Snow Days - December

This December has been an amazing month for the aficionados of the white stuff. As it happens, we got a season’s pass at Cypress this year, and I have put it to good use already. Even on weekends there were almost no lift line-ups at the new Raven Chair. OK, new to us... its been there since the 2010 Olympics, but we haven't skied at Cypress since then. And the snow just kept falling.

Snow-covered Lions (that's the name of the peaks on the right)

Above the clouds (sweet to escape cold and fog in the city for a few hours)

Sunset at Cypress ski area

Kauai : December 1 - 9

View from Kilohana lookout at the end of the Alakai trail (Kilauea Pt in the distant upper left)

This year we choose Kauai for our traditional early winter get-away week. Although in close proximity to the other Hawaiian Islands, Kauai is considerably different from Maui and the Big Island. It is the oldest of the main islands and therefore has undergone much erosion. Its highest peak, Mount Waiʻaleʻale, is not even 1600 meter high, well short of the volcanic shields of Mauna Kea and Loa on the Big Island with over 4000 meter elevation above sea level. There are no bare lava fields or active flows on Kauai, and most of the island is covered by lush green. In exchange for elevation and sharp lava rock, Kauai sports a fine selection of endless sandy beaches. Oh, and did I mention the 'omnipresent' chicken (especially roosters)? Just on Kauai! Plus a handful of feral cats and goats. Thankfully the latter kept relatively quiet at night time.

Palis (= cliffs) on the dry side of the Na'pali coast

The most amazing sight of Kauai has to be the Na’Pali coast. We explored it hiking the Kalalau trail that winds its way along the steep cliffs with several spots of exposure. Koke'e Park with its many trails allows access to the top of the same cliffs with stunning views. Our favored trail there was the Nu’alolo/ Awa’awapuhi loop leading to the top of fluted Palis. Unexpectedly, our Kauai visit turned into a hiking trip: we also explored the 'high-altitude' Alakai swamp and the Maha'ulepu sandstone cliffs on the southeast shore. Since we had our camping gear along for the 3-day hike on the Kalalau trail, we spent the whole week camping at very scenic beach campsites, rooster wake-up calls included (county parks Anini, Ha’ena and Saltponds, $3/person; state parks Polihale and Kalalau, $20/night... but nobody came to check). Apparently there is also nice camping in Koke'e Park.

Exposed section of the Kalalau trail at 7 miles (just about 100 meters down to the crashing waves)

Lehua flower

Lush greenery along the Alakai trail

Camping at Polihale beach at the south end of the Na'Pali coast

Underwater we encountered turtles and the many colorful fish, but corals were not as varied and plentiful as on the Big Island, due to the colder water temperatures as we were told. We saw several of the rare monk seals, each guarded by seal protection volunteers. Apparently there only about 40 of them left on the main islands. The Kilauea Reserve is a great place to observe red-footed boobies, albatrosses, frigate and tropic birds. We also watched tropic birds soaring the deep canyons on the Na'Pali, making us wish do join them on our wings. Alas, we didn't bring them and also didn't see any sensible places to launch from (the vids I found on the internet looked plainly crazy). So we splurged and went for the famous helicopter ride around the island. The bird’s eye view of our hiking destinations was a great way to end this visit.

Harrison River Eagles: Nov 26

Every fall when the salmon migrate up the Fraser, Harrison and Chehalis Rivers bald eagles congregate in big numbers for the feast.

When conditions are mild enough for us human fliers to get in the air we can soar with the birds.

At other times, when the outflow winds blow from the east, we can only watch from the ground or from the water, as I did when I paddled my kayak up the river (keeping to the main channel in order to not disturb the eagles in the mud flats). 

About 100 eagles just in this picture soaring in the outflow wind behind Mt. Woodside. In 2010 the count was > 7000 birds and this year this record was supposedly broken. An amazing spectacle of nature.

First Snow

Summer changed to winter in two weeks. The glorious fall weather came to an end; and the end came fast and furious. With the rain came the cold and within two weeks we saw the first snow on the Northshore mountains. The first snow-day was also the first day in a couple of months we paddled whitewater, on the Capilano, how appropriate... Well, maybe we are not quite as wimpy as we feel (sometimes)? And a big thank-you to the inventors of dry suits!

