Camrose AB May 18

The skies started popping with cu's just after 11am so we knew it would be a good day.  But the winds were SE which is not the greatest direction....you have to detour a bit to avoid Edmonton airspace which costs time.  But we made the most of it; I got 149.5 km after getting shot down by a blue hole and a lot of wind; Alex landed a couple km's past me.

Heading north towards Redwater

It sounds like Alex and I had quite different flights since we were about 1 hour apart in getting into the air.  When I launched I had some virga to immediately fly through (with the associated sink behind it) so I had to scratch for a long time, and that pretty much set the pattern for the day.  I found the day to be quite slow and not easy and I never got to cloudbase; my highest was 2700m.  Alex on the other hand said he had plenty of lift and got cloudsucked at one point with hail.

In the end we landed about 2km apart from each other despite being 1 hour apart and Brett (the scheduled driver for the day) was right there to pick us up and provide an escape from the incredible mosquito swarms...I figure there must have been a mass-hatching or something just before I landed as I've never seen it that thick!

I think my flight can count as a new Canadian female OD record since the previous record is 135.5 km; we'll just have to make sure the tracklog is accurate and all the paperwork is in order.

A bit more of Camrose Alberta

Towing up Will on the Terraway N-S road.

A couple of days ago Brett and Alex had a really sweet flight to the NE.  It was ODing to the south so that was pretty much the only direction to go despite the NW winds, so it was a bit of a crosswind (and thus slow) flight.  I was the retrieve driver for the day so after picking up Will (who had headed SW until the OD, then turned around and landed just north of Forestburg) it was driving north to keep up with the boys as they cruised under a giant cloudstreet at 3000m for the last 40km.  In the end they got 170-180km, which is Alex's second-longest flight, and Brett's new personal best.  But the retrieve was long and we weren't back in camp until 1am ;)

I'm sure the Edmonton pilots are
familiar with this structure :)

We had one awesome-looking day where we could have flown 200+km, but it was a tad too windy (by 5-8km) for safe tows and possible mid-day landings, so we decided to stand down.  But Alex had a late tow at the end of the day when it started to lay down a bit (a demo flight for the local farmers) and got 70km in.

The Rosalind E-W tow road.

Yesterday looked promising with lots of cu's initially but it soon OD'd all over with virga.  I had a low save right over the tow staging area, about 80', right over Brett and Will, as I was circling for my landing, when I got a tiny 0.2m/s up which eventually developed into a solid 2-3m/s to 1600m.  I was sure I was away but the whole area then proceeded to go to 2-3m/s down, and I was shortly on the ground again.  In the end nobody got away and we packed it up for the day.

We've got a few more days here before we head to Dunlap CA for the US Nats, and the Miles in May folks are showing up tomorrow.  Wifi is kinda sporadic which is why I'm not updating this blog every day ;)

Camrose Alberta the past few days

Just below cloudbase on an average day in Camrose :)

Well it's been a definite change from the usual mountain flying I do in BC...here it's flat and you can see the weather coming for km's with nothing in the way!  After a beautiful drive through the Icefield Parkway we arrived in Camrose to meet Brett Yeates and his tow winch system.

After a day of learning how to operate the tow system it's been switchy weather, with a lot of wind and big skies.  As a primarily mountain pilot, I've been trained to equate lots of wind=bad.  But out here, lots of wind is normal and required if you want to fly far.  So we are slowly getting used to the idea of towing up in strong (30kph) winds and landing in potentially stronger (40kph) winds, because up high, it doesn't really matter!

Yesterday after a switchy start to the day, with us moving from a N-S road to a E-W road (it was NW), Brett and I were able to get away with Alex being the designated tow/retrieve driver.  Lots of shade around and the climbs were weirdly slow, so it was mostly a survival day of staying high and waiting for the shade to move off before continuing onwards.  Plus I had to detour around the Wainright CFB airspace which cost me some time.  Even so, I was able to get 91 km (84 straight line) in just over 2 hours, on a day considered to be below average (3-4) on a scale of 1-10.  On a real cracking day it will definitely be Canadian record-able!

Windy Pemberton May 4

Windy Pembie flight.

The NE winds were forecast to be quite significant today but it still looked doable so MacKenzie launch was quite crowded by 2pm.  No cu development we could see from launch (although later on we would see some in the backcountry) and clear blue skies meant it was clearly outflow aloft.

You can see the lennies forming in the distance.

The first people grovelled around for about 30 minutes before it appeared to turn on at which point everyone else launched.  I actually got up quite easily directly over launch, all the way to upper launch at which point the NE wind made itself quite known!  Once above the ridgetop we were basically pointing at the mountains and having to crab sideways to get any distance...it was quite slow going at times.  And the thermals were leaning way over the valley so after topping out, we'd have to tack back to the mountain to continue along or risk being flushed off the mountain range.

Thermals were rather strong but smooth up high, and we were getting to 2800m easily.  At this altitude my GPS was reading 25kph of NE wind and we could now see lenticular-type clouds forming in the interior...there was certainly a lot of wind about!  And it was funneling through every valley that had a north or east orientation: it was funneling through from just behind Barbour Mountain, and it was really squeezing through at Hurley Pass!

In fact at Hurley Pass I decided I'd had enough of the strong NE winds, so the next thermal I took drifted me into the Pemberton valley (like all the others) and I let it.  In fact I drifted all the way over to Camel's Hump and the east side of the valley.

