Chelan

Well the day after the big party was the usual late-start...everyone hung over, sleeping in, and generally not inspired for the 9am sledride. But a few brave souls went up early and reported light to moderate north winds, which meant launching from the north side. This is the one launch on the entire Butte that is not perfect...the grass is a bit long and lots of lumps...you can tell it's not used much.

Anyways, it was light but launchable (and dammed cold, definitely not like yesterday!), but not really ridge soarable at first. There'd be the odd gust and people would get excited, and then it would die off. A few people lobbed off and on their way to the LZ, hit the last knob before you are over the river valley bottom, and it was lightly ridge soarable. People were able to soar for 20 or 25 minutes, even top-landing on this last knob and relaunching.

I launched and it was very light...you had to stick in close for it to work, and with all the people launching, it was considered nice to give your spot up after a few minutes so everyone could get a crack at it.

But the window was short-lived...it went light again and by this time most people had landed in the Chelan Falls LZ and were thinking of leaving, for the long drive back to Seattle or Vancouver. So it was nice to get in the air one last time in Chelan, and an early end to the Sunday so people could get back home.

No comments:

Post a Comment