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) 

  9-26-15 (Sat) Tim Cayward flying behind me

Video Coming soon

  9-26-15 (Sat) Cloud surfing 

 9-26-15 (Sat) Cloud surfing 

 9-27-15 

9-27-15 Flying with Paragliders over Rampart wall

4hours/ 5 flights on Labor day weekend at Dog and Rampart

http://youtu.be/qDyIq0I768k

Sept 5th 2015 (Sat)

I had two flights. It was mostly very light to variable ridge lifts with a few thermals in the early afternoon. I got 200ft above launch and flew for about 40mins. Not too long after I landed , there was a big wall of a rain slowly approaching toward Dog that produced some powerful lifts for the second group. I think they got 1000ft above launch until the rain arrived. We went up again waited for the rain pass through. As soon as we were ready to launch the wind died down. I soared for a short time and landed.


Sept 6 & 7th 2015 (Sun & Mon)

It was soggy and no wind at Dog the whole day on Sunday so nobody want to fly except for me. I wanted to do some cardio exercise so I hiked up two times and flew down twice in no wind condition. Left Dog Mt with Jonathan at night to Rampart and it turned out we had an awesome flight at Rampart on Monday Labor day. There were 10 hang pilots (Dave L, Jonathan, Bryan H, Paul D, Lenny, Stas, Kurt, Gary, Aaron R and myself) came out and all of us had a wonderful flight. The winds were more on the light side at launch and LZ with cloudy skies but there were still a lot of easy find smooth thermals everywhere. I launch at 2:30pm right after Dave L and flew till 5:35pm. Cloud ceiling was about 1000ft above launch when we launched therefore the higher peak of the Rampart cliff wall was under the clouds. We were cruising underneath cloud base most of the time between the cliff wall and launch. It cleared off around 4:30pm and finally I was able to make it to 500ft over the cliff wall. My max altitude at the last hour was about 6,000ft MSL.

2 flights 4 hours air time at Rampart and Black Mountain (near Maple Falls,Wash)

 https://youtu.be/9Cb6cHDFYoI

Aug 26th 2015
Rampart (Snoqualmie Pass. Wash)
6000ft MSL
3 hrs flight

Rampart worked well yesterday. There were one para and four hangs flew (Travis, Ron B, Alfredo and myself). The paraglider went up early (launched at 12:30pm) , took an extended sledder. Hangs group arrived launch at 1:30pm,  I was first off the air at 2:30pm and had a 3 hours of really fun air time , others hangs also flew for 2+ hours. Top of lift was over the Cliff wall at 6,000'. 

I thinks most likely we are going to fly Black today.  I'm meeting up with two hang pilots at the Maple Falls Shell Gas Station around 11:00am. We will stop by the LZ before headed up to launch. 

Aug 27th 2015
Black Mountain (Maple Falls,Wash)
1 hour
1500ft over launch (5000ft AGL/ 750ft MSL at LZ )  

There was a few hours window today at Black Mountain when it was soarable before it shut down.   We arrived top launch at 2:00pm and found almost zero wind. We all launched around the same time in really light cycles. Konrad , Shawn and Travis launched before me and they climbed quickly above launch.  It was a bit rowdy and not much good lifts once you away from the ridge. I feel very lucky to have managed a flight for more than one hour and got at least 1500 feet over launch few times (I think is about 5000 AGL). Travis, Konrad and myself landed at the campsite main LZ and Shawn landed at the big field by the road.  When I landed around 4:30pm the wind socks in both LZ were hanging straight down.  Almost no wind. 

11 hrs of air time at Dog and Rampart (4 flights)

https://youtu.be/OBfmIHzCFYY 

Friday 8-21-2015

Dog (Glenoma,WA)

5 hours / Topped 4500ft MSL

Saturday  8-22-2015

Dog (Glenoma,WA)

1st flight sledder 

2nd flight  2.5 hrs / 50ft above launch

Yeah it was really smoky at Dog all day (Saturday) ,poor air quality and visibility. Not much wind at launch and no big thermals unlike Friday conditions but enough lifts for few of us squeeze out few hours or so of soaring flights. 

Sunday 8-23-2015

Rampart (Snoqualmie Pass, WA)

3 hrs / Topped 7500ft MSL

Two bags and three hangs flew Rampart today. It started out really cross from the East and was light.The hang launched streamers that showed wind blowing the opposite direction so we went up to the Paraglider's launch. Paragliders took off first around 2:30pm and got 500ft over quickly so we decided to setup. When I was ready to launch around 3:15 pm, both Paragliders had already landed, so I thought it would be a sledder. I launched first at 3:20pm and the air was pretty rowdy. Finding stable lifts was difficult during the first 1.5hrs of my flight. Until Alfredo launch around 4:45pm is when things started to smooth out. We were able to connect with some big smooth thermals that took us to 7500 ft; we flew to Rampart's big cliff wall, Alta mountain and across the valley....etc. Got cold and tired after 3 hrs later so we landed around 6:30 pm in a pretty smooth NW wind at the LZ.  I didn't feel any rotors. 

Friday at Dog over Elk Mt

 Sunday at Rampart

 Alfredo launching

 Rampart skies still hazy on Sunday afternoon

3 flights 10 hrs in 3 day at Rampart and Dog (Aug 7th to 9th, 2015)

It was another great weekend at Rampart and Dog Mt again, with a total of 10 hrs combined within those 3 days of flying.

Aug 7 & 8th at Rampart (Snoqualmie Pass, Wash)
Aug 9th at Dog Mt (Glenoma,Wash)

Day 1. Friday (1 flight)
There was six hangs (Ron B, Chris C, Jonas, Stas, Travis and myself) who flew Rampart on Friday. Not too windy at launch & pretty smooth at the landing "Carrier Deck"  too.  We were all able to get off launch without wire assistance. Thermals were everywhere and reached up to 7000ft.  I flew for 3.5 hrs while others at least got 2+ hours.

Day 2.  Saturday (1 flight)
Also six hangs (Alfredo, Shah, Dave L, Aaron R, Kurt, Cliff S and myself) who flew Rampart. The conditions was similar to the day before exception to more friendly clouds and better thermals.The cycles was a bit stronger and gusty at launch compared to yesterday. I flew from 1:55 to 5:10pm (over 3 hrs) and I think others flew for 2 hrs too. It was an easy trip
to the cliff wall and Alta Mt (The next Mt north of 2nd big
Rampart cliff wall). I cored up to 7800' at Alta Mt.


Day 3. Sunday (1 flight)
I launched around 1:30pm (landed around 5:00pm) after Scott C, Justin H, Larry (Tandem with Hazel) and Tina. It was almost no wind at launch, so I expected a sledder.  Flew down to the lower point and found a lot of small bubbles that consistently kept me at a couple hundred ft above the tree top for over an hr until the good soaring conditions arrived.  JJ and Stas joined me at first, then followed 10 hangs and 2 bags launching after seeing JJ , Stas and myself getting above launch. I went to the back bowl to avoid air traffic with Ron B, Stas, and JJ....  for a while and topped out 2000ft AGL over the back bowl. I made one trip to Elk but found nothing there.