Thermal-frisbeeing over to the east side of the valley.

The conditions were *so* much smoother over on the east side of the valley, I decided to stay and enjoy it!  Not much actual lift over there (it was quite late and the sun was completely on the wrong side), but I was able to find nice lifty lines along the ridgetops all the way to Miller ridge.  A nice climb on the sunny side directly over the hidden valley (still encased in snow) but not really enough altitude to glide directly to Mt. Currie (which I was thinking might be really nice just about now, facing NW and all that).

Because the MacKenzie side had produced much higher lift earlier in the flight (albeit very rough), I decided to glide back to launch and try to get the altitudes I had been getting before, in order to make the glide to Currie.  But now those of us below the ridgetop had a hard time breaking through 1600m...I ended up going after getting to 1800m, while those who had returned from Goat Pk etc and stayed high had a much nicer glide over to Currie.  I had terrible sink on the way over, 2-3m/s for a large part of it, and arrived on the slopes of Currie too low to make it work, and ended up landing at the airport.  But Andrew and Peter left from higher (2300m?) and were able to make it work.

Icefields on the east side of the valley.

Meanwhile some pilots had opted to go big and were past the Hurley Pass and onwards to Handcart or North Creek, turning around at the 40-45km mark.  Everyone reported strong winds and rough conditions on the west side of the valley, and much mellower conditions on the east side of the valley.  I'm kinda glad I decided against going big in those kinds of wind conditions...flying the Miller side was way smoother and much more enjoyable than the pummel-fest that you experience past Hurley Pass on windy days!

Epic Woodside May 1

81km FAI triangle

Salsbury Lake (melted) and Kenyon Lake (still frozen)

After yesterday's overdevelopment, today was actually a bit stable in the Fraser Valley.  The cu's were small and set quite far back, so we knew it was time-sensitive to get away before it baked out too much and escape to the big mountains where it was more unstable.

Stave Lake with Judge Howay and Robie Reid

After getting established over Sasquatch it was basically flying under the clouds all the way to Big Nick, making sure to stay under the magic number of 1981m (our airspace limit).  It was a bit funky at Dewdney, which we didn't really expect; it seemed it was quite north in spots and this was wrapping around Dewdney as well as coming down Norrish Creek.  But we were able to get out of there and once hitting Pattison and Gregory it was now a real effort to stay low, as there was lift everywhere.  No big cu's, just areas of widespread lift and we were all watching our GPS's to make sure to stay legal :)

The 5-6km of unlandable terrain just past Blinch.

I haven't flown north of Shotgun so it was a real treat to get up to Salsbury Lake and then Kenyon Lake up near the north end of Stave Lake.  Judge Howay and Robie Reid were right there and it was totally possible to glide across to the Judge, except it was very unlikely to get back and the only landing is the beach and a long wait for a boat or floatplane to possibly come by in the next few days :)

Looking up the Statlu.

Kenyon was actually the crux for me, as I was so paranoid about staying below 1981m that I actually got too low on the crossing, and arrived so low I didn't really have a proper LZ as a bailout.  I could have landed in the snow next to the still-frozen Kenyon Lake, but then it would have been a multi-hour posthole through the snow to a road and possibly a night out, and I wasn't really into that.  So I made up my mind to climb out of there, and managed to get back up to peak height and some breathing room while I still had some semblance of a road below me.

Banjo and the Chehalis River.  Woodside in the distance.

The next section (what most people would term the actual crux) is about 5-6km of unlandable terrain...no road, no cutblocks, and no retrieve.  It is soooo tempting to get really high to cross this stretch easily, but nope, 1981m is all you're allowed once coming back from Blinch.  So you have to climb high but stay legal, and keep surfing along until you reach the Chehalis drainage and a retrievable road becomes within glide again.  This is not something you want to do low, or on a too-unstable day (since if you get shaded out by OD, you're in trouble)!

Gliding towards Woodside.

Once arriving over the Statlu area it becomes easier as the valley actually flows downhill from here so you can, if necessary, just keep gliding and you'll make a cutblock.  But if you want to fly back to the Fraser Valley, you have to keep going and aim for Banjo!

No LZ's this side of Woodside...heading back to Chehalis LZ.

Alex and Al were at the bump just SE of Banjo but not climbing out, and reported they were going to land at Harrison Hot Springs.  I decided to see how close I could get to Woodside and then land at the Chehalis native reservation soccer fields; for the XCanada contest, you have to get to within 5% of your start to get the triangle bonus and Harrison Hot Springs isn't close enough ;)  It was actually quite easy to glide to the north side of Woodside, and had I been higher I may have been able to surf the north side back to launch and properly close my triangle.  But I turned around 4km from launch so I could make a safe landing, and the very friendly folks at the soccer field offered me a ride to the car right away!

Chehalis LZ with Woodside in the background.

It was a very special flight, but it's not something to do every day...you need light winds, the right amount of stability (the almost-becoming-too-stable-days at Woodside seem to be best), and most of all, it's best to do in a group for safety.  Landing out in the Blinch/Statlu areas would be full-on and it's best if you fly with a SPOT.  And keep an eye on the sky...it would be really unfortunate to reach the unlandable section just as the sky milked over (for example) or a big cu blew up and blocked your way back to civilization.  And watch your altitude if you want to stay legal and post your tracklogs...it's easy to get too high!