Pemberton vol bivy June 20-21, 2021

 The forecast was looking pretty average for XC flying, but perfect for vol-bivy flying, and with it being the summer solstice, we would be able to sky-camp on the shortest night of the year!  With the usual spot just coming out of the snow, there would be lots of water available (so less to tote ourselves) and less bugs to contend with as well.

Our usual sky camping spot near Copper Mound

Alex and I didn't actually launch until around 5 or 6pm, prior to that pilots were reporting it to be "spicy" and rather rough.  James Elliot who was planning on sky-camping with us was in the air already so it was just a matter of going down to Copper and meeting up with him there.  However the climb out was a bit slow and tedious, but once I got high I was able to get to Owl, the gap, and Barbour no problem, and then it was just an issue of top landing at the bivy spot.

The usual camping spot is still under snow (right) so we have to use the secondary spot to the south.

The bivy site itself was mostly still snow with a few exposed places, and the mine pits were also mostly snowed in, as was the amphitheatre down below.  So after doing a bunch of passes over the site, I chose to land in the snowfield just north of the bivy site and walk over.

Short flight to Copper bivy site.

This time of year the usual tenting spots are still under snow, so we used the secondary spot just to the south...I also saw another 1-tent spot to the north that will be useful if it's a busy night with lots of other tents in the usual spots ;)

Searching for cell signal...only in certain spots!

It was just the 3 of us (Alex, myself, and James) after Scott relaunched to fly back to Pemberton and work the following day.  We had a beautiful sunset which lasted for 2+ hours.  Going to bed around 11:30pm it was still red in the skies to the NNW, and when waking up at 3:30am, the skies were already red to the NNE.  Shortest night indeed!

Enjoying the shortest night of the year.  Photo courtesy of James Elliot.

Of course with the shortest night comes the longest days, so we were up way too early to actually fly, so waited until around 9:30am or so before launching.  The plan was to get back to the Beer Farm at least, and maybe even all the way back to the LZ.  It was beautiful morning thermals on the SW faces between Copper and Barbour, and we took differing paths after that...Alex and I crossed to the Miller side of the valley, while James stuck to the Owl side of the valley.  Alex and I got nada on the Miller side, and James also got nada on the Owl side....he only made it back since he was able to get higher at Barbour before continuing on, and flying an EN-D he had a better glide.  Alex and I made it to the Beer Farm where it was far too hot, that early in the morning, to do much more than pack up and wait in the shade for Jame to come pick us up :)

The snow is barely gone and already the alpine flowers are coming out!

When we got back to the LZ there were several groups going up MacKenzie but it was way too hot so off to Gates Lake for a swim and then North Arm Farms for some goodies!

Extended sled ride from Copper bivy site back to the Beer Farm.

Lower McKenzie Pemberton May 29-30

 The upper launch is now open, however we have been asked to stay off the grass up there in order to let it grow and re-establish after a hard winter.  It's still early enough in the season to get away from Lower launch, so after chucking our bags in a truck heading to Lower, a group of around 12 of us hiked up to Lower via the Cloudbase Grind trail.  Hiking without the bag is so nice!

A nice crowd of pilots on launch and we could see some Igor and Vlad in the air already on the SE corner of McKenzie, having launched from Upper launch in order to have the altitude to get around the corner to the morning side.  However they were not getting away so it looked to not be an early, or fast, or big day.  That meant that our tentative plans to fly to Whister and then back via Wedge and over the back of Wedget to Lilloet Lake and returning that way would have to wait for another day with higher base.  We had also heard reports that pilots launching from Rainbow launch in Whistler had sunk out, so yet another data point that it was going to be slow-ish day.

Note to pilots leaving paraglider bags on launch unattended: Don't do this, especially if you have food/smelly items inside!  We had one pilot's bag ripped open by the local black bear after he left it in the bushes while he was taking his retrieve vehicle back down and then hiking back up (a period of ~2 hours).  Patches of repair tape later and a working glider and harness again.  The helmet will probably need to replaced though.  We think it was the scented sunscreen in the paraglider bag the bear was going after.

