Chelan October 22-23

With the rainy Vancouver forecast for Saturday and the Halloween fly-in happening in Chelan, it was time for a road trip!

Alex between the rocks as clouds form in the lee
On the butte it was initially blown out...about 30kph from Green Monster and the clouds were forming in the lee of the Butte.  Catspaws and windlines all over the lake too.  But after a couple of hours the winds totally died and we started thinking about flying.

Far from being blown-out, it was not quite ridge soarable on Green Monster but lightly soarable if you caught a thermal right off launch, otherwise it was sled ride to the LZ.  On my second flight the winds did pick up,  in a weird way in that it wasn't windy on launch, but once in the air it was windy.  So it was ridge soarable by the end of the day but not classic conditions.

In the end I got 2 flights on Saturday while others went for 4-5 flights.  The party that night was quieter than usual with only about 30-40 people attending, which meant that there was actually room for dancing in the airport lounge!

Liberty Bell in WA pass, highway 20
Traditionally, the Sunday is not as good flying compared to the Saturday during the fly-in weekend (not sure why, but that's been the trend over the years I've attended), and this year was no different.  High cirrus and XC skies was saying it was gonna stick around all day and keep thing shut down, so we headed back to Vancouver to get back at a decent hour.  A beautiful day for driving highway 20!