Thursday, October 28, 2010
First Snow on Northshore, Oct 27
First substantial dusting of snow yesterday morning on the Northshore Mountains. And a beautiful fall day.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Evolution in Action - Adams River Sockeye, Oct. 23/24
What an incredible spectacle! Amazing colors. The river red with salmon, working their way upstream, resting in the eddies or already dead on shore (where the red fades away).
This year’s Sockeye run is a dominant run occurring every 4 years. But it’s also the largest run in almost 100 years (since 1913 when a man-made rock slide at Hells Gate put a temporary stop to the migration of fish on the Fraser). 9 million fish are expected to return to the Adams River this year.
We checked out the viewing points at Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park, watched the fish mill around in the spawning channels and walked down to Shuswap Lake, where the shore was covered with rows of dead fish (and some divers were getting ready to push their way through floating carcasses for a dive with the living fish).
The piles of carcasses are less disturbing when one considers that this is evolution in action: the salmon's strategy of survival to produce an enormous amount of biomass for a short period of time - more than predators could possibly consume.
Before we left, we paddled our kayaks down a section of the Adams a ways above the viewing area. We found an never-ending stream of fish, fish darting away as we floated down the drops and the eddies were red with them. It occurred to me then that our salmon runs really are one of nature’s big spectacles, comparable to the big animal herds of the Serengeti and the arctic caribou.
This year’s Sockeye run is a dominant run occurring every 4 years. But it’s also the largest run in almost 100 years (since 1913 when a man-made rock slide at Hells Gate put a temporary stop to the migration of fish on the Fraser). 9 million fish are expected to return to the Adams River this year.
We checked out the viewing points at Roderick Haig-Brown Provincial Park, watched the fish mill around in the spawning channels and walked down to Shuswap Lake, where the shore was covered with rows of dead fish (and some divers were getting ready to push their way through floating carcasses for a dive with the living fish).
The piles of carcasses are less disturbing when one considers that this is evolution in action: the salmon's strategy of survival to produce an enormous amount of biomass for a short period of time - more than predators could possibly consume.
Before we left, we paddled our kayaks down a section of the Adams a ways above the viewing area. We found an never-ending stream of fish, fish darting away as we floated down the drops and the eddies were red with them. It occurred to me then that our salmon runs really are one of nature’s big spectacles, comparable to the big animal herds of the Serengeti and the arctic caribou.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Surf-Lions at Skookumchuck, Oct. 15
What a beautiful October weekend! Sunshine and blue sky for our Skookumchuk trip. But it wasn't only us who had the idea to come for some surfing. Quite a few other paddlers showed up. And a couple of sea-lions, but they waited with their surf session until we kayakers got off the water.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Dolomiti Moments
Two magic moments of the Dolomites trip: The last flight from Pordoi Pass when the rest of the gang had already flown out to land but Pete and I stayed and played some more in the smooth ridge lift. Cloud level was just above us and the rising air was condensing at our altitude. Wisps of cloud streamed by as we were flying in and out of them.
The last day of our trip did not look promising for flying. Low clouds were hanging just above Pordoi Pass. For lack of better things to do (and since our pass was still good for one more day - compared to BC lift prices are an amazing deal: 35 euros for 3 days), we took the gondola up to Sass Pordoi into the coulds and fog. Magically, we popped out into blue sky and bright sunshine about 200 meters below the top station. What a sight! Like islands from the ocean, Dolomiti Kofels and Spitzen peaked out of the thick layer of clouds. Marmnolada, Langkofel, Rosgarten and in the distance even see the summits of the Ortler Alps and the Grossglockner.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Dolomiti, Italy - Oct 4 - 9
October 4 to 9 we flew in the Dolomite Mountains (Italian Alps). We went with Blue Sky Flugschule from Sillian, Austria. IMO money well spent, since lodging, food (lots of it, including delicious 5 course Tyrolean dinners), shuttles and site briefings were all taken care of.
In summer the Dolomites are a bit too full on but this time of year the flying is still good and the weather usually better than elsewhere in the Alps. The Dolomites are renowned for the dramatic limestone mountains, spires and walls. There are paved roads up to 2200m and lots of ski lifts, some going to over 3000m. The valley bottoms are around 1400m with lots of large fields available to land in. We flew from several launches, including Col Rodella and Belvedere in the Fassa Valley, with the impressive backdrop of the Sella Group, Marmolada and Langkofel.
