ridge lift mixed with thermals. Given a Southern component, you can have great flights ranging from Sugar or even a little to the east of that all the way to the Kilchis river and back. It can be easy to roam the ridge back and forth, but given that general wind direction it’s hard to fly xc to the south.
So, that leaves us with Tuesday. If you want to go south, listen to Joe Evans. On his hang, he’s been to Hebo, CLO, Lincoln City, and Kiwanda, all starting from Sollie/Kilchis. He’s told me that L and V days especially with a NE component are the ones to be looking for. The light NE offshore component is really important, because it holds the sea breeze at bay. Even on days with good lapse rates, the sea breeze usually stuffs us paragliders in the venturi around the Trask river on most attempts going south past Fairview. The l & v NE allows you to drift south in the thermals once you get up around base, and it can set up a nice convergence over the valley, sometimes all the way south past pleasant valley towards Hebo.
Why don’t most people look for NE days? Most of the time when it’s NE, the pressure is too high, and it’ll be way strong over the back. The site just doesn’t like NE over 5mph. You’ll never get cycles coming up the front to counteract that. Tuesday saw light NE, 0-5 aloft at base; around 3500’. On launch we saw 0-2 coming up the front, sometime up to 3mph over the back. Clouds were forming nicely out front, but so nicely that they were shading the slope below launch. There just wasn’t enough solar heating to send any good cycles up the face. I had my zagi soaring for a few minutes above launch, and we felt a cycle of around 3mph, then nothing for 15-20 minutes. I was pooh-poohed by most of the crowd as I laid my gear out and proceeded to clip in. I really should have launched in the first 1mph cycle I felt, but I would sure that I’d get another 2-3mph gust front coming through. Not any luck. Another 5 minutes and a light thermal was working out front, but there was zero on launch. I took an aggressive forward and barely made it off the hill as I nearly let the wing surge too far when it came up. Everything towards Sugar, all the way to the river was shaded, so heading that way was not in my game plan. I turned right to the tree line figuring I could bail out down and to the right if things didn’t work out. Nothing was working up on the hill, but the great clouds out front led me there. I found a bunch of zeros and a little light lift and eventually sank to 4-500 over the bailout. Ten minutes of Zeros finally turned into 50-100 up and another ten minutes brought me back to launch high. No drift in the thermals finally made the climb easy once I hit the 2-400fmp. I kept working sw under the cloud and eventually topped out over the Wilson River Loop Bridge at around 3300ft.
That in itself would have been a very satisfying flight. Could have gone back on glide to the hill, or lz, or just boated around for a while. I should have been a bit more organized at that point and I might have had a bit more success. At any rate, I had a nice glide out to the Blue Heron, turned left, and flew south down 101 right over the top of Tillamook and expected to land near Les Schwab and the south end of town. I made a critical error when after finding zeros south of Schwab’s I left it to chase after a Seagull. I really should have stuck with the zeros and fought that to the end. There were birds going up all over the valley around me, clouds up above, and I left zeros to find sink. Dammit! I potentially could have gone to base and gotten another 5-6 miles downwind or farther, but instead settled on a short glide down past the Trask and landed at the Airport.
Lessons learned:
It’s possible to get away from the hill, given a favorable forecast.
I should have had some waypoints setup to the south on my GPS so I’d
have some goals to glide to, since I knew I was going to try to go south
that day.
I should have used my gps to find the zeros that I left once I was south
of Tillamook. Should have zoomed in on the screen to find the core and
work that.
Be patient. It paid off greatly early in the flight. It used to be that
I would have given up early and called it a day. Patience made the flight.
It seems like that’s going to be the case in most situations when
trying to go XC.
Try different things at your sites. Go right when you normally go left.
Use all the good forecasting tools out there to pick days favorable for
XC if that’s what you want to do.
Check out the flight here if you want:
http://www.paraglidingforum.com/modules.php?name=leonardo&op=show_flight&flightID=12524
There are a couple of mm5 soundings in the photos section of leonardo
for the day that show you what I saw when I thought it might be good:
Noaa forecasted 0-5 W switching to 0-5 N and then 0-5 NE which was pretty
accurate. A light sea breeze did pick up late in the day 0-5 W on the
surface.
Cape Lookout/Andersons/Netarts Spit Flight Report