Woodside October 28-29, 2023

 What a fantastic weekend for the end of October!  It was lightly thermic for ~4-5 hours both days, and given that it was a weekend, lots of pilots were out.  We had 25-30 on Saturday and 10-15 on Sunday, and most had 1-2 hour flights!

Relocating the Bridal LZ weather station to Woodside launch.

All the bald eagles were out in force this weekend with most of them hanging out on the SE corner of the south knob.  The prevailing winds were light east so it made sense, and that's also where most of the pilots found the best/most lift.  The conditions on the Saturday were too east for top-landing, and on the Sunday it was difficult to get back to launch height in the first place.

Thanks to Bev, Norm. and Ascent FV Guides for the shuttle service this weekend!

And thanks to Tom Gregg for installing the not-being-used Bridal weather station at Woodside instead, to tide us over until we get newer weather stations sorted out.  Now the Zak-o-meter is working again!

Blanchard October 26, 2023

 The forecast was calling for unstable conditions, but too much north for the Fraser Valley, but Blanchard was looking like a possibility as the north wind wasn't forecast to kick in there until the following day.  So a group of 5 Canadians made the trek across the US border.

The RASP for Blanchard showed light north, OK when it's otherwise unstable, with stronger N wind the following day.  So today was going to be the day, if at all!

Oodles of pilots out, 19 in total, and the north wind was in evidence but very light, so it was flyable on the west side.  Hard to get high, launch is at 390m or so, and the highest I was able to get was 580m.  So lots of traffic and had to keep your head on a swivel in order to avoid other pilots.

Fortunately lots of birds around the NW side to help us out, but I don't think anybody got to cloud base.  Eventually landed after 1.5 hours as my hands were getting cold!

Light WNW on the water on the way to the LZ.