Looking up Pemberton meadows to the lenticulars beginning to form

After fighting to get high for a bit between Lower and Upper launch, I said forget it and started heading for Owl low...I figured I only needed to get past the gap and onto Barbour, and then I'd be home free.  But that didn't happen, and I scunged along until Copper where I finally found a good climb which took me to 2800m and a comfortable altitude for the Hurley Pass crossing.

Once west of Hurley Pass it was indeed a bit easier, but you had to take care not to get too low, sink into the stable-zone, and have to fight your way back out.  The going to Spindrift was a bit slow with all the sink around, and it was only on the return, after re-crossing North Creek, that things felt "easy".

While re-crossing Hurley Pass we heard reports that Slava had gotten too low and deep behind Goat Mountain and had landed somewhere near Chipmunk Mountain at around 1400m.  At this altitude it's still winter and snowy, so we were initially concerned for Slava's wellbeing, but he was OK and found a snowmobile trail, and shortly thereafter was rescued by some passing snowmobilers on their way back to civilization.  He was dropped off a the Beer Farm later that evening :)

All in all, a rather difficult day and good training for staying up and high above the stability!

111km OR in Pemberton.

Sprucing up the safety hut!

The following day was not really flyable, but a good work day.  A crew of us went to Upper launch to spread more grass seed and also to do some upgrades to the safety hut.  Most drove down after finishing work but a few tandems flew before it got too cross and windy.

Opening weekend for paragliding @ Grouse Mountain May 15

 Grouse Mountain recently opened up and this weekend was looking pretty nice, a bit stable on the front mountains but more unstable even a little way back.

Grouse Mountain has plowed a tunnel to the Grizzly Bear enclosure,
but after that, it's hiking in the snow!  Photo courtesy of Alex Raymont.

The gondola was pretty quiet, since the mountain is "between seasons" for the regular tourists, and with Covid, only a few people are allowed on the gondola in the first place.

After a *very* hot hike up (the snow reflects all the heat directly onto you, like foil in an oven!) we arrived on launch with light cycles and Tom and Paddy already set up.  The cycles were actually quite anaemic and it was a tossup between a forward or a running reverse, not easy in the snow!

Looking at Grouse Mountain from Crown Mountain.  Photo courtesy of Alex Raymont.

Once in the air it was indeed a bit stable down low, but most of us went for the spine just to the west of launch (rather than the bailout cliffs) and that was working enough to get us high enough to jump back to Dam, and then Crown, Mountains.  Once back there it was easier to stay up and we actually got high enough to think about encountering airspace at 6500', but we were able to stay below that :)

There is still oodles of snow on the Coast Range mountains, which makes the scenery even more beautiful.

Lower MacKenzie Pemberton May 9-11

 The forecast was calling for a period of sunny and unstable weather in Pemberton, and coincidentally both Alex and I were able to take full advantage of the weather window, going to Pemberton for 3 days.

Saturday was looking like a light-wind, high-base day so I wanted to do the 100km out-and-return "milkrun" to Spindrift and back.  Several other pilots were chasing me while some other pilots went down Lilloet Lake instead.

RASP for MacKenzie May 9

The going to Hurley Pass was uneventful except for some rough air in the Owl-Barbour gap where I had a nice blowout on 2/3 bar.  Fortunately it was symmetrical so not too much required to fix and onwards I went ;)

Cloudbase was around 2700m at this point and there was ~15 kph of west wind, accelerating through the Hurley Pass, so crossing was slow and I had to do the usual "skip the first thermal on the other side, and use the next one away from the gap instead" trick.  Lots of lift on the other side and the same slow progress over North Creek as well.

Re-crossing the Hurley Pass after tagging Spindrift and the 50 km mark.

Getting around the corner of Spindrift and to the 50km mark was actually OK considering the headwind and clouds were forming all over the place, with big clouds starting to form around Birkenhead Peak and along the Duffy Lake stretch and down to Lilloet Lake.  It was time to return home before getting caught on the wrong side of one of those clouds!

