Baldy Butte and Mt Adams and Rainier on the horizon
One of the great things about Vancouver is that if it’s wet on this site of the mountains, you just have to drive a couple of hours east to find sunshine and warmer temperatures. Works most of the time and did work last weekend.
Setting up a wing with the LZ below in Yakima River Canyon
It was the weekend of the Baldy Fly-in in central Washington and it was like turning back time to summer. Temps to 27oC, sunny, blue skies. Not the greatest conditions for long cross country flights, but we made up with quantity. Both Pete and I did 6 more or less extended sled rides over sagebrush country and the scenic Yakima River canyon. About 60 pilots showed, among them 15 canucks. Great work by the people who put on the fly-in, tasty food at the pot-luck and excellent entertainment (drumming around the fire, a preacher flying in his wedding suit and a very long rattlesnake crawling out from underneath a wing on launch – thankfully not mine) made for an excellent weekend. I even landed right on the spot-landing cone (although not in best style – almost face-planted).
It got windier on Sunday but I squeezed in a morning flight. Pete flew a second time in much stronger conditions. So did another pilot who wasn't quite up to it. After getting dragged off the ridge and after a couple of collapses he flew out fine. Here is a video of a similar incident last year, thankfully our friend had not that many collapses (the wind in the vid is from the NE, while we had SW all weekend).
