12/20/16 Tierra Del Mar, Oceanside and Cape Lookout report

When Gabe and I (both hang gliders) arrived Oceanside this morning around 11:15, the winds were blowing 10+ mph from west and WNW at the beach. I saw some whitecaps from the NW side of the ocean. Unfortunately, it was zero winds and at times blowing very light from behind (NE direction) at launch.  We left Oside at 12:08 to check Cape Lookout and it was too light and a bit cross from the left (SW) so we headed to Tierra Del Mar instead. The winds at TDM was stronger (maybe 10 plus mph) when we first arrived and a bit cross from the right (NW).It didn't look soarable but we decided to setup anyways.It diminished down to 3-5 mph when we were ready to launch and of course ended up with sledders, then packed up quickly on the tall dry grass field and left TDM at 2:10pm to head back up north. We stopped by CLO again at 2:28 and found zero wind with no beach for landing, so we returned to Oceanside to check on conditions.Surprisingly, not much has changed from morning conditions; still a lot of beach at Oceanside, winds coming from WNW just like it was this morning when we first arrived, it was still zero winds at launch by now it was around 3pm. That's it for today, nothing exciting. Sollie or Killchis would've been good today if we had a driver. There was a lot of blue skies at Tillamook and the cloudbase was high.

Today: 16 to 18 ft super high surf with 2.2ft Low Tides at 12:30pm    

2.5 hrs snow flght at Clffside (near Rufus, OR) 12/13/16

Once again another fun snow flight at Cliffside today. Mark R (Hang pilot)  didn't show up, so l was the only hang glider flying along with a dozen paragliders.  l launched at 12:15pm with 3-6mph light winds right after couple paragliders. We all climbed above launch immediately. It was very cold (25F) with cloudy skies and very buoyant air. Lifts was abundant and easy to stay in but nobody was able to bench up to the windmills.  Cloudbase is around 3000ft so some of the windmills were in the thin clouds.  I flew for 2.5hrs, gaining between 300 to 500ft  (reached 600ft few times) over the launch and landed by the river at 2:40pm in butterly smooth air. Wished more hang pilots could've been there today.  I'll post video and more photos later.

Video 

https://youtu.be/k-rG8Z5BgIE

 

Chilly day at Cliffside (almost 3 hrs) 12/7/16

We had great time and at Cliffside today. Four hangs and approx 6 bags came out to fly the chilly air and everyone soared. The paragliders session was over around 1:00pm due to the strong winds. The sky was blue with a few scattered clouds and plenty of sunshine , smooth ridge lifts and thermals .....etc. We all punch off from the paragliding launch. The ground temperatures was about 29 F and 23 F above the windmills at 3000ft AGL. I launched at 11:20am and landed at 2:00pm (almost made it to 3 hrs). I landed because after over 2 and a half hours of airtime, my legs were becoming stiff and couple of my fingers slight loss of feeling due to the cold air. All four of us (Jonathon, Nat, Mark R and myself) landed by the river in really strong and gusty ESE winds. It feel like blowing 20-30mph gusts by the river. Everyone had a good landing.

Photos by 

Jonathon Severdia