First snow on Grouse Mt

Glorious Indian Summer

Phenomenal fall weather for 6 weeks! Record breaking sun shine and lack of rain. Well deserved after the very late start to summer this year, if the weather would care about human sense of fairness and merit. Fall air isn’t the greatest for paragliding and we switched into hiking mode. We went back to Downton Creek, a great area off the Duffey Lake Road where the logging road leads up into the subalpine. We hiked up to Linus, a fun ridge scramble with a short knife-edge ridge (but too pointy to cross it au-cheval style).

My other fall hikes lead me to Yellow Aster Butte and Table Mt in the Baker area, Mt Laughington and Flora Peak in the Chilliwack Valley and last but not least Mt Strachan. Stunning hues of red, orange and yellow of the fall leaves of blueberry, mountain ash and willow. New perspectives of the border mountain range from south and east.

Mt Baker from Yellow Aster Butte

Clouds cover Howe Sound seen from Mt Strachan (CBC Listners' Lens mug winner)

Chilliwack Valley from Flora Peak

Vine Maple leaves

Phosphorescence

What an amazing spectacle of nature! To get away from the city lights we paddled across Indian Arm to Jug Island at dusk. In the shade of the trees close to shore our paddle strokes set off a silent symphony of sparkles and miniature flashes. We experiment splashing water to make different patterns of light. The bow waves of our boats glow and swirls stay behind where the paddles touched the water. As it gets darker the fish darting away leave trails of shooting stars. On the way back tracks of light deep below show that we just crossed paths with an endless stream of fish making their way up Indian Arm. No pictures for this post because it was simply too dark.

Linus & Cornwall - Sept 22/23

After seemingly endless weeks of sunshine the weather didn’t cooperate with our plans for a heli&fly trip in the Tantalus Range near Squamish.

On to plan B which was exploring the Downton area on the Duffy Lake Road. We had done one trip up to Statimcet quite a few years ago. Great area with 4WD access to 1700 meters. There was a recent trip report on Clubtread of some fabulous ridge scrambling (Soprano-Contralto-Schroeder-Linus-Statimcet) and we decided to check it out.

Again, Downton didn't disappoint. We made our way up to the col between Schroeder and Linus and ridge-scrambled over huge blocks to the top of Linus. Along the way was some mild exposure and a fun knife-edge ridge, which seemed a bit too pointy for a-cheval (in mountaineering terms to cross a ridge straddling it like a horse). Fantastic views of small alpine lakes behind every ridge, and of Lost Creek Valley, Birkenhead, Cayoosh, Joffre and Matier.

Relaxed scrambling on Linus ridge

Part of me wanted to stay for more exploring the next day, but we had made plans to meet with friends near Ashcroft. So off we drove through Lillooet, Pavilion and Marble Canyon with its freshwater corals or stromatolites (must check them out sometime). Then we turned onto graveled Hat Creek Road, a nice short-cut along a valley with scenic ranches. After a few turns the road was getting smaller, bumpier and looking somewhat unused. But just after we turned on our GPS for confirmation, we met up with our friends on the spur road up to Cornwall viewpoint. Together we watched the beautiful sunset from the old fire look-out (elevation 2036 meter) over a couple of beer and Andrei's special chocolate-brandy mix.

On top of the world at Cornwall

Next morning we relaxed in the sun with sage-brush and coffee smells, did some peak-spotting (Jesmond near the Fraser Canyon and Pyramid at the Nahatlach, both places we had visited before) and watched a bear browsing on the slope across from our launching spot. Despite a few cycles starting to come in, the flight down to Ashcroft Manor was a sled ride. But a long, scenic and very enjoyable sled-ride (1600 meters elevation difference).

Cheam Flight - September 15

Our friend Andrei suggested that it was high time for a hike&fly from Mt Cheam again. But other friends wanted to hike Cheam and offered us a ride up the day before the planned paragliding fly-off, so we jumped the gun for a double mission. Wind wasn't right when we arrived so we paused for some parawaiting and resting in the meadow of red blueberry leaves. After an hour or two conditions improved. Pete launched first and got hovered off. I followed prepared for gusty conditions and launched my Swift without any surprises. Not much lift at 2000 meter, but I could extend the flight to 1.5 h in the lift near lower Bridal Launch.

