Miller Ridge Pemberton July 29, 2021

The RASP was looking epic for the Pemberton region, so lots of pilots were playing hooky today!  And with the light winds aloft, with an easterly component in the morning, that meant Miller Ridge, so I was up at 5am in order to get to Pemberton in time for the shuttle ride to that site!


Yummy RASP for Miller!

This late in the year the mountains have really dried up so there is less moisture, which means less mosquitos during the hike to Miller, a far cry from hiking there in May or June!


A lot of pilots were planning on flying to Whistler and back, but I wanted to try for the 200km OR, which is doable when the days are long enough to allow for 7 or 8 hour flights.  And the first part of the flight was indeed relatively straightforward...run the east side of the mountains until North Creek, jump over to the afternoon side, and continue to Spindrift.  But at Spindrift it felt quite windy, and I was hesitant to continue to Athelstan in that kind of wind, since if you land out, the only retrieve is via the old FSR, which I'm not 100% sure is gated nowadays or not...


Anyways, I decided to go for it, and getting to Athelstan was indeed easy, but coming back was slow, and cost me time (that plus the hesitation).  But once back on the familiar terrain it was a straight shot back to MacKenzie launch.  It was getting later and the conditions were "smoothing out" so the jump over the back to Lil'wat was uneventful, and I saw several pilots coming back from their trek down Lilloet Lake, so I knew going and coming back was still doable.  But it was getting late enough that I didn't want to risk getting caught down the lake, so I turned around early, cutting off a few kms in order to close my flight successfully.


Now, doing the return from Lil'wat back to MacKenzie can be challenging, especially in inflow conditions which usually set up this time of day.  So I made sure to top-up to 3200m in order to make it across with no issues.   Good thing since a Whistler Express had set up and the pilots lower down were starting to get in it, the regular LZ was becoming not very nice to land in.  So closed the flight by recrossing back over to Miller and then landing at the Beer Farm in light winds.


In the end it wasn't quite 200km, I cut the corners a bit on both ends in order to make it back, had I been faster and less hesitant about the Spindrift to Athelstan and return portion, I may have had more time to get the extra 30km.  Will have to try again next year when the days get long enough again!

164 km OR in Pemberton.



Mt. St. Benedict July 22-23, 2021

 The BCXC tour is back in the Fraser Valley to escape the Interior fires and the wind at higher altitudes, the FV works for this since we are not allowed past 1981m anyways :)  After doing a quick orientation of the Virtue LZ, we headed up to launch, with a brief delay on the spur road since a film shoot was blocking the road while they finished a scene (a western-themed Hallmark film).

My original plan was to fly to Mt. Woodside, but after launching I was watching the clouds forming over the Steelhead region so I decided to play over there instead.

Waiting for some sun!  Photo courtesy of Richard Bruneau.

It was pretty easy to stay up over there and cruise around over the Steelhead and then the outskirts of Mission, making sure to stay outside the Mission CYR prison airspace.  Eventually the clouds started to fizzle so I turned around to return to the Miracle Valley side of things, when all of a sudden the clouds started to reform at a higher altitude, so I turned around again and found myself at airspace.  The RASP had forecast a "cloud event" around 4pm so it kinda made sense, and I wondered if it was just the up-high instability finally mixing down to the lower levels.

In any case I figured I may as well fly to Woodside since there was a retrieve there anyhow, but with the strong west wind coming over the back at Deroche, I was shot down in the rotor (the mountains face very SE there) and had to land at the base of Harrison knob in very strong windy conditions.  Fortunately there are a couple of large fields there and some barns/outbuildings to pack up behind!

Flight from Mt. St. Benedict to Mission and then to Harrison knob

The following day we returned to MSB, quite windy from the south the further to Dewdney we got.  Finally got to 1500m over Dewdney but wasn't feeling it was worth flying to Woodside, it seemed very similar to yesterday minus the yummy clouds, so turned back to land at the Virtue LZ.  Richard and Norm tried but ended up in Deroche instead.

William's Lake July 20-21, 2021

With the abundant smoke in the BC Southern Interior, pretty much the only place, outside the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, was the Cariboo and north.  Fortunately we had a Williams-Lake pilot on our tour, Bill Goglin of Hillbilly Paragliding, with some sites he wanted to show us from near his hometown!

