Valle de Bravo

Another fun trip to Valle de Bravo, our 5th. This time we had lower cloud base which made flying home to the lake more tricky and also didn't allow for too many new experiences, except for one flight when I came back from Divis on a long glide and cleared the Spine (Espinazo) by maybe 50 meters. Other flights: 3x Divis, 3x Lake.

We were in a group of 8 and rented again a very nice house, this time only meters away from the lake LZ.Very convenient but a lot less exercise than the last two years!

Flying around clouds to the Three Kings

Finding a hole in the clouds on my way back to the Lake and Valle de Bravo

Our pool and the church St Maria Ahuacatlán

Hunting and Gathering

Every four years a 'dominant' run of sockeye salmon makes their way up the Fraser River and 2018 was one of the big years. Reason enough to get a fishing license and gear and head out with a friend who showed me how its done. I like this sort of fishing! Within 1 hour I landed 2 nice silvery sockeye which is the daily limit for recreational angling. I went back two more times. We had one fish for dinner with friends, got another one smoked and the last 4 were cut up into fillets and steaks for the freezer. In total between 12 and 14 million sockeye entered the Fraser this year, a pretty solid number!

Only two of the fish are mine... two is the daily limit

Despite the dry summer, this year turned out to be a great one for mushrooms too. We found huge King boletes, a few nice bearshead/lions mane and last but not least lots of Pine Mushrooms (Matsutake). I added pines to my list of collectibles 5 years ago but haven't had much luck since then. So I was really hoping for a good year. Ans a good year it was! Even Peter came along for a day of mushroom hunting and we collected over 5 kg (I think Peter found more!)

Fantastic 'catch' of pines

To round out the winter menu there were also many berries to be harvested. Bags of black- and (bought) blueberries went into the freezer. And the wild blueberries were so plentiful that most of our hikes were rather slow. But the berries were so good that we ate them all and didn't bring any home.

And I was excited to see that pines went for  $33/lb at the Granville Island market. Maybe I should try to sell some next year?

Fall Flying

Paragliding conditions were below average this year except for a stellar week in July but we were away for it, paddling our canoe in the Northwest Territories.

But in fall we enjoyed a couple of very scenic flights. On a hike and fly mission we thermaled several hundred meters over the summit of Mt. Cheam and flew over nearby summits of the range.
Dodging clouds at Woodside I got a nice photo of a Glory or Brocken Spectre.

Hike and Fly Mt Cheam

Brocken Spectre at Woodside

Pete exploring the scenery in the Northern Cascades at Sauk Mountain

Fall hikes and colors

Despite the dry summer there was an amazing display of great fall colors this year. Nice weather lasted throughout October and gave opportunity to many hikes. On the trail to Blanca Lake in the Elaho valley we discovered some huge King Boletes. We finally scrambled up Mt Jim Kelly on a lot of rubble and loose shale (not the greatest hiking). My favorite was the area around Mt Bake with easy access and well groomed hiking trails (Chain Lakes, Lake Ann, Yellow Aster Bute, Skyline divide and Railroad grade). Blueberries were fantastic too!

Blueberries and colors were better closer to Heather Meadows parking lot

Adams Lake Sockeye - Dominant Run 2018

At the beginning of October I visited the sockeye salmon that had arrived at Adams Lake. Some of these sockeye ended their journey prematurely on a sandbank of the Fraser River (and then in my freezer), but since it was a dominant year with a solid number of returning fish I could reconciled this with my environmental conscience.

XC Contest 2018

Many paraglider pilots who fly cross country upload their flights to a website called XContest. Its useful to check routes in new areas and when and where good flying conditions happen but also creates a high amount of envy and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). And it shows how our flying measures up compared to the world's best. Like last year I placed myself on the first page that shows the top 50 women. It helps that only 843 ladies posted their flights but being 48th out of 843 on the world scene isn't all that bad. There is a big gender difference in number of participants (12,000 guys vs 843 girls).

