Rick Lai's Hang Gliding report : 5 hrs/2 flights Sept 25-27, 2015 Rampart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2ITWkOwYBU

Day 1 (Friday) Sept 25th
I arrived Baldy LZ around 1:40pm and found the skies overcast with few light sprinkles on and off. The wind was really light (0-2mph ) at the LZ coming from NW. The paragliders headed up to launch around 4pm when the sun came out with light wind blowing at 10-15 mph at launch (5 mph at the LZ) , so they got about 1.5 hours of ridge soarable window. One of the Baldy rule is that no 2WD vehicles are allow on the road;
Unfortunately, no sightings of 4WD rigs with hang rack was available to take my glider to launch, so I missed flying for the day. Spent my evening hiking up to launch.

Day 2 (Saturday) Sept 26th
Rampart 3 hrs flight
3 hrs flight/ 4,500 AGL/ 7,000 MSL
Already blowing 10-15mph at Baldy LZ in the morning at 8:00am Probably 25+ mph at launch. So went to Rampart to meet up with other hang pilots and turn out it was an amazing day at Rampart for sure. Five lucky hangs (Tim C, Stas, Bryan, Chris (from Taxas) and myself) got hours of a magic air time. I launched first at 1:15pm and flew for 3 hours. It was quite easy to climbed over 2,000 ft above launch and also easy trip to the big Rampart wall and across the valley. Thermals were really smooth and climbed up to cloud ceiling fast. I didn't feel any rotors during the landing approach and everyone had a soft landing on the carrier deck.

Day 3 (Sunday) Sept 27th
Rampart 2 hrs flight
It was light with clear skies. 8 hangs (Kurt, Gary, Aaron, Stas, Travis, Eric O, Alfredo and myself) and few bags flew. I flew for two hours.

Day 4 (Monday) Sept 28th
3 flights at Cliffside
I had 3 flights at Cliffside yesterday with Ray B, Enrique, John C, Mark R, Steve F and a few paragliders. All 3 flights launched off from the PG upper launch and it was soarable as well . The conditions were fairly strong when we arrived around 11:30am, so we thought it was going to be an easy soaring day.

Unfortunately, when we were set to launch an hour later, the winds lightened up, although still soarable along the ridge above Highway 14 with narrow lift band; we just couldn't get too high for the first flight. The highest I got was on the 3rd flight which was about 300ft above (almost 900ft AGL) around 5:30pm. On my second flight, I tried to top land at a cross wind on the uphill slope, however my approach was terrible, which ended with me slamming into the ground instead of landing (or you can say crash landing or BIG WHACK).I unhooked and checked to see if everything was okay after the crash, as well as checking to see if I broke any bones. Fortunately, everything turned out okay so I re-launched again shorty. At this time, the lift band had expanded and thermals were starting to get better which made the soaring much easier than earlier. I got higher and higher, but also felt the throbbing of my left shin from the BIG whack earlier. So even though conditions had improved, I've decided to best head out and land. I made it to the LZ by the river with plenty of attitude and had a soft landing on an uninjured right foot. My Gopro was off on my second flight so I didn't captured the crash landing, but Ray saw it so maybe he can fill in with more details. By the time we finished packing, it was getting close to sunset and Ray still skyed out with a couple of paragliders. He landed right before sunset. We had dinner at Hood River "Crazy Pepper" with Mark , Enrique and our driver Justin.

9-26-15 (Sat)