Well we tried, but the weather gods weren't gonna let us fly Mt. 7 today, at least for a task. There were windows of opportunity for sled rides etc but nothing taskable.
After canning the day at 2pm a bunch of us decided to head south, to go to the hotsprings in Canal Flats or to fly Swansea, whichever looked the most likely. Stopped in Invermere where it had finally gotten sunny and we saw some sailplanes soaring Swansea (but still not taskable) and talked to Frank Karnik who had just flown and he reported nice launching and ridgesoaring conditions on the north side. OK, so we're gonna fly instead of hotspringing!
Up on launch it was north winds and ridgesoarable. There was a TCU to the southeast past the Beaverfoot range and moving further away, and the local skies looked good for the next hour or so, provided everyone stayed local and didn't try to fly XC. I elected to fly last to ensure the new-to-the site pilots got off safely (it's a bit of a tricky launch with a HG ramp to avoid on the north side). Everyone got off safely and were having quite a nice time ridgesoaring the peak, but their upwind legs were getting slower and their downwind legs were getting faster as time went on! Veronica made the call to go land after about 30-40 minutes of flying, and I opted to stand down and drive down as the gusts started to come through launch at 30-35kph.
Down in the LZ I discovered only Greg and Veronica had actually made the proper LZ; the others had landed downwind in Windermere as the wind picked up on the ground too. Eventually we found everyone and gathered back at Frank's place for an impromptu BBQ, so we never got around to continuing south to the hotsprings at Canal Flats :)
Invermere holds possibilities as an alternate launch in case Golden remains untaskable this week, since Invermere is almost always sunnier and drier than further north. So if we think things look better down south, we may call tasks out of Swansea.
This actually sounds like a good day!
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