3 days trip flying Black Mtn and Tiger Mtn.
Day 1 (6/4/16 Sat)
I left Portland around 8:30am after dropping my parents off at the airport (They were flying back to Vancouver BC). I got confirmation from paragliding friends in Blanchard that they had the gate key to Black Mtn (Maple Falls, WA) launch while driving up to Blanchard, so I decided to drive straight up to Maple Falls instead. It took about 5 hrs to get there. Supposingly, we were all set to meet at the LZ at 2:00pm. Alfredo arrived around 1:30pm at the Maple Falls Shell gas station and Robin was also on his way too. Unfortunately, Robin arrived late so we couldn't join the paras to head up to launch earlier. Luckily, we borrowed Jeff Beck's key from PG pilot Delvin and had a really nice long extended sledder (25 mins for me). We launched after 7:00pm in dead calm condition. It got too late to drive back to Jeff's house for the "Blanchard Bash" party by the time we were done packing and retrieving Alfredo's rig, so I spent the night at Maple Falls with Robin.
Day2 (6/5/16 Sun)
Since nobody know where to fly on Sunday and I wanted to return the Black Mtn gate key to Jeff Beck ASAP. I went to his house on Sunday morning and waited for everyone to make up their minds on where to go. My Hong Kong paraglider friend, Edwin was on his way down from Vancouver BC and met up with me at Jeff's house. Thanks to Luis on waiting for me at Blanchard LZ to show me the way to Jeff's house. My cell phone was broken at the time (no GPS, no internet...) and I wasn't able to find Jeff's house without the help from Luis. Colin ,Todd (two hangs) and Edwin (pg) took a morning sledder at Blanchard. Later on, everyone voted on heading to Black Mtn as the next stop. We arrived launch around 2:00pm and the condition was light. I launched shortly after 3:00pm and had about 40mins of soarable flying, I was lucky to have hooked up with some inconsistent thermals on the right side (north) of the ridge and got a few hundred ft above launch that allowed me to cruise around for a while. There was also a lot of sink in between. Not a really good soarable day for Black Mtn., but it was certainly beautiful and was able to see San Juan island from launch. There was about 15 hangs and 5 bags who flew Black on Sunday. I'm not sure where the rest of the pilots went.
Day 3 (6/6/16 Mon)
I spent the night at Issaquah, WA, and met up with Shawn and Edwin at the Tiger LZ around 12:45pm. Michael (Shuttle driver) told me the hang glider trailer was broken, so we had to put our gliders inside his van on the ground. We took the 2:30 shuttle to launch. It was really gusty at launch when we arrived (15 to 20 mph from north). I launch first around 3:15pm and climbed straight up to 1,000 ft above launch immediately. There was a lot of thermals, but the strong wind just keep blowing them apart. Shawn launched right after me and we both had the whole sky to ourselves for a long time. I flew for almost 3 hrs. It calmed down around 5:00pm. My para friend Edwin and others was para-waiting at launch for more than 2 hrs. They were all rewarded later with nice smooth soarable grass off flights.
Videos:
Hang gliding flight at Black Mtn (Maple Falls, Wash) shorter version
Hang gliding flight at Black Mtn (Maple Falls, Wash) longer version
Tiger (near Seattle, Wash) flight on 06/06/2016