Most of us had never been to the Williams Lake area for flying, and it actually seems quite promising for flatland flying after a hill start.  With the numerous cutblocks and FSR's, on a map at least you can easily fly 200+km from Williams Lake with minimal airspace issues or large mountain ranges to deal with.  Following the river from Williams Lake to Quesnel is the obvious run for south-wind days.

Bill put us up at his property so we were camping in style!

With the SW winds and chance of overdevelopment, we chose Kaufmann's as the site of the day.  It's so named since the bombout LZ is owned by the Kaufmann family.  They have a large farm + airplane landing strip at their property, and welcome all pilots, just don't land in the crops and park off to the side to keep the runway and access to the fields open!

Kaufmann's launch with the Kaufmann family farm/LZ below.

The road up Kaufmanns is pretty good, 4WD in most places and only a few small mud bogs (now dried up) to get through.  You end up on a small clearing which you can launch from as-is, or take a small tarp to keep your lines off the bushes.

The skies were getting a bit large, and it actually rained on launch for ~15 minutes or so, just enough to dampen the dust down and ease the heat.  But up high it was forecast to be a bit chilly due to the instability, and once in the air we could see overdevelopment to the north and east of us.

Kaufmanns is located on a plateau above Soda Creek, so once in the air you are quite high up relative to the Fraser River.  When flying north you cross highway 97 and have the option of following the river, or going inland and overflying Gibraltar Mine and staying more "inland".  The mine is actually situated over higher terrain, and on a "regular" day would be the ideal option for staying high, but today was overdeveloping around the mine and to the east, so staying over the river was the better option.

Looking to the NE from launch and Gibraltar Mine.  OD to the NE.

Unfortunately there was a cell just to the west of the river dropping rain, and it was moving very slowly, and we were approaching it as we flew north.  Even hanging around and trying to slow down we were approaching the cell so had to detour around it.  But the damage had been done...the ground had been cooled off by the shade and rain, and even though it was sunny again, we were too early for the ground to have had time to heat back up, and most of us landed within a few kms of each other.  Peter and Richard got a few kms further, and actually encountered a headwind (from the north) as they got closer to Quesnel, so turned around to land at the same area the rest of us had landed at earlier.  

Flight to the north from Kaufmann's launch in Soda Creek.

Looking north towards Quesnel along the Fraser River.  There is a ridge of higher land to the north which would be ideal to fly over on a non-OD day.

Since this was our first time flying the site, we are unsure if a north wind (on a south day) is normal for the Quesnel area, so it's sometime to keep in mind if we fly here again.  But I think this would be a great place to go big on XC (200km?) since the terrain is so wide open, the airspace is minimal, and there's lots of places to land with relatively flat/easy retrieve along the FSR's and no locked gates.  We will have to come back in the springtime when cloudbase is high and OD/thunderstorm/fire season has not yet begun!

We stopped at McLeese Lake on the way back to cool off.  OD now visible to the west as well.

The wind/smoke forecast for the more southerly parts of the province was still looking grim, so we decided to stay in Williams Lake for a second day and fly another site called Onward, located in St. Joseph Mission, just outside Williams Lake proper.  This is a small site (~1000' AGL!) and faces almost due north.  It is supposedly ridge soarable in a NE or NW wind, but the day we were there it was light winds, at least initially, so it was either thermal out, or wait for the NW to kick in.  But the forecast was for afternoon OD so it seemed like a good idea to launch early.  Launching at this site in light winds is not easy...it's relatively flat and there is a small lip to run over, and not much wind gets to the back part of launch where your glider is sitting...the bushes on launch really need a haircut :)

We stopped at the Onward LZ and it was already overdeveloping to the west.

The launch is so low to the ground it's easy to sink out, and James actually did, sacrificing his flight to the thermal-gods so the rest of us could fly XC, thanks James!

The skies were actually shading out quite strongly when I launched so I was happy just to not sink out.  I was able to slowly climb to 2000m and then it was time to fly SE.  Once again you have the option of flying over the higher terrain close to launch, or you can choose to fly next to highway 97...we all chose to fly over highway 97 due to the OD which was chasing us from the west.

Onward launch looking NE.


Onward launch looking NNW.


