Bridal Crosscountry: Elk - Butterfly and back, May 18

After exploring the back and beyond of Woodside for the last couple of months, we are back at Bridal! The weather hasn’t been great lately with week-long forecasts of rain. Just like the carrot on a stick, “Wunderground” always dangles a forecast of nice weather at the end of their 7-day predictions. But as the promised nice days come closer, the good weather gets postponed and slides off into the future. This repetitive pattern and lack of good conditions on weekends necessitated desperate measures (like taking an afternoon off).


Desperate conditions call for desperate measures!

In the afternoon Woodside is often blown out, so we headed to Bridal. It took me two tries to get away from the launch area and by the time I got up to Upper Launch Pete was long gone. There was another pilot on his way west below me, installing confidence to go over to Gloria – where Pete zoomed by returning from his Elk run already. Found a good climb at Gloria. On Elk waves were exchanged with hikers plus some fumbling around looking for lift (which I found a little further east than expected). Wind was pushing into the gap between Elk and Gloria. At Gloria I thermaled shortly with Alex who was on triangle mission. Lift was pretty skookum at Gloria and I had to pull in a bit of wing to stay out off the fluffies. Got back to launch with nice altitude, then high along Mt Cheam, over to Laura’s Ridge (aka The Lakes). Here I met Pete again, now coming back from Butterfly. Still big lift in lots of places so I pushed further east to the flat spot and on to Butterfly. Pete came along for company.

Pete hit an elevator ride up near the rocky chute on Butterfly and I headed over to hop on it too. Not sure what exactly hit me, but I suddenly dropped and got a good look at my wing folded up like I had never seen it before, at least not while being suspended from it. A big fat frontal? The few frontals I have had usually had already popped out by the time I look up. But it also didn’t take long this time and within less than a second my wing opened with a reassuring popping sound. No surge, no other funny business. I like my Sport 4 (forget the Mentor 2!). Soon I found another more friendly thermal to top up for the flight back to Laura’s Lakes. The wind in the valley had gotten stronger so I skirted the gullies on Mt Cheam with extra safety distance. By the time I got back to Bridal Launch I was somewhat tired and didn’t follow Pete who sailed off on his second Elk lap. One last climb over Bridal Launch and then I flew out high over Rosedale to enjoy a few minutes of smooth air before landing. Nice cross-country flight (just a touch shy of 40 km) and my second Elk – Butterfly “Sammy”. The first one was a little less than a year ago – and my very first real cross-country flight.

Flight on Leonardo




On my way back from Butterfly. Mt Cheam in the clouds and Lady Peak to the left. On close inspection Pete's wing is visible as small white speck just a touch right and below the center of the picture (above the ridge of dark green trees).

Vancouver Kayak Club Festival - May 1st

This was the 4th VKC Festival on the Chilliwack River. And its getting better every year. I have to confess due to the low water level and the promising flying weather... we didn’t even bring our kayaks.

Nevertheless we totally enjoyed the party, music by our friends from the band Switch, socializing with a bunch of paddling friends we hadn’t seen in a while and meeting a lot of new paddlers. The festival was a great success - excellent work by the organizers... looks like a new generation of kayakers has successfully taken over! (Good chances I can finally retire from being VKC pres at the next AGM;-).

Fraser Valley Flying, April 30/May 1

I must have been getting too much airtime this spring, flying with eagles, in breathtaking scenery and exploring some new corners I haven't been to before (f.e. two Fraser Valley crossings), that even these spectacular flights blur into a big haze. The flight this Saturday was different. I wasn’t too excited about it at first, but looking back it certainly stands out. There were low clouds across the valley from Bridal to Woodside. Pete and two others launched earlier, but then the cycles had shut down and we were waiting.

When I finally launched it was as if I got on an elevator, and an industrial strength one! Over 100 meter straight up in +6 m/s lift…. Yehaa! After I got off the elevator and settled on my bucking bronco (ehmm.. into my harness I mean) I followed Pete, Tom and Tonya who were heading west. Quite a different flying experience, cruising just under the clouds which were hiding the top of the ridge and trying to identify the hidden peaks by the snowfields and gaps below. Occasionally the lift got so strong that we had to turn out to the valley and even resort to speed bar and big ears to stay out of the white room. When getting too close to the clouds previously, I usually made the mistake of getting too low and then had a difficult time reconnecting with lift. But this time, I managed to stay just at the right elevation.

There was so much consistent lift that I didn’t have to turn a single time all the way to Elk. But flying into the strong west wind was rather painful. It took me 40 minutes to get to Elk. On the bright side, when I turned around my GPS showed +60 km/h max speed and I was back at launch in 10 minutes. I will remember this flight for some time, cruising under clouds along the ridge with its peaks hidden. After we returned, Pete ventured further east, but couldn’t make it back in the strengthening wind, so he landed near Popkum Road coming straight down without forward movement. Meanwhile I flew out over the valley and then back to Bridal LZ were it was a lot less windy.


Turn-around point is marked by obvious change in flying speed at 14:58

Sunday looked quite promising, but it didn’t turn out to be as spectacular as it looked. Still, I pushed a bit beyond where I had been before, flying with Pete to Agassiz Mt, then across to Bear Mt. During the crossing on speedbar my glider took an interesting whack out of the blue (at least for me), sharply turned 90 degrees and dived maybe 45 degrees. That woke me up, but was very manageable and just what a 1/2 wing is supposed to do… made me appreciate my docile Sport4. I arrived a little below the top of Bear, scratched for a while but never got up and landed at Seabird Island. Pete arrived higher, scratched for another hour only to land on the other side of Green Hill. Next time I should land closer to the main road or call for a retrieve earlier. I decided to walk to the highway to make it easier for pick-up, but gave up after 30 minutes - it would have taken a mere 3 minutes to cover this distance by car. I called and lucked out as I managed to piggy-back on a retrieve that was in progress already. Guess I owe a few retrieves and drives up to launch with all these cross country adventures ...

Wetcoast Week (Part 4, April 22/23): Friday and Saturday Flying

The Easter Bunny came with a present: two nice flying days with strong conditions (even Pete found it a bit rough at times – but maybe that’s his new wing, which is ENC and a step up from our Sport 4). On Friday, a big gaggle of pilots went west, but I wasn’t sure I could make the first big jump across to Sasquatch, so I decided to go east again. Flew over Agassiz Mt and since I was not sure where to go on Bear, I headed straight for Green Hill, where I was getting low and got ready to land.

But I wasn't going to land before I flew the entire length of Green Hill since it’s known as a reliable thermal trigger. And at its very south end, there it was: a sweet thermal that took me from below 400 meter up to over 1400 meter! What a great climb from such a little hill! From there I went on glide over the Fraser and its many sandbanks and got to the south side of the valley at 400 meters. I was pretty happy with my second valley crossing, didn’t put as much effort into trying to continue as I could have and landed at the highway exit. Later I found out that another pilot had climbed out from the same height about an hour earlier and the next day someone made an even lower safe from half that height (but both with lot more experience in xc flying and on higher performance wings). But, hey, that was only my second valley crossing and my first from the north – I’ll leave the climb-out for next time! Leonardo track here.



Climbing for over 1000 meter over Green Hill. Harrison Lake left, Fraser River right.