Back in Valle de Bravo for some fun flying with old and new friends. Cloudstreet to the Butterflies (for my non-paragliding friends... we fly under this sort of street and the clouds show us where the lift is). A wonderful flight with Peter and Julie. My favourite in Valle de Bravo so far. And the flights keep getting better every time we visit.
Record Rainfall in BC and the Pacific Northwest
“Hope, Agassiz, Malahat, Lillooet, and Abbotsford set new daily rainfall records on November 14, while both Hope and North Vancouver exceeded their average rainfall levels for all of November in a span of two days.”
Road Traffic between Vancouver and the rest of Canada cut off
“The combined closures of sections of British Columbia Highway 1 (part of the Trans-Canada Highway), Highway 99, Highway 7, Highway 3, and the Coquihalla Highway (part of British Columbia Highway 5) had the effect of cutting off road traffic between Metro Vancouver and the rest of Canada.”
Highway 3 reopened Nov
29, 2021 for essential traffic (regular traffic Dec 21, 2021)
Highway 99 (Duffey Lake) Nov 29, 2021
Highway 1 (Fraser Canyon) Jan 24, 2022.
Highway 5 (Coquihalla) Dec 20, 2021 for commerical traffic, Jan 19, 2022 for
regular traffic
Highway 8 between Merritt and Spences Bridge still closed as of July 2022
Sumas Prairie Flooded
In addition water from the Nooksack river in WA contributed to the flooding of Sumas Prairie in BC, leading to evacuations, closure of roads and railroad tracks and substantial loss of lifestock.
First turns of the season at Cypress XC area. Not exactly pow but beats the rain anytime!
Fall is hiking time and we did three new hikes this fall:
Ridge walk in the Coquihalla from Zupjok to Lama (great berries and mushrooms too)
Hope Mountain and Wells Peak
Outsetter Ridge in the Chilliwack Valley
After a one-year Covid-induced gap I'm glad to finally see family and friends in Germany again!
Flying conditions were not quite as good as in previous years. Big clouds, wind, rain and Foehn made for rough weather.
This time no records were broken but its close and its been a long time since the last rain, from June 15 to August 7. A few 'T' for trace on the Environment Canada website but I don't think we got any of it in Burnaby. 52 days! No wonder our big Rhodo called it quits and the Star Magnolias are not looking that great either.
Hammertag
in Pemby. RASP promising climbs to 3800m and light winds. To mix things
up we flew from Miller Ridge which faces east so we could launch a
couple of hours earlier than from our regular site. Cloudbase was as
high as promised but the thermals were a bit rough, especially lower
down. Lots of great flights including some +200km triangles. First for
me was flying along the south side of the Lillooet River. Photos are
from the long crossings and not from the 'high points' - just didn't
feel like letting go of my brake toggles at the top of the thermals 
This year we had not many options for places to fly with all the fires, the smoke and the wind. The more adventurous did a sporty down-wind flight from Pemberton to Gold Bridge and yes, as we knew already, Carpenter Lake gets a bit exciting when its windy (see Nick Neymen’s blog on this https://sharemyjoys.wordpress.com/2018/11/12/vol-biv-hitch-in-canada). The smoke beat us to Clearwater. Much better flying near Williams Lake (no smoke here) lead to a plan to come back when the weather would be less prone to over development. Looks like a great area for flatland thermals! We spent the last two days close to home (for us) and flew Benny and Bridal.