Parawaiting in blueberries

Pete is off with Mt Baker in the back

Cultus Lake

Alpine Week - Last Week August

Compared to last year's Chamonix visit for two weeks, six days to explore the Austrian Alps didn’t feel quite adequate (and a day and a half of rain didn’t help either). But we had some nice flights and found lots of other things to explore.

We didn’t haul our wings to Europe in vain. On our way down south Pete and I flew for the first time in Germany, from Brauneck launch south of Munich. My favorite site was Bischling south of Salzburg, where I had a sweet flight crossing a couple of times from launch to the limestone towers on the other valley side. It was neat to fly so close to the jagged cliffs. Emberger Alm at Greifenburg in Austria's Kärnten region didn’t quite live up to my expectations. While Pete and Alex had a good XC flight on our first day, I sank out after crossing to the next ridge.

Unfortunately the weather turned bad and we had just one day of flying there before the rain arrived. We spent the next several wet days hiking (Obertilliach), via-ferrata-ing (very cool next to waterfalls in the tight canyon of the Pirkacher Klamm), exploring lakes, visiting Roman excavations (Aguntum Lienz), the Blue Sky home base in Sillian (hosts of our Dolomiti tour two years ago), garnet mines in Villach and, when the downpour started in earnest, several Konditoreien (Alex’ favorite rain time activity). Other interesting sights (Auerhuehner) and signs (Schwammerln sammeln verboten!)

On our last day in Europe we got in the air again at the Jenner near Berchtesgaden, above the super scenic Königssee with Watzmann Mountain towering behind. Family stories go that my grandmother visited here as a young woman and always fondly remembered the stunning mountain scenery. When I first heard about this there was little chance for me to ever see these sights. Leave alone fly over it with a fabric wing. But time changes ... almost everything.

Mt Blanc - Aug 19

Amazing! 50+ pilots top landed on Mt Blanc. Having seen the imposing mountains and having flown in Chamonix close to it last year I can imagine what this must have been like!

Maybe book European vacations for the last two weeks of August next year?

 
Mont Blanc from Stéphane Boulenger on Vimeo.

Norrish Creek Exploration, August 18

Our first canyoneering adventure. Since I'm not into paddling class 5 also the only way to explore Norrish canyon. And a very cool way to spend one of the scorching summer days, when it’s just too hot to do anything else and one just wants to hide in the shade. 

Fun combination of hiking, scrambling, jumping of cliffs and swimming. We even met a paragliding friend in the middle of the canyon - guess he was as surprised as we about the meeting!

Thick wetsuits are a must, felt soled boots would have been great and next time we should also take throw rope and pin kit along. (Note to myself: bring felt-soled boots and throw rope next time.)

Canadian Paragliding Nationals: August 4-12

I hadn’t planned to sign up for the Canadian National Paragliding Championships (or to participate in any serious competition for that matter), but it looked as if I would have some spare time on my hands, Pete and a bunch of friends were keen to go, and joining the comp seemed a good way to support the organizers. So in early August we went for a week to Pemberton and here is the story.

Day 1: I decided to launch late, as my success rate of staying up in light lift wasn’t that great. On my best flights in Pemby earlier this year I had launched late, often after sinking out on the first flight. Conditions usually get stronger as the day goes on. But today this strategy didn’t work. The northwest wind picked up (just like once a couple of weeks ago…) producing rough thermals and making it hard work to push out along the ridge to Owl, where I finally flew out to land in the valley. Well, it wasn’t just me having trouble with the rough air. Four pilots tossed their reserves and one crashed into a tree (I watched one toss, Pete saw and called ‘reserve’ for two). Fortunately (and miraculously) nobody was hurt. The helicopter made rounds to pick everybody off the mountain. I bet the good SAR people must have wondered what the rest of the week would bring. Summary day 1: learned a lot about my new vario/GPS. Should have practiced with the new technology ahead of the comp. Should have launched earlier.

