We met a couple of friends early for a hike&fly from Elk Mountain, the 1400 meter-high first bump on the ridge between Fraser and Chilliwack Valley. A dusting of snow started where the trail got steep. Combined with sub-zero temperatures this made the approach rather treacherous, but my newly acquired mini-crampons made short work of it. Although the 1 h 50 min hike had warmed me up nicely, only minutes after launching my fingers were frozen and in pain. Not very motivated to spend much time up high, I searched for lift lower down, but had no luck and I soon was on the ground. The rest of the crew kept soaring at and above launch height until the cold got to them too and everyone landed, trying to warm up painfully cold hands and fingers (aptly named ‘screaming barfies’). After this for me somewhat disappointing flight we moved over to Woodside for afternoon air time.
We were much intrigued by the interesting cloud shapes over Mt Woodside, Agassiz Mt and Bear Mt. Looks like some thermaling potential! After launch I sank out again, but patiently worked the lift until I joined a fellow flyer and many eagles floating around at 1200 meters. The first thermal flight on my new wing, an Artik 2! Although it had felt pretty sensitive on the sled-rides I had done so far and surprised me with a somewhat dynamic exit from a spiral, it felt just fine in the thermals. Pete had already taken off to Agassiz Mt, and after some wisp-surfing and close and personal views of several eagles I headed for Agassiz Mt too. There I arrived low at 500 meter (probably the lowest ever) and worked my way up to almost 800 meter a couple of times. Alas, November sun doesn’t stick around long and so I left to fly back and land at Harvest Dykes to shorten the walk back. But there I lucked out again. As soon as I had packed up and got to the road, a PG pilot on his way home picked me up, turned around and delivered me to the Coffee Kettle where our car was parked.