The weather only let us fly four of the six days but we still managed to do 10 flights. I had 7 hours airtime, Pete had 11 hrs. He spent lots of time flying around the Langkofel with its dramatic 400m high vertical walls and spires. Unfortunately the cloud base was right around the top of the cliffs which made it hard to go any further (Pete's best flight). Interesting note - during our first day at Col Rodella there were 2 reserve tosses and during the second day 3 paraglider crashes, 2 of them lead to severe injuries requiring heli rescues (one rotored in and the other did a 360 that intersected the cliff). Although the air wasn’t particularly rough where we flew, care must be taken not to blunder into rotor from strong valley winds or convergence points of valleys (this can be a problem at Col Rodella launch – see picture of a dusty having its way with 4 wings on the SE launch).
We had hoped to get to fly over the Marmolada (one of the turn point in the X-Alps). It turned out that Max Fanderl (of X-alp fame) and 4 other pilots from Calgary had gone with Blue Sky the previous week. Max had had to climb the Marmolada on foot during the X-alps but managed to fly over this time.
There were lots of pilots flying here. Most of the time the lift was good enough to stay up but not good enough to get away easily. This made for some very busy air space complicated by the fact that a few pilots seemed to have forgotten the air rules. When it got to be too much we headed to some alternate launches to escape the crowds. One in particular stood out – Belvedere, right across from the Marmolada. The launch was a grassy knoll that rolled off into a steep cliff. A frontal would likely have been fatal. Quite focusing!
This was our first flying trip in Europe. It was interesting to see that the majority of pilots were flying DHV1-2 even with 10+ years of experience. The most popular gliders were the Swing Mistral, the Nova Mentor and the Sky Atis.
Pictures here (will add some to blog soon)
In summer the Dolomites are a bit too full on but this time of year the flying is still good and the weather usually better than elsewhere in the Alps. The Dolomites are renowned for the dramatic limestone mountains, spires and walls. There are paved roads up to 2200m and lots of ski lifts, some going to over 3000m. The valley bottoms are around 1400m with lots of large fields available to land in. We flew from several launches, including Col Rodella and Belvedere in the Fassa Valley, with the impressive backdrop of the Sella Group, Marmolada and Langkofel.
The weather only let us fly four of the six days but we still managed to do 10 flights. I had 7 hours airtime, Pete had 11 hrs. He spent lots of time flying around the Langkofel with its dramatic 400m high vertical walls and spires. Unfortunately the cloud base was right around the top of the cliffs which made it hard to go any further (Pete's best flight). Interesting note - during our first day at Col Rodella there were 2 reserve tosses and during the second day 3 paraglider crashes, 2 of them lead to severe injuries requiring heli rescues (one rotored in and the other did a 360 that intersected the cliff). Although the air wasn’t particularly rough where we flew, care must be taken not to blunder into rotor from strong valley winds or convergence points of valleys (this can be a problem at Col Rodella launch – see picture of a dusty having its way with 4 wings on the SE launch).
We had hoped to get to fly over the Marmolada (one of the turn point in the X-Alps). It turned out that Max Fanderl (of X-alp fame) and 4 other pilots from Calgary had gone with Blue Sky the previous week. Max had had to climb the Marmolada on foot during the X-alps but managed to fly over this time.
There were lots of pilots flying here. Most of the time the lift was good enough to stay up but not good enough to get away easily. This made for some very busy air space complicated by the fact that a few pilots seemed to have forgotten the air rules. When it got to be too much we headed to some alternate launches to escape the crowds. One in particular stood out – Belvedere, right across from the Marmolada. The launch was a grassy knoll that rolled off into a steep cliff. A frontal would likely have been fatal. Quite focusing!
This was our first flying trip in Europe. It was interesting to see that the majority of pilots were flying DHV1-2 even with 10+ years of experience. The most popular gliders were the Swing Mistral, the Nova Mentor and the Sky Atis.
Pictures here (will add some to blog soon)
Friday, October 1, 2010
Europe bound
Off to Europe tomorrow, family visit and hopefully some flying in the Dolomites. Will have to see what the weather brings, but maybe we get lucky and get some flights like these guys had just 2 weeks ago?
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