Woodside Flying, August 28/29

An excellent Woodside weekend! Nice flying but no pictures – must remember to get the camera out again. Saturday we had nice lift at Woodside launch, some cloud surfing, followed by my first Woodside cross country with Pete and Andrew. Got enough height over launch but on the way east along the ridge between Mt Woodside and Agassiz Mt nothing but sink, and I was sinking a lot more than Pete cause I was hesitant to step on the bar (when on glide the speedbar is your friend!). I couldn’t remember how high the sealing was above Kent Prison (no landing there!) and almost turned back, but with Pete’s encouragement I made it to Agassiz Mt and climbed up to the level of the sub peak and almost to where Pete was. Unfortunately the north wind blew apart all thermals above peak elevation and we couldn’t climb any higher. Didn’t want to fight the wind coming out of the Harrison gap and went southeast where it had space to fan out and mellow out, landing in a nice big field in Agassiz. When we packed up a fellow from across the street came over and asked many questions – he had often seen wings in the air at Woodside and now took advantage to find out more about flying them.

Sunday saw us back at Woodside, with the first flight ridge soaring just above launch. The second flight was even better. Winds were stronger (not student-friendly anymore), but nice launches for all of us. After half an hour soaring north of launch with Gab on tandem and Pete we went over to the south knoll. We saw an eagle sky-rocket up in a thermal and in seconds later 4 fabric wings congregated below the eagle and got on his elevator in the sky. Never had that much lift over the knoll before! Lots more thermaling before we landed at Harvest Market.