Woodside March 27

The forecast was a bit iffy but lots of people were out anyways.  In the air it was a bit leeside and the thermals were a bit punchy, but once you got established in a core it was easy to stay up.

Alex and I eventually went over the back to Agassiz Mountain, with Robin and Greg following.  Alex turned around at Agassiz to fly back to Woodside, while I opted to keep going and crossed to Bear once I got to 1500m.

Over at Bear it was kinda north up high, although Harrison Lake looked dead calm (see photo).  The thermals were sliding across the west face and it was hard to get up, but Robin, Greg, and I each found a thermal core, which eventually coalesced into one giant Cerberus thermal which took us to 1550m.  We were trying to decide what to do now...continue to Hope, or cross to Bridal.  Due to retrieve issues and a potential headwind to Hope (it was still outflow up high) we opted to cross to Bridal via Ludwig.

The crossing wasn't that great...we left at 1550m, had a tailwind for the first half, but then encountered a south headwind the rest of the way, to arrive at Ludwig at 800m.  It wasn't as lifty as the Woodside side of the valley and we weren't really able to get high (we never got back above 1000m), and scunged along to the Lakes to arrive around 500m.  Greg had landed on the highway median below the pumphouse and Robin and I were trying to reach the Popkum interchange, and the Lakes provided us with the crucial 150m we needed to make it that far.

Several pilots flew to Green Hill and landed at the base, while Rob was able to make it almost back to Harvest Market to meet up with Alex.  

It was shading over and shutting down on the Bridal side, so we landed at the Popkum interchange in light west winds and the occasional spit of rain.  Alex was able to retrieve us, and on the way back to Robin's car we could see it raining in Chilliwack.  Flight was just over 2 hours and 29km.  I think we would have been OK flying to Hope, as that side of the valley stayed nicer for longer, and with the abundance of sandbars we would have had plenty of options if we had gone down between Ruby Creek and Hope.

Mt. St. Benedict March 23

I didn't plan to hike up Mt. St. Benedict.  When we met at the Husky gas station in Dewdney, it was blowing hard from the east about 20-30kph and clearly not flyable in the Fraser Valley.  Al seemed to think that the outflow wouldn't reach Benedict and it would flyable there.  But due to the snow level it would be a 2.5km hike through deep snow, and I wasn't keen for that, especially as I didn't bring snowshoes.  So I figured I would drive the truck down after getting as high as we could.

But on the way up the truck was swerving a bit in the wet snow and I wasn't sure I *wanted* to drive it down at that point, so I was pretty much committed to hiking up!  Going up was pretty slow for me as I was breaking through the snow every so often (up to my hips) while the rest were snowshoeing up.

As I got to the last ridge at the powerline valley I could hear the north wind howling through the gap, but it was blowing up at launch, and the smoke in the valley below was showing light inflow (see photos).  Rob and Al got to launch first, and Rob turned around to bring me Al's snowshoes at the 2/3's point (thanks Rob, it was a big help!), so I was able to pick up the pace and make it to launch after 2:20 of hiking (they did it in 1:30).

Launch has 10-12' of snow, and about 14' in the hollow.  Perfect for top-landing, not so great for launching!

Al had just launched and appeared to sink out, but we later on saw him scunging around at 600m or so towards Dewdney.  Jim was next, and then it was Matt's turn.  We had tramped down a runway so we wouldn't punch through during our launch runs, but Matt went through anyways and almost aborted, kicking a tree as he swung through the pendulum and flying away.

I went next, and was soon in the air and climbing.  The air was ratty and leeside up to about 1200m, and then it smoothed out as the mountains fell away.  Smooth up to 1600m, and then bouncy again up to 1700m.  As I flew south the wind direction was almost directly due south up high,  but got more east as I flew towards the Fraser Valley.  There was very little north wind up high.  At Dewdney it was very east and I was actually flying up the Norrish Creek side of things, and it still looked windy in the Fraser Valley so I turned around to land someplace in the Sylvester Valley where it would probably be nicer conditions.  I was still high so crossed the valley to the Mission side, lots of lift over there, and eventually landed at the Durieu School LZ with Rob S, after 2:13 in the air.

Al had landed in Mission, and Matt had done an out-and-return from Dewdney and back to the Dike LZ.  Jim landed just north of Allan Lake.  All had great flights and lots of grins in the Durieu LZ where we all met up.

I talked with Kevin Ault who was at Elk, and later heard that he flew to Cultus Lake after getting to 2000m over Elk.  So it was a good day, so long as you weren't in the Fraser Valley!