Day 2: Launched earlier. This didn’t work either…landed even before the start time. By the time I landed the first puffs of the Whistler Express arrived at the Pemberton LZ. Two other pilots coming in just after me were parked (no forward speed) in the strong wind. Fortunately there was little wind or turbulence near the ground and both touched down nicely. Did I say that it was crazy hot in Pemberton? A dip in Mosquito Lake sounded like an excellent idea for the afternoon. But when I left the Black Squirrel campground, the weather forecast started to materialize and big black clouds appeared over Pemberton. On to plan B and off to see if I could pick up a few pilots before the rain started. Pete had already found a ride and I returned with two other flyers. On the way back to Pemberton, we had a full view of big black clouds accentuated by the occasional flash of lightening. To my surprise there were still four wings in the air, three over Owl Peak directly under the scary black clouds and one in the middle of the valley. The conditions looked well past the point when I wanted to be on the ground with my wing in its bag. The pilot in valley spiraled down and we watched him land OK. The other three were also heading away from the clouds. Later we learned that unfortunately only two of the three pilots made it down safely. The third may have encountered turbulence at low elevation and crashed into the river. Being attached to a big piece of fabric and moving water are a deadly mix. The pilot drowned. The comp was cancelled on the next day. Everybody is sad and shocked.

No flying weather on the next day. Pete, Paddy and I had our kayaks along and went to paddle the Birkenhead River at a nice juicy level. Class 3+ felt like the right level for me with less than 10 whitewater days this year so far.

Day 3: After 2 days off, it was time to get in the air again. I had a slow but nice flight to Owl, climbed with Mags at Barbour, did a low run to Copper, then a sweet thermaling session with Brad there. Crossed to Goat and got to almost 3000 meter flying circles with Greg. Mighty cold up there! Tagged the Tender waypoint and glided across to Camelhump. Though I almost could have pushed over the pass, I thought better of it and tried to find a climb on the shaded valley side. No success and I landed with many other pilots at the bottom of the hump. Nice flight and only my second time over the Hurley Pass Road. Need to keep an eye on maximizing my glide and should have gone back for a climb at Goat or Copper, where I knew where the thermals are.

Day 4: Scratched in the heat at lower launch for ages and still sunk out. But ‘for ages' is relative. While I gave up after 30 minutes or so, another pilot worked valiantly for 2 hour before successfully climbing out and getting away. Lesson of the day: re-define 'for ages'.

Day 5: Increased my scratching threshold to +1 hr and was rewarded. More scratching along the ridge to Owl, where I arrived low but got finally above the peak with Tonya, followed by a sweet glide in the evening sun side by side with her to Miller Ridge. Not far, but a nice last flight for the week.

And the summary of my first competition? Not too bad in the women’s rating: 4th place of 8. Not quite as good overall; Sport: 34/48. Learned many new things about flying. Met lots of people. Had two nice flights, but didn’t fly as well as I would have liked on the other three days. Can’t say that this experience got me motivated to sign up for more of these 'serious' competitions. Just too many things I did not like: para-waiting in the hot sun until the per-determined start time. Being tied down for a week if conditions are iffy for flying but perfectly fine for other activities (paddling, hiking, mountain biking). Bombing out and watching the rest of the show from the ground. And I'd rather not be around again when people push their limits, and some push too far.

Revelstoke SIV: July 27 - 29

My first real SIV. For the non-flyers: SIV stands for Simulation d'Incident en Vol, practicing 'non-standard' flying configurations in a (relatively) save environment, over water with a boat on stand-by to fish out watered flyers. I had done a couple of SIV flights over the years and felt happy with all kind of induced collapses and short spins on my Sport 4, but hadn't really tried anything on my new wing and no full stalls at all. Pete had done some full stalls but didn't seem to overly enjoy them.

So I signed up for Pal Takats' SIV course in Revelstoke, together with 10 or 12 other flyers, half of them friends from the Lower Mainland. I had my first flights in Revelstoke just a couple of months ago on skis, now with the snow gone everything looked different. We were also using a different LZ on the lake shore and since the lake was still very high landing was a little tricky.