The going was extremely slow and the climbs were super-weak (think 0.5 m/s!), but so long as you patient, you could drift south indefinitely so long as you stayed in the weak climbs.  In this fashion Claudia, Richard, and I drifted SE towards Lac La Hache.  The sun was disappearing and the clouds were spreading out, so it was getting more and more difficult to identify spots of OD easily, and there was rain cells about, and then it started to get strangely lifty and no skill required to stay up.  Meanwhile Richard, who had landed a few kms behind me, radioed that the north wind had died to be replaced by a rapidely-increasing south wind.
Onward launch is a bit overgrown with bushes...Tyler and James parawaiting in the shade.

Now in the past, when this phenomenon happens, I aim to get out of the air ASAP, since this usually means a towering cu or cu-nim is nearby and a possible gust front, and with all the shade about, I couldn't tell exactly where it was or how close I was to it.  So I radioed that I was landing, found a field to land in, and landed in a light south wind with rain sprinkles about.

Looking SE towards Lac La Hache, I landed a few minutes later when it became too easy to stay up.


Flight from St. Joseph Mission to the SE.


About 10 minutes later, as I was just finishing packing up, the south wind rapidly increased to about 20 kph (the gust front starting up!) and the cell tower on the small hill across the highway (500 m away) was struck by lightening, I was looking straight at the tower when it happened so had an unobstructed view of the show.  Time to get under cover!  Fortunately the retrieve van was waiting for me so I was able to get to safety and escape the wind and approaching rain.

Looking back to the NW; packing up just before the gust front hit.

As we were south of Williams Lake and the weather was forecast to turn for the worse in the Cariboo region, we decided the best option for the next couple of days was the Fraser Valley, so we continued south, driving past the Flat Lake fire, the Ashcroft Fire, the Merrit Fire, and the July Mountain/Coquihalla Fire.  I'm sure glad were were flying north of all that, since the skies in the southern Interior were super-smokey with low or no visibility.  We will have to return to the Williams Lake area next spring to see what the XC possibilities are like, and try again when it's not so overdevelopy!












El-Nido July 19, 2021

 Most of the southern part of the province east of Vancouver is on fire, and with the winds, we didn't have a lot of flying options.  Clearwater looked to be the least windy, although smokey, so the BCXC group headed there for the day.

Clearwater RASP for July 19

Hot hot hot as usual in Clearwater in mid-July :) and the wind was crossing from the west as per usual, making thermalling in the smoke difficult.  I stayed up for 30 min before calling it a day and landing for a swim at Dutch Lake.  Peter and James flew to Clearwater to land closer to the lake ;)  Too smokey to be really enjoyable, but it was nice to get away from the coast for a few days!

Short flight at El Nido.


A smokey and dry (look at the dormant grass!) El Nido launch. 
Photo courtesy of Richard Bruneau.


Upper MacKenzie Pemberton July 18, 2021

I have always wanted to do the Pemberton to Goldbridge run, but due to the fact the retrieve is a bit inconvenient, haven't actually done it.  It actually wasn't the *best* day to do it, there was quite a bit of wind about, but the advanced members of our group decided it was still doable so we alerted our retrieval team of our plans!

Hurley Pass RASP for July 18

There was quite a bit of cloud about, too much to really feel comfortable going over the back at Goat into the backcountry, so most pilots top-landed below Copperdome to wait out the sun.  I opted to stay in the air and enjoy the abundant lift and watch the sky.  Once the skies cleared a bit more everyone relaunched and off to Goat we went, where we eventually got to 3000m and committed to going over the back to Chipmunk Mountain.

Our LZ is the Gunn Creek river delta where it spills into Carpenter Lake.



It was windy up high, and with the Hurley FSR below us in the venturi, we figured it would be very windy on the ground too.  A bit scary, frankly, especially since there are essentially zero landings (at least nice ones) for the entire trip to Goldbridge.  There are cutblocks, and wide areas of the Hurley FSR, but nothing that would be entirely comfortable to land in, especially in wind.  However the terrain behind Goat is spectacular!

Looking west to Downton Lake.  Carpenter Lake is behind me. 
Our flight path from Chipmunk Mountain was on the left side of this photo.

Basically to get to Goldbridge you just have to follow the Hurley FSR, but you can either follow more-or-less right next to it, or go deeper into the higher peaks.  Most of us opted for the deeper line over the Waterfall peak complex, but Tyler opted for the next-to-the-Hurley line, and got shot down midway through the flight, landing on the road in not-that-nice conditions, and eventually getting a ride back to Pemberton via a returning car back down the Hurley road.  I actually returned to the vicinity of the road after getting to Mt. Noel since it was obvious we were going to make Goldbridge no problem, and I wanted to get some photos of Downton, Gunn, and Carpenter lakes, as well as see what was available for LZ's if you landed short.