If you are going to hike Benedict, bring snowshoes!  There is tonnes of snow still and will take a long time to melt.  There is another obstacle at the bottom of the road up...another burned out car.  You have to drive in the bushes to get around it, as they parked it directly in the middle of the road before torching it.

Woodside March 6

After over a month of no flying since Colombia, I got to fly today!  It was just a local flight at Woodside, but I got to go over the back to Agassiz Mountain and then land at Harvest Market for a small 14km XC.

It was friggin cold though!  After the shorts-and t-shirts of Colombia I felt like the Michelin Man.  Fortunately I was wearing my chemical heat warmers in my mitts, so I was able to stay up for over 2 hours and no frostbite.

There's lots of snow on the Woodside road...we got as far as the 4km mark in Al's truck and had to hike the rest of the way in (20 minutes).  The snow is still thigh-deep in places but there's now a well-trod path so you don't have to posthole it anymore.

Post-PWC in Roldanillo

Well last night we had the awards ceremony for the World Cup; we had it at the same place we had the awards for the Roldanillo Open last week.  Full results can be found here. I expect Philippe will also have some videos up at some point.

I was able to get 100th overall, and 7th in the women's division.  Since this event also doubled as the American Continental Cup, I was able to get 2nd in the women's division.  Not quite enough for a for-sure invite to the Superfinal in Valle (they are accepting the top 3 women overall of this comp, plus the 1st place in the American Cup), but I'm hoping I can still get in either be attending another PWC and doing better, or maybe getting a spot later on if somebody else declines their Superfinal spot.

One note about travel insurance while visiting Colombia.  Apparently here the hospitals will only accept cash and not travel insurance, so you need a policy that will agree to reimburse you after you use your own credit card to pay for your medical care.  Make sure your credit card has a limit high enough to take care of any hospital bills!  A couple of pilots have been hurt while here and this issue has come up all the time, so make sure your insurance company will do this reimbursement of costs after the fact.  Hopefully next time there is a competition here the organizers will be able to arrange ahead of time with a certain hospital(s) to just care for any injured pilots and deal with the insurance later, rather than have the pilot waiting around for treatment because of confusion of who's gonna pay.

Most pilots have now left town, either for other flying in Bucamaranga, or to their airports of departure.  I don't leave until Wednesday but I'll likely spend the remaining days relaxing and enjoying the sun before I head back to Vancouver.  This place is amazing to fly.  This is supposedly a "bad" year because it's La Nina, but it's been flyable everyday since I got here, and over both comps we flew 12 out of 12 days, plus all the practice days.  I got a total of over 700km XC flown and 46 hours of airtime, so my glider is no longer brand-new :)  There is already talk of holding more major comps here, like a future World Championships or maybe even a PWC Superfinal at some point.

PWC Roldanillo Jan 21

More pics can be found here.

I had a much better day today compared to yesterday.  Didn't make goal, but got 98km and had an epic walkout from the back of beyond.

Last day of the comp and the organizers decided another monster task was in order.  So a 173km (110km actual distance) task was set for a cat's cradle of Valle de Cauca.

I was one of the first to launch and it was a good thing, since after I launched it started lightly blowing down and most of the comp gliders were unable (or unwilling) to forward launch.  Many blown launches, and much pushing ensued, while those of us who had launched early were circling around overhead wondering what the heck was going on down there.

The sky was so empty it was relaxing to get to the start and boat around before the armada got around to joining us over Roldanillo, so I only had to deal with the chaos of the start gaggle for 20 minutes vs. the usual 50-60min.  Once the race had begun it was a race north to La Union to tank up before hitting the turnpoint just north, and then it  was the long glide across the valley.

I got low at La Union which cost me about 30 minutes (important for later in the flight) and by the time I got out of there I was pretty much by myself except for a couple of other serial gliders.  On the way for valley crossing #1 heard on the radio that Keiko had tossed her reserve (in fact we had 3 reserves tossed today in total).  Jim, Daniel, and I flew together for the next 20km or so, until it came time to re-cross the valley for Bolivar.  This crossing was more difficult than the first one since it was into wind and there were less clouds to guide me across.  But able to cross and tank up over Roldanillo, which got me high enough to re-cross the valley for the 3rd time for the final run up north to Obando.

It was about 16:30 and the task deadline was 17:30, and I still had 34km to go.  The clouds were dying and it was going to be close whether I'd get high enough to get the last bit or run out of usable daylight.  17:00 and I was still 20km short of goal and I was sinking out in a small valley off the main Valle de Cauca, with little in the way of civilization.

