My first tandem flight in 1988 was on a mountain in Southern Calif called Kagel. I started flying hang glider solo in 1990. Since then hang gliding has been my primary interest.
I had a nice approximately an hour (or maybe 45mins) flight at Chehalem today. The winds were cranking at launch (20-28mph) after the last squall passed through around noon. With no more rain so I went back to Newberg skatepark for another skate session. When I return to launch around 1:30pm , the winds had backed down to 10-15mph with more blue sky and sunshine. Fortunately, an RCer guy was there so I wasn't all alone.I decided to take a flight, punched off at 2:15pm with 10-15 mph wind and got high really fast. No penetration problem until 30 or 40 mins later when I felt stronger head winds from SE or SSE also with the rain approaching from the west side. I decided to land at the PG's LZ because it was a shorter walking distance to launch for my car. Packed up everything before the rain came and began the walk. However, I was lucky to have gotten a ride from a nice local guy after walking a few hundred yards. Rain started on the way up to launch so I didn't get wet.
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.
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.
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.
Not much to report for the pass weekend (July 11-12 , 2015). Nothing epic, just another good weekend flying at Dog Mt with friends. Those consistent thermals and ridge lifts allow all of us effortlessly soar for hours till sunset. I had two flight per day and approx 2+ hours on each flight.
As usual, I had two flights and hiked up two times at Dog Mt yesterday. The wind at launch were quite strong (15 to 20 mph) in some periods of the time however it was smooth in the air. Had total of 5 hours air times. Nice day and nice flights.
Glass off wasn't good last night. The winds were kind of shut down so everyone else decided to go home early. I was the only one scratching for light lifts at couple hundred feet above launch from 7:30 to 8:30pm. It was kind of "boring lonely soaring" all by-myself. Thanks for JJ, Scott and Mikey kept me company at the LZ. The afternoon flight was much more fun. I flew for 3.5 hours from 12:30 to 4:00pm with about 6-8 more hangs and 1 bag.
About 15 hangs flew Dog yesterday. The winds were quite strong at launch most of the time (approx 15+ mph). I had two flights with almost 5 hours of flying time. My 1st flight launched around 1:00pm with Enrique and Mark R and we all got up soared as long as we want. I made few trips to Elk and found nothing there , flew for a bit over 2 hrs. Then went back up for glass off flight at 6:30pm for round two. Launched around 7:00pm and got up between 1000 to 1500 feet over launch immediately. The magic moment was happening again around 7:45pm. Staz, Mike , Alfredo and myself went to Elk and found some great thermals that took us to 3500 to 4000 feet AGL. It was absolutely incredible flight.
