Canadian Paragliding Nationals, July 20-27

 

This was a nice week flying with pilots from all over the world. We get to fly 4 tasks with one very nice and memorable one cruising under the clouds along Copper Mound to Macleod. Not sure what happened but one of our friends had to deploy his reserve in a wide open space at the end of the course. Some buddies went to help him from his landing spot. Another pilot had several deployments (twice in almost the same spot) necessitating two helicopter rescues.

I made goal twice (of 4 tasks) and came in 'solid' second after Nicole (same as in 2017). Pete placed second place too, in Sport Class (of 77 pilots, I'm 21 in this group). Oh yes, and I also was second in Fun Class (EnB wings, of 22) and 2nd Canadian women. 

 

 

Fraser River Slide

Sometime in late June a big landslide went into the Fraser River upstream of the Big Bar ferry. The area is so remote and the river seldom traveled so the exact date is unknown. Interesting to compare the views with what we paddled on our Chilko Lake to Lillooet river trip in 2007. The rapid that was created by the slide would have been a bit of a surprise!

The rapid was big enough to stop the upstream progress of the salmon runs. Various measures of mitigation were employed by the BC government. Although I didn't visit the grizzlies at Chilko Lake in September my photo-friends reported that the bears found enough salmon for their winter preparations.

Spring Mushrooms (and Alpine Flowers)

Found my first morel! Unfortunately only one. But I dressed for the occasion; the print on the T-shirt reads: I hunt mushrooms because I have no morels!

While the driving/mushroom ratio was rather dismal for the morel (well, we have to add a beautiful hike and alpine meadows full of western pasque flowers and glacier lilies to this equation); there was no driving involved to find the other 'new to me' mushrooms. Cutting back some of the ever-growing ivy in our garden I discovered two beautiful Prince (Agaricus Augustus). Very tasty!

San Juan Foxes

Its time to visit the fox kits again. Just 5 red-colored kits not the 14 we saw last year in red, grey, sand, black coats. But got to see various behaviors, much better than last time. The kits were not into 'solid' food yet. The mums still nurse them (two mums nurse one litter - apparently not that uncommon) and regurgitate food. This kit-fox was only interested to play with a (dead) rabbit. Mum tries to teach a life lesson: don't play with your food... eat it! But playing is important too for learning hunting skills.

Joffre Slide, May 12

A massive rock slide happened on Joffre Peak. It covered the trail to a very popular hut. Luckily nobody got hit by it.

Pique report.

Technical Cheam

Its always amazing to fly up to and over Cheam Peak. Our launch is at an altitude of 750 meter and Cheam is 2104 meter high. Its not a big cross country flight by any means but a nice challenge to keep things interesting.

On many days its not possible to get to this height, on rare days its easy. Yesterday it took a bit of work to solve the puzzle, finding thermals in some areas and using smooth ridge lift along snow, cornices and rocks. Wind was west lower down and north at the peak.

April Pemberton Flying

Fantastic views over snow and glaciers and mountain ranges for the first flight of the year in Pemberton and very nice conditions! But it was so cold up high I had to turn around at North Creek. 84 km out and return. Flight track in XContest here. Pretty fast flight too, 27 km/h.

Nicole ahead of me at North Creek.

Cypress Skiing

After the hill closed I get first tracks on corduroy but I had to work for it! Coverage on Colins and Panorama was surprisingly good (only a couple of thin spots at the bottom) despite only 50% snowpack this year (April 16th). I made good use of my season pass, with 22 days (half-days) of downhill, almost 300 runs and 15 cross country sessions (short ones only... I find skating rather exhausting and the longest I skated this year was 2 hours).

Flying the Back of Benny

Fantastic day yesterday at Benny. First time for me to venture into tiger (or bear?) country north of Mount St Benedict. Also never before done that many spirals and big ear/speed bar on one flight (to avoid airspace... apparently it worked... max altitude 1980m). Nice flying first with Nicole, KVA and Rod and on the way back I joined up with Pete. Lots of other amazing flights too!

My 50 km triangle

A lot of tracks all over. Hammertag as they would say in the Alps!

Landscape Success!

VIMFF 2019 Photo Competition first prize in the landscape category.

Powder Time!

Its been a long wait for back country snow this year (or maybe we are just not that keen anymore in our old age?) but its finally here. And in rather unexpected places: we get the best turns of the season on Paul Ridge... our go-to place for OK early season turns.

Pete enjoying the pow on Paul Ridge

Spot Ben photo. He took us around Thar on the Coquihalla. The exit gully is for good stability days only.

January Cherries - February Snow

Weather update: warm January with the first cherry blossoms appearing. Looks like all of 'our' snow is going south to California! Cold start to February (without snow so we got to skate on the frozen lakes) and finally some snow. But not enough, the 2018/19 snow pack ended up well below average.

Pete checking out whats under the ice at Brohm lake

Brandywine Falls

End of the Cap Cam

The end of the Cap Cam! Its been running for over 18 years. Impressive that it lasted that long. Thanks to all the volunteers, especially Jim S. (idea+implementation), VKC/VWC for paying the bills and the fish hatchery staff for hosting!

Appearance on Google Earth

A friend discovered this photo on Google Earth. Running Bridge River 14 years ago (in my play boat ;-)). We did quite a few runs of this remote and beautiful river (really more a creek), even some club trips. And had some rather exciting moments: swims, walk-outs, a dislocated shoulder, a scary pin but in the end we got it right. Even ferried some stuff across for a couple interesting characters. Gold mining they said... really? I'm missing paddling, the clear water, exciting rapids, deep canyons but grateful for amazing times with good friends.

Weather 2018

The weather was quite changeable in 2018 year: 2017/18 snowfall was average with less in January (less snow but more rain!) and more in February / March.

April was cold and wet, May very warm and dry and June rather cool and rainy (which is normal). July was dry and my garden vegetables suffered (it also didn't help that they didn't get any care and attention while we were away paddling the Nahanni for 4 weeks).

August wasn’t any wetter and there was lots of smoke from numerous forest fires (of note: Telegraph Creek) although no densely inhabited areas where affected like last year (Williams Lake).

October stayed sunny and dry and we enjoyed hiking and fall colors.

Thanks to El Nino we had to wait for snow in December which was dry at first and then rather wet. Local ski areas opened late (my first ski day at Cypress was December 13).

Skiing at Namulten - Valkyr range

Our visits to Blanket Glacier Chalet have come to an end. Al, the owner, retired and has handed over the business to his son Marty. As the interest in back country / powder skiing increases, Marty gets enough guests that are happy to pay for guiding and catering. But this almost doubles the price from what we pay for our self-guided self-catered weeks.

But still we went skiing, with the same group and at the same time, just a different location: in the Valkyr Mountains near Nakusp. Unfortunately this years snow pack was somewhat underwhelming, everywhere. We still got out every day and had lots of turns but the motivation to climb and ski the customary 10,000 meter was not there. In any way, a good trip with good friends and we'll try again next year!