As I sunk lower into the valley the wind picked up, so I was able to ridge soar my way another 8km or so but as I was doing this I knew it was at the expense of an easy retrieve, as I was heading deeper into no-man's land.  Jim and Daniel were higher than me and able to make it back into the main valley, while I landed out about 12km from goal.

But my landing zone was pretty remote.  I had sidehilled it at the bottom of the ridge and had seen a house a couple of km's to my west, but when I got there it was inhabited by 3 children (all less than 10 years old) and no adults in sight.  They weren't able to help me with a phone or directions to Obando (and there was no cell coverage, and I hadn't been able to get the Tigo network to accept Spot text messages), so I had to continue walking for another house I could see about 5km away.

It was now dark and still no cell reception, so I kept walking until I came upon a truck that took me towards civilization and the retrieve which was looking for me.  Good thing I had my headlamp!  Back at HQ by 8pm to find out that about 85 people had made goal.

I'm pretty happy about my flight; even though I didn't make goal I had a pretty cool flight with all the successful valley crossings, and the walkout wasn't that bad.  And it was a nice end to the comp to fly the furthest I have so far in the several weeks I've been here.  The skies were epic today and the winds weren't too bad.  Had I not lost those 30 minutes at La Union I probably would have had enough usable daylight for the one more thermal climb I needed to make goal.

PS Man the PWC scoring system really kills you if you fail to make goal.  Almost 7 hours of work and 98km, all for 328 points!

Tomorrow is a free-flying day and the awards are tomorrow night.  I think I was able to stay in the top 100 overall, and 7th in the women's division.  The PWC pilot talent here is incredible, and it's very humbling and a privilege to be flying with such good pilots.

PWC Roldanillo Jan 20

It actually rained on launch for about 20 minutes, so most people were slow about getting their gear out on the wet grass.  But it was task time and a ~78km task was set that took us south towards Tulua, back up north past La Union, and then back to Zarzal.

In the air it was a bit snarly, and the thermals had a definite bite to them that we haven't had in previous days.  And it was windy from the south again, which meant the first leg would be into wind.  Once again I (and most pilots) chose the mountain route, in my case to shield against the wind, and it was slow going with lots of nylon flapping around.  Many collapses and at least one reserve was tossed.

I kept looking out at the flats and didn't see anybody out there, and there were fewer clouds out there than previous days.  But we had to venture out there to tag the Tulua turnpoint and that's when I found the going difficult all of a sudden.  I was flying with Joanna when we went on glide for a cloud, and I wasn't able to stay high enough to connect while she did.  I could see some birds playing around so I flew over to join them, but strangely enough they weren't interested in soaring and just kept flapping and roosting in the trees below.  So I ended up landing in a sugarcane field and had a very hot time of packing up (it was only 1:30pm so the heat of the day) and getting to the main road.  It was weird...all of a sudden I was on the ground from being at cloudbase one glide ago, and couldn't quite figure out why.

I could see other pilots low around me but most of them seemed to get further downwind before I lost track of them and it appears many of them got back up and on course.  But there are many pilots in goal, something like 80 or 85, so my paltry 30km won't count for much.  Amir made goal, and Pawel and Jim had good flights getting 63-68km, good on them!  It was kind of a weird day for me, not like previous days where I felt somewhat competent against the rest of the field, and I'm not quite sure why the flats didn't seem to be working (for me anyways).  Oh well, tomorrow I have a chance to get another good flight in!

PWC Roldanillo Jan 19

Another long task, ~115km, south to near Palmira in the eastern mountains.  Windy from the southwest meant it would be a long into-wind slog, and after the start (downwind of the antennas) many pilots had a slow flight back to over Roldanillo.  It didn't really look like the flats were working, so I opted to fly the mountain route as long as I could and use them as shelter against the wind, rather than battle it full-strength in the valley.  The going was slow and tough...we had to take every climb to the max in order to make a few km's upwind, and then do it all over again.

South of Tulua (where we landed yesterday) is Cali airspace, so we were restricted to under 2400m after this point (or else we'd get mucho points deducted, or get 0 points if we broke 2450m).  This just added to the difficulty since cloudbase was higher than this, yet we weren't allowed to climb that high to make the going easier.