Downton Lake with the dam, Lajoie Lake, and Gunn Lake

As you approach Bralorne and Goldbridge you have to pass over/by Brexton Dome, and in the amount of wind we were experiencing (we were doing 60+kph downwind at this point), you definitely don't want to be in the lee of that chunk of mountain!  I veered well west of Brexton Dome, leaving Mt. Noel at 3000m, which incidentally puts you over the marshland between Downton and Carpenter lakes, a nice emergency bailout zone if you are having issues reaching the LZ.  I estimate you can actually leave Mt. Noel around 2000m and still reach the river delta LZ since you are approaching continuously-descending terrain to the lake.

Packing up in the 30+kph winds was difficult, so we had to use this tree to hide behind.

The LZ in this case was the river delta on Carpenter Lake, about 10km past Goldbridge where Gunn Creek empties into Carpenter Lake.  Here is the best-looking LZ, plenty of sand and also plenty of room if you get dragged in the wind, and it's right next to the main road leading from Goldbridge to Lilloet.  We actually had oodles of height and could have continued flying east, but there are no/not much LZ's further along Carpenter Lake, and we wanted to have a safe and happy landing!

James and Peter and Richard were already ahead of Bill and I, had landed already, and were reporting 30+ winds, so setup my approach well upwind and landed with lots of dragback room (but didn't need it).  The LZ is actually a bit soft with the piles of sand which was a bit unexpected...if you land here, prepare for some sinking in!

Celebrating our flight at the Gunn Creek LZ!

It was definitely windy in the LZ, and we all agreed that the flight was spectacular but quite burley.  Doing the flight on a less-windy day would definitely be more fun and allow you more time to enjoy the scenery and relax a bit more.  But I think Goldbridge/Carpenter Lake is always going to be windy, so choose your day wisely!

76 km flight Pemberton to Goldbridge.













Upper MacKenzie July 17, 2021

  I am part of the BCXC tour group, and due to the widespread fires in BC, we have limited areas to fly, so today we started in Pemberton.


Mostly cloudy skies and some Whistler Express coming in, so it was an extended sled run to the Beer Farm.  We did it mostly for the lulz and some of the BCXC folks don't get to fly Pemberton that often, so it was a treat for them.


Tomorrow is another Pemberton day with much sunnier skies forecast for the afternoon, so we may try the run to Goldbridge!

Pemberton Upper MacKenzie July 11

 Today was looking like quite a nice day with cu's reported yesterday and (compared to yesterday) lighter wind forecasted.  LOTS of pilots on launch today, great to see!


I launched a bit earlier than usual as it looked to be working around the corner to the SE, and after a few minutes of scratching around the corner from the Telus Towers I was able to get to 2700m and crossed to the Miller valley.  Tom Kitto and Dave A. were with me.  Over on the Miller side it was windier from the west than expected, so the entire mountain range over there was in rotor, making for very rough flying!  Lots of active flying, lots of weighlessness, and one big frontal blowout which I was able to control for the excitement of Dave who was watching ;)


Not wanting a repeat of the Mt. Morrison debacle of a few days ago, after enjoying the glacier scenery of the Miller valley I crossed to Mt. Barbour, where, despite it being more into-the-wind, it was still rough and generally not-nice air.  I wasn't feeling like getting beat up for the next 4 hours so I turned around and landed back in Pemberton, where pretty much everyone else who landed said the same thing "it was shit".


The group who went down to Lilloet Lake were saying the same thing, and 3 or 4 of them landed either at the snowshed on the Duffy Lake road, or at the south end of Duffy Lake.  I believe one of them was under reserve (but was OK).  All in all, a very rough, unpleasant day, a "Type 2" fun sort of day.


50km FAI triangle on a rough day.

Pemberton Miller Ridge July 6

 The forecast was looking quite light for the Pemberton Valley so we arranged a crew to drive and hike-n-fly from Miller Ridge.


Bring your bug net!  I brought mine and used it immediately.  Wear long sleeves and long pants!  Otherwise you will be eaten alive during the entire 45 minute to 1 hour hike, and the only relief will be when you arrive on launch and there (hopefully) cycles to keep them off!  For some reason the Miller side of the vallye is worse than the MacKenzie side for bugs, it may be because the Miller side has more water/late-season snow/glacier melt nearby to nurture the mosquito larvae.