XContest Women 2018 48/834
XContest Women 2017 38/625

Chilko Grizzlies

My second visit with the Grizzlies in the Chilcotin Mountains coincided with an unseasonably early snowfall October 2-4th. It was quite the drive on slushy and icy roads for half of the way but the Delica pulled through. When the snowing stopped 40 cm had accumulated at Chilko River. The snowy landscape was a fantastic object for photos, especially the Aspen trees still in all their yellow fall colors. Bears were frequent and photogenic too but due to the snow we couldn't get to some of the prime photo spots and I felt quite some photo-envy watching the tourboats drift down the river ever so close to the fishing bears. Maybe next time I will bring my inflatable and stay a bit longer too.

Wildfires

 This year was a record year for wildfires. Although big population centers were spared (not like last year when 10,000 inhabitants of Williams Lake had to evacuate); 13,500 square kilometers of land were burned. One of the hardest hit places was the small northern community Telegraph Creek.

From the end of July to mid September much of BC was covered by smoke from the fires. The smoke put an end to thermic and long paragliding flights and obscured mountain views much to the displeasure of the many tourists. One positive outcome was that temperatures didn't climb too high.

We spend a weekend paddling Howe Sound with unusual views and missing mountains.

Anvil Island 2018 but the rest of the Howe Sound surround has gone missing

Anvil Island 2015

Germany, Austria, Slovenia

Our annual fall Europe trip took us to Germany, Austria and Slovenia (and Italy, but only shortly). In Leipzig we checked up on the Zoo, always an interesting outing! On the way to Slovenia we stopped at Koessen (fortunately we came through on a weekday as it is very busy on weekends), then continued on via Bischling to Lienz where we met a BC friend. We got to watch the Dolomiten Mann Red bull contest, flew Lienz and had an interesting encounter with the valley winds. Always something new even with over 1000 flights! After Lienz we headed to Camp Siber in Tolmin and got lucky... one of their cabins was free. Much more convenient than our tiny lightweight tent! Flying in Slovenia was fantastic again with my longest flight almost to Gemona and a couple others over the gap on Stol. I also explored for the first time the slopes of Krn. On the way back we drove up to Mangart and hiked/scrambled up the ridge.

Nahanni and Broken Skull Rivers, July - August

In July and August we paddled Broken Skull and Nahanni Rivers in the Northwest Territories. We were on the water for 21 days and paddled 500 km. The landscape is protected as a Canadian National Park and is also a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. For Peter and me this was the first river trip in canoes, up to now we have only used kayaks or rafts. But our friends had lots of canoe experience.

It took 2.5 hours to fly from Fort Simpson to the put-in at Divide Lake. Amazing untouched landscape of endless mountain ranges and big river valleys of the Mackenzie Mountains under our little bush planes (a Beaver and a Cesna).

From Divide Lake we paddled on the crystal-clear Broken Skull River through alpine landscapes past moose, bears and wolves.

Highlights along the Nahanni River were the Cirque of the Unclimbables with its sky high granite towers, thundering Virginia Falls (around which we had to portage our canoes and equipment) and the canyons of Nahanni.

On the river we saw only 5 other paddlers. This was a surprise as the Nahanni is a very popular canoe destination.

The three weeks on the river were our longest ‘expedition’ so far, requiring special preparation for the food, as the weight for the plane was limited and we had no refrigeration on the river. That's why we dried and dehydrated everything from vegetables over yogurt to tomato sauce and salsa. It worked out well and was tasty, even Jiri's spam dinner!

The North is famous for its mosquitoes but except for the last few days they didn't bother us too much. But as soon as we reached the end of the canyons the pesky insects came out en masse, so bad that we skipped the last hot springs - nobody wanted to take off the paddling jackets and expose any skin.

Canoes on board

Mackenzie Mountains and no sign of humans for hours!

At Divide lake

Broken Skull below Swallow Falls

Whitewater action

Good hiking here

Hot springs

Northern river views

One of our camps on the Broken Skull

Cirque of the Unclimbables

Virginia Falls

After the portage

Porcupine

Pulpit and gate in the third canyon

Deadman Valley (fortunately no dead man found)

First Canyon

Bison crossing!