On the first flight I put my Artik 2 through various collapses. The fully accelerated assymmatricals went rather dynamic, but nothing too exciting. Since I had never tried full stalls I thought it would be best to start on my trusted Sport 4. Pal's advice was to stall relatively fast, then evenly release the brakes to a point where the wing partially re-inflates and stops thrashing around. That's the sweet spot. Once the wing is (relatively) stable overhead it can be fully released. If it surges too much it needs to be stopped, but it must be allowed to start flying again and must not be braked too long as another stall will result. The first round of stalls was rather exciting! Did 2 stalls but just couldn't release the brakes evenly which resulted in some serious thrashing around. Back on the ground, Pal's buddy recommended to slide my hands up along the harness straps or even grab something for even release. With this method the next set of 3 stalls went much smoother. On the third day I gave the Artik2 a try, with similarly 'smooth' results. But I definitely need to be more gentle (or less controlling? ;-) on the brakes when checking the surges. I stalled the wing again on 2 of 7 stalls. Nothing dramatic happened as I was watching my wing, immediately realized what I had done and went back to the sweet spot. Video of stalls will be put up shortly.

Great SIV. Excellent instruction before and during the maneuvers and thorough video debrief in the evening.

As I had already driven so far, I added two days in Golden to my trip. The place is know for great XC flying, but also for scary conditions with thunderstorms and far reaching gust fronts. Had a couple of sled rides from Mt Seven, hiked up Swansee twice, the second time with a group of Oregonians. After one of them flew and had an exciting flight, and one tried to launch and had an exciting abort we walked down again. Also met a couple of old friends and got to see the famous Golden overdevelopment, complete with thunder and lightening and a couple gust front, from the ground. Apparently for the good XC flights one needs either luck with the weather or some serious time put in at this place. But how nice to visit Golden, Radium Hotsprings and Invermere again. Must have been 10 years or so since we were last here. Great memories of climbing in the Bugaboos (Bugaboo and Pigeon Spires) and paddling the Kickinghorse, White, Elk, Bull, and Skookumchuck Creek. Have to do a Rockies trip again!

Wenatchee at last: July 21/22

Its been a cold spring and June was not very pleasant either. But finally the Wenatchee has come down to my personal favorite (between 7000 and 4500 cfs) and we made the trip down south. That's the latest time in the year we ever paddled the river in our 15+ years of kayaking.

Down there we met up with a bunch of VKCers and the usual Seattle folks. Good surfing, spinning, and I even caught many of the 'on the fly' waves I usually don't have such a high success rate with. A great weekend... need to paddle more often...

Oh and I almost forgot... thanks to the unseasonably late drop in river levels we were treated to Saskatoon Berries, sweeter and riper than I ever tasted before. Yeah to the Wenatchee!

Pemby (Personal) Record Weekend: July 7/8

What a great weekend! Flew my two longest distance flights. When I got out to Copper Mound on Saturday, Pete was on his run back from across the Hurley Road and he turned around to join me for a thermaling session over Goat Mt. I had never been that far up the Pemberton Valley.

On Sunday I went even further (70 km) with my first flight across the Hurley Pass Road. Very cool to see the road far below winding its way up to the pass, glide across it with Miguel and Mags, soar the snow fields under Locomotive Mt (which we scrambled up a few years ago) and finally find a thermal that took me high enough for the glide back to where I knew to find lift on Goat Mt. Made it all the way back to the LZ in Pemberton to close the out-and-return flight.

Log of the 70 km flight here.

Miguel's picture of me on my Artik2 somewhere over the Coastmountains

Idaho MF Salmon: June 3 - 9

Detailed trip report and pictures coming soon...

High water and a tense start. We played it safe, lined the rafts through Velvet, the first sketchy rapid. The rest of the trip was sweet, good whitewater, great weather, nice hikes, excellent food, a great time with old friends and a bunch of new ones.

Pemby - Spring Skiing!

This may be have been our latest spring skiing day ever! Our little tour up Mt Rohr on Sunday made up for my not super successful flying on Saturday (see below).

What an amazing view of never-ending snowy peaks along the Duffey Lake Road. Well worth the effort of slogging up for 4.5 hours. And conditions were very nice for a quick ski back down to the trees. Skiing in the trees was not that much fun, but the snow was soft enough to make it manageable.