Just south of Tulua the mountain range bends away from the eventual goal, and many pilots were leaving the mountains to try the flats and hopefully cross to the other side.  But the shade was approaching from the south, and it was actually storm clouds building on courseline.  All I knew was I was slowly going down in the valley winds and restricted altitude gains, and I saw many pilots in the same situation.  Eventually I couldn't make any more headway in the approaching overcast, so looked around for a LZ, and saw a nice soccer field in a small village just north of me.

As I came in to land a good portion of the village came out to watch and greet me.  The village was San Antonio de Piedras (population 300) and one of the village matrons practically dragged me inside her house where she proceeded to stuff me full of fried plantanos and pescados (fish).  For 2 hours she fed me while a huge crowd surrounded the house and was peering inside the windows and doors as she and her family and I attempted to communicate in broken Spanish.  We could see some other pilots getting low but none landed at the soccer field so I had the whole village to myself :)

Eventually I convinced them it was time for me to go and get into the retrieve which was searching for me.  They were kind enough to give me a motorcycle ride to the main road where I was able to flag down a retrieve bus and back into town.  Before leaving they asked me if I would return, and if more pilots would be landing at their soccer field anytime soon.  I told them perhaps next year the local competition organizers could make their village a goal for a task!

Meanwhile the task had been stopped due to storm clouds on courseline.  I got 64km, and the leaders I believe got close to 100km.  The whole flight was into a significant headwind so it was very tiring to be pushing speedbar all that time and my legs are kinda jiggly tonight :)

PWC Roldanillo Jan 18

I think after yesterday's long task with nobody in goal and long retrieves, the organizers wanted to give us an "easier" day.  So a 85km task was called and the start was about 1 hour earlier than previous days.

Since we were 1 hour earlier in the day, it was slower climbs at the beginning of the flight and I got low after the start, heading north into the antennas low and into the wind (not good).  But I was able to get myself out of the hole and back up to cloudbase (about 2200m) and get myself sorted for the flatland flying part.  Lots of cloudflying at the start, and I'm sure it was happening all over the courseline.

The TP/goalfield in Tulua was about 65km away on the other side of the valley, so people were choosing to cross the valley all over the place.  It was ODing in the mountains and raining just west of Roldanillo, so the majority of us flew to the east side of the valley.  I ended up flying the middle of the valley initially, then veered to the east side so I could surf the clouds over the small foothills on that side, and be close to the main road for convenience's sake in case I landed.

It was pretty much no wind which was a good thing, since the deal was, you had to tag the TP (Tulua airport), then exit it, then re-tag it from at least 15km away (from any direction), and then proceed to the same TP which was now goal.  This meant that we would have a chance to check the goal out before actually having to glide to it, look for obstacles, see what the wind was doing on the ground, areas of sink on the way in, etc.  I noticed as I was gliding in for the TP that it appeared to be quite sinky just north of the runway so I filed that away for the return trip.

Punching back north to get the 15km was easy, and the lead gaggle passed me as I was thermalling my way up to cloudbase which had risen to 2400m.  Returning to what was now goal was also easy, although I made sure to stay high because of the sink on the way there I had noticed from the time before, and ended up coming over goal with about 1000' to spare.  I'd rather that than landing short, as I watched at least one pilot ahead of me dirt it about 1km short.

It appears to be around 110 pilots in goal.  Many happy faces and the retrieve trucks were all full leaving the airport.  I was pretty slow, 3:11, but better late than never :)  It was a really fun task and the flatland flying was epic...clouds where you wanted them, plenty of lift, and multiple route choices to get to goal.  It was the kind of day where you could have flown 130km easy on the flats, had it not been a task day.  When it's on, this place is on!

PWC Roldanillo Jan 17

A fantastic day!  Even though I didn't make goal, I had a great flight and flew over some awe-inspiring terrain.

Task was 140km (122km real distance when you take away the TP cylinders) that took us across the valley to the other side, into the small hills, then deeper into the eastern mountains, over a couple of mountain passes, and then back into the main Valle de Cauca for a goalfield at an airstrip.

Initially my flying was very slow and I was low many times.  We had to cross the dreaded swampy area in the middle of the valley, where if you go down, you have a multi-hour hike before you get to a main road, and have to navigate the flooded sugarcane fields.  At one point I got very low in no-man's land and the only dry land I could see was a small hill that was sticking up out of the swamp, so I headed there and was rewarded with a climb up to cloudbase and a glide to the other side of the valley and civilization.