Most of the group on launch were planning to go to Whistler and them perhaps the Wedge-Lilloet Lake jump, but I wanted to fly to Athelstan via the Miller side of the mountains and return via the MacKenzie side of things.  Getting up was a bit of a chore since there was quite a bit of south wind scrubbing along the side of the ridge, but I eventually got high and then set off to the NW.


Things were going great until I crossed the Ryan Valley to Mt. Morrison.  The south wind was manifesting as a SE and sucking into the Ryan Valley (usually is is blowing from the NW) so my plan to get up on Morrison was foiled by the wrong wind direction and I was flushed down (quite violently, I might add!) to the Camel's Hump.


Not wanting to land out so early, and in so crappy a spot, I recrossed the valley the base of Copperdome and arrived *very* low, basically over the bridge that crosses the Lilloet River to the Hurley Pass, and proceeded to spend the next 55 minutes scratching in the heat and stability a few hundred feet above the ground.  It was not fun!  But I was able to eventually scratch my way up to Copper Mountain, and when I had enough height to get back to the Beer Farm, I flew back immediately so I could land, have a cold drink, have a swim, and get out of my sweaty flying clothes!


Meanwhile the boys who had headed to Whistler were experiencing some scratching conditions as well and some south wind, but were able to make it work and eventually get to Wedge, where they were able to get high enough (3500+m) to make the jump over the Wedge pass and down to Lilloet Lake.  It did sound a bit hairy in spots with lots of south wind down low and scratching in not-very-nice spots.  By the end of the day I think there were a bunch of 150+ km triangles by the Whistler-Wedge-Lilloet lake crowd, good for them for sticking it out on a rougher-than-forecast day!

Aborted Athelstan flight.




Pemberton Upper MacKenzie July 5

Today was my first flight on my new Phi Allegro X-Alps.  This is a lightweight EN-C and I decided to get it in traffic-cone orange for the best visibility in the skies and also contrasting against trees and mountains.

Weather was quite unstable with towering cu's in the neighbouring valleys so it wasn't going to be a big day, and we were going to have to keep an eye on escape routes in case a cell developed in the vicinity.  But initially the cells were behaving themselves so we estimated we had several hours before they would mature into cu-nims.

My new glider!  Photo courtesy of Alex Raymont

When kiting it a few days ago Alex and I discovered the risers are rather long for my short-ish arms, so instead of grabbing the A's at the ends, like for most risers, it's actually better to grab them at the base, in order to not "overpull" the leading edge when reverse launching.  They are listed as 570mm rather than Phi's technical specs of 540mm, but when I inquired, Phi confirmed they are the correct length for this size of glider and the technical specs page was out-of-date.

The first thing I noticed about this glider vs. my Lynx is that this glider is much "softer" vs. the Lynx.  I think that's partly a function of the fact that I'm in the weight range of this glider, whereas on the Lynx I was 2-4kg over the top of the weight range.  The turning is "softer" as well but quite nice, and the C-handles provide a good place to lever your hands when flying on speedbar.  I also noticed the Ronstad pulleys on this glider are a bit smoother vs. the Lynx Harken pulleys, although that may be because these pulleys are brand-new and no grit inside!

After a few minutes of thermalling to get familiar with the glider, I headed downrange to Goat Peak where I met up with Alex and we crossed the Hurley Pass together to Zorah Peak.

The 3 sets of towering cu's we were keeping an eye on

Meanwhile there was a group of 3 towering cu's on the Miller side of the valley which were threatening to coalesce into one giant cloud, but they seemed to be stopping just at that critical stage where they either go "kablooie" or fizzle.  However there was a rather threatening cloud over Mt. Currie which was dropping virga out and looked to be getting rather large in the distance, so we opted to return back to Pemberton and land at the Beer Farm rather than in windy Pemberton.  Turns out the cloud over Mt. Currie fizzled in the end as well, but rather safe than sorry!

Flying to the Beer Farm with the large cloud over Mt. Currie

All in all I'm quite pleased with my new glider and hope to get many hours and XC km's on this one!  And I'm glad it's a bit larger than my previous glider, as it will allow me to bring some vol-bivy gear and not feel 10kg overloaded which can be problematic when top-landing at 2000+m!