The flying on Saturday was somewhat frustrating for me and a day to file under experience gathering. People who launched first scratched for a couple of hours below before getting up into a strongish NW wind. Hoping for the wind to mellow out later I decided to wait. But when I finally launched, my vario sound wasn’t working and I just couldn’t figure out how to make it beep again (where are those reading glasses when you need them, but more importantly I should have remembered to check before launching!). So I landed, drove back up, and got in the air again. I finally climbed above upper launch to find the wind was now even stronger NW, too much for me to go anywhere. So I floated around, waited if it would calm down to make top landing feasible, but after almost 3 hours I got bored and headed out to land. Oh well.

A Sea of Green

So we sailed on to the sun,
Till we found the sea of green…
And we lived beneath the waves,
In our yellow submarine...

It’s one of my favorite times in spring when the new leaves emerge. They barely hide the empty spaces between bushes and trees but the harsh light of winter is filtered into a bright and warm green glow.

Pemberton – Victoria Day

Well, here comes the rain again… But the first day of the long weekend promised nice weather. So back we went to Pemberton where we spent last weekend since there was some concern about too much wind and stable air issues in the Fraser Valley.

There were definitely no problems with stable air in Pemby – lift was plenty and strong (>+6 m/s, strongest my vario has recorded in the area). Strong enough that pilots were seen spiraling and big-ear-ing to get away from clouds.

 Strangely enough it took me two tries to go cross country. While the first wave of flyers got up and away, many of those who launched a little later sank out. I had scratched my way slowly down the mountain when there was talk on the radio of a shuttle going up soon. I decided to hit the reset button, wing-overed and spiraled to the LZ and was back on launch within half an hour.

Back up on launch cycles were coming in very strong causing concerning collapses near launch. A week ago I had a rather exciting launch that was still fresh in my mind, so I waited for the end of a strong cycle and got in the air without any problems. I took the very first thermal to 2400 meter and went on my way along Owl Ridge. I had never gotten away that fast from lower Mackenzie launch. At Owl I climbed to just under 3000 meter. That is higher than Mt Matier – the highest mountain in the vicinity! Snow-covered peaks, glaciers and icefields as far as the eye could see - what an amazing sight.

Climb from 750 m to 2400 m right off the lower launch, looking up Pemby Valley.

In front of Copper Mound I saw a pilot going up on big ears, so I turned around just short if the peak. On the way back I got my share of cloud-sucking lift and a rather dynamic side-dive. Seeing my wing (partially) below me was a new experience. A couple of weeks ago I chatted with a fellow flyer about SIVs and he mentioned that he had had his wing below him on several occasions on regular cross country flights. I never had this experience unintentionally and my intentional wingovers are rather undersized, so I’m really only ‘over’ a small part of my wing. Well, I guess there is always something new and exciting in paragliding!

Although I got back to Owl with good height, getting around it was a slow slog fighting south winds and strong thermals. Nice lift over the swampy flats east of launch got me back over lower launch. There it was still lifty, but after 2 hours in the strong air, the exciting dive and couple of big asymmetric collapses, I decided to call it quits and landed.

Although just small improvements I was quite happy with the day: First time for me to make it all the way back to the LZ from Copper Mound and even a small improvement of my longest distance flown (by 1 km). Meanwhile the boys did big flights; Pete got his first 100 km, Andrew finished a 100 km triangle and Igor was still in the air when we sat down for beer and dinner.

Wetcoast Week: Ski, Paddle, Bike, Kite

Excellent use was made of the nice weather this week. After-work activities started on Monday with a quick ski-up to the first Pump on Mt Seymour. A ditch to ground level along the ski run (to help with construction of a new lift) showed that the snow cover is still a healthy 2-3 meters. Snow was still soft on the way down at sun-set – a rather pleasant ski out for May, and not the knee-twisting deep slushiness we encountered a week ago.

Wednesday we rinsed the dust of our whitewater boats with a quick run on the lower Seymour. First time in my kayak since October (not counting a couple of pool sessions). This must have been the longest dry time since I started paddling in 1996!

Thursday we aired our wings with a vigorous kiting/groundhandling session at Queen E park.

Friday we took the bikes for a spin along the Fraser River, everything green and fresh but despite the sun air temps were surprisingly low.