Nahanni-Liard confluence

Epic Flying: July 24-28... without us

The weather for paragliding was not that great in May and June. Unfortunately when the conditions were ‘epic’ for one week in July with high cloud base and new Canadian records flown (two 200 km triangles by Igor and Alex) we paddled our canoes down the Nahanni in the Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Guess you just can’t be everywhere at the same time, especially if the distances are great (23 hours by car ... interesting that we think of distances in driving times, just like 'light-years'!).

End of the Books

I finally shipped out the last of my whitewater guidebooks - to the MEC. When we brought the boxes full of books into our basement over 10 years ago I never expected that the books would out-last our whitewater paddling adventures and that we would move onto doing different things (like paragliding).

Missing this amazing time exploring rivers and creeks with good friends but it has been replaced by different views and adventures...

Whitewater in Southwest British Columbia - March 2007

A Canoe!

Whitewater has been our favored playground for over 10 years (1996-2006) but after taking up paragliding priorities shifted more and more. 2017 was the first year without whitewater paddling and we just got our sea kayaks wet. I thought our boat-buying days were over but our friends invited us on a trip down the Nahanni and its tributary Broken Skull. I found good deal on a Dagger Venture and I drove over to the Olympics and picked it up. We spent some time outfitting the boat for the trip with spraydeck, knee pads, loops and lines. Broken Skull and Nahanni have some class 2 (at normal water levels) which isn't much whitewater compared to what we used to paddle in our kayaks but being in the much more delicate canoe with all our food and equipment for 3 weeks gives it a whole new dimension!

Packed canoe above Virginia Falls

San Juan Foxes

In the 1930 rabbits were introduced to San Juan Island and proliferate wildly. In order to reduce the rabbit numbers foxes were brought in and their population too grew to considerable numbers.

In early May the fox kids come out of their dens. They are not very shy which makes for fantastic photo opportunities. At times we saw more than a dozen little foxes play and chase each other. Extremely cute!

Leipzig Besuch

On this year's flight to Europe I had some amazing views of the coast mountains, my Vancouver backyard, and of the big mine near Kamloops. A friend from olden school days and avid foldboat paddler and his wife took me on an urban paddling tour past fancy houses, old factories and lots of graffiti. Leipzig's waterways have cleaned up very nicely! 30 years ago it wouldn't have been possible or pleasant to do this. Also met with another friend from University who now lives in California for a walk through the Auenwald, full with smells of Knoblauchkraut. Later we had a family meeting at an open air dance show where my niece and her group showed us some wicked street jazz moves. And I had my fill of fresh white asparagus (Spargel), one of the highlights of Germany visits in spring.

Photo: Alex Fraser Bridge

This was a first for me: I had a particular image in mind, waited for the right conditions (a dry night with outflow wind), went out and got exactly what I wanted! Alex Fraser Bridge at Night.

Glanzlichter der Natur 2018

News from the photography side of things: one of my photos was selected in the "Highlights of Nature Photography" contest, one among 87 out of 18,000 submitted images! This contest has been running for many years and each year the winning images are shown in several cities in Germany including in Leipzig. My parents parents visited several of the exhibitions and drew my attention to it.

The 'Findling'-'Foundling' wasn't my favorite among the photos I submitted but apparently resonated with the judges.

Big Island Hawaii

Late February/March we visited the Big Island of Hawaii with friends. We snorkeled with Manta Rays (this time with all the tour boats around - their light displays proofed much more effective than our tiny dive light) and biked/hiked in the rain to the lava flows. We watched big waves crash on the southwest shores and explored the Volcano Park. This was our third visit on the Big Island, which in our opinion has the most variety and the lowest tourist density of the Hawaiian Islands. We were there 4 weeks before the big 2018 lava outbreak which destroyed several hundred houses between March to June and only stopped about 200 meters away from the Bed & Breakfast we stayed at in Pahoa.

2018 lava flows on the Big Island. The red cross is were we stayed.

Big waves!

Life after lava

On the way to fresh lave flows

They are actually behind the lava... not on top ;-)

Manta Rays!

More big waves