Pilots ended up taking different lines to the turnpoint...some stuck to the mountains and then did a 90 degree bend to cross the valley at it's narrowest, while others flew the flats from the get-go.  My group did a mix, sticking with the mountains until the large flooded lake, and then crossing diagonally.  It was pretty cool to watch all the various gaggles converging on the turnpoint from different angles and directions!

With the valley crossing behind me I was able to speed up and play catch-up.  Heading deeper into the eastern mountains I was able to stay with a gaggle and hop from cloud to cloud, making sure to stay high (cloudbase was getting higher the deeper we went).  As we were flying deeper and deeper into the mountains the underlying terrain started to change...it was starting to become coffee plantations and there was a steep plateau ahead of us we had to jump over.

I was initially below the plateau so didn't know what was up there, until I got a climb up to cloudbase (about 2700m) and saw it.  It looked like a Forbidden City out of an Indiana Jones movie.  It was so incredible to thermal up over this city and fly right over it, and see the plateau dropping off on the other side with the same amount of steepness of the side we had just thermalled up over.  It was so steep I could see spots where a pilot could launch from the city and instantly easily have 800-1000m of altitude over the valley below.

That was definitely the highlight of the flight...I was so busy admiring the view that I neglected to take photos and I hope somebody else did!  It was a sight I'll never forget, that city rising out of the jungle and us flying right over it and off the other side.

At cloudbase again we flew down the other side to the turnpoint in the next valley, noting that it was getting nice and downwind-y.  Getting back to the main valley would be tough as it would be directly into a headwind, with a mountain pass to get back over.

At this point I had caught up with Jim and we were flying upwind to the control turnpoint and the headwind was really catching up with us.  Another serial glider joined us and we tried to get high enough to punch upwind (we got to cloudbase about 2600m), get over the mountain pass, and to the windward side where we hoped there would be lift to get us high enough to tag the last turnpoint and make our way to goal.  But it was not to be as the headwind was punishing and we were getting flushed to the ground.  We tried soaring a small antenna near the pass but no joy and 4 of us landed next to the main highway, for a total distance of around 85km.

In the end nobody made goal (due to lack of lift on final glide) and the closest person was within maybe 1-2km of goal.  For myself, I'm very happy with my flight, not only because I made a respectable distance, but because it was one of the coolest flights I've down in years.  I would love to fly back over that city and explore that terrain a bit more, but you need a high cloudbase in order to get back there, and little wind so you can get back out.

PWC Roldanillo Jan 16

Pics from last night and today are here.

Day 1 of the PWC and the weather was quite different from yesterday.  Lots of high clouds above the cu's, and it was forecast to be shady to the south and sunnier and higher cloudbase to the north.  So a task was set that took us south (into the shade), then back north to Santa Ana, for a total distance of 121km (or 90km once the TP cylinders are taken into account).

Launch was a bit a of a cluster as launching conditions were light, pilots were having terrible launches or full-on duffing, and then they were allowed to re-set up while the rest of us waited in line.  I would think you get one chance, and if you blow it, you go to the back of the line.  Because of this it took forever to get everyone off launch.

Once off launch it was very light conditions and patience was required.  We managed to make our way to the antennas (very slowly) and then we had to hang around La Union for the exit start.  Fortunately the cloudsuck was present which helped things a lot, and then the race was on.

The westerly seabreeze had come in big time and the mountains weren't working, so a bunch of us got flushed out towards the flats where it was working better.  Made our way south past Roldanillo and into the shade, where we had to get past the mine and to the giant lake that's the result of the local flooding.

I got very low at one point, and was reduced to having only enough altitude to make one pass on a small 100' hill before I would have to land, when I saw birds thermalling out over the hill.  Saved by the birds, and back up to cloudbase!  But the shade was fast approaching and after tagging the turnpoint, a couple of serial gliders and myself were running for the sun.  Not far enough when the lift disappeared and I was reduced to ridge soaring some small hills in the hopes a thermal would break off and get me out of there.  However the fields in the lee of the hills were either flooded or sugarcane, and I wasn't able to get high enough to make it over all these obstacles and continue onwards.  So, after ridge soaring for about 30 minutes but not getting anywhere in the increasing overcast I opted to land next to the main road and get it over with 40km under my belt.

So far it appears to be about 35-40 pilots in goal.  There's a large cluster of pilots who went down around the 50-60km mark, but if appears if you could get past that, you were in goal.  It was a slow day though, 2.5 hours for the leaders and over 3 hours for the last people in goal.  So far it appears I'm near the bottom of the results list for today, but that's OK and I have almost nowhere to go but up :)