The return was quick (!) and cloudbase had risen to around 3000m and pilots were starting to report strong suck and rain behind Mt. Barbour.  So it was quite easy to ride the leading edge of the cloudstreet all the way to Owl Ridge with few top-ups required.  The gaggle which had gone to Lilloet Lake had returned and were starting to go to the Hurley Pass but I believe most turned around early so as to not get caught up behind any late-day overdevelopment.

Back in Pemberton it was mini-Whistler Expressing so most pilots were landing at the Beer Farm and the taco truck that was also parked there.  I had parked at the new sportsfield so landed there instead to save the retrieve issues later on, and was able to tack on another 10km of distance to make a 111 km out and return flight.  The general consensus was of a fantastic flying day with some OD at the end to make things interesting and lots of smiling faces at the Beer Farm!

Socially-distanced camping after a fun day of flying.

111 km OR return in Pemberton.            

The following day looked a bit windier, and after the great flights of the day before, Alex and I decided to take the day off from flying and hike the Mile One Lake to Nairn Falls trail instead.  The trail was deserted (it was a Monday) and the campground at Nairn was still closed so we pretty much the entire Nairn waterfalls to ourselves!

Tuesday was looking like a slightly more-stable day vs. the previous 2 days, which was good from a flying deep point of view, but it made the MacKenzie basin climbout a bit slow.  But we were able to get to 2600m over the antennas and glide over Lil'wat Mountain.  I've always found the Lil'wat to Cassiope to Duffy Lake Pass stretch to be a bit of a "washing machine" with lots of turbulence and generally rough air, and today was no different!  It took me a while to get high enough for the glide across the Duffy Lake Pass to Duffy Peak on the other side; Peter and Alex were ahead by then, with Dave and Tom Furst below me.

Rasp for Twin Goat Tuesday May 11.  We actually got much higher than forecast!

Going down Lilloet Lake was pretty easy and I skipped one bump further than I'd been before, landing on Twin 2 Peak.  T2P was not working when I arrived so I had to hang out for about 15 minutes before I found a climb to 3200m which was plenty to get me back to Duffy Peak.  Alex and Pete had gone 5km further, to Priory Peak, but I was happy to get high enough at my peak to get back to "friendly" LZ's with no issues.

At Duffy Peak, heading SE along Lilloet Lake

Crossing back to Cassiope was easier than I thought it would be (getting to 3300m at Duffy Peak probably had something to do with it!) but there was a shelf of cloud forming between Lil'wat and the MacKenzie basin area, shading the area out.  I was already on the Lil'wat side so decided to try to run the clouds along to the Coyote launch and the Industrial Park, and try to reconnect with MacKenzie that way, while other pilots tried the direct over-Ivey-Lake route, and others tried via Mt. Currie.

Alex at Priory Peak, looking NW towards Mt. Currie.  Photo courtesy of Alex Raymont.

My route did not work and I landed at the new sportsfield and where the car was parked, so I wasn't too upset, especially since many other pilots who had recrossed successfully were reporting rough conditions on Owl Ridge and not having too much fun.  Fortunately the shelf of clouds over MacKenzie basin were depressing any tendency for Whistler Express so the landings at the schoolbus LZ were actually quite mild, and in fact the wind there was from Meager instead of Pemberton.

61km OR down Lilloet Lake and return in Pemberton.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Bridal Falls May 4

 The previous day at Bridal I had cut my "Sammy" short by turning around at the Butterfly instead of at Ludwig, so today I wanted to do the entire Sammy.  A not-especially high cloudbase day (1500m perhaps) and it was doing that "shelf" thing were the cu's merge together into a giant continuous band of overcast over the peaks.  Fortunately it was very cloud-sucky so you could pretty much just ride the edge of the clouds and run the ridge that way!

Getting down to Ludwig was easy and the return was slow, but not too bad.  Getting around the corner of Cheam can sometimes be challenging, especially on low-cloudbase-high-wind days, but it was not too bad and once around the corner, easy to beam back out to cloudbase and continue the run upwind.

Other pilots were doing Sammies as well and I believe Peter actually 2 Sammies back-to-back, with the second Sammy being with no turns, just running under the shelf of clouds.  Lots of happy faces in the LZ that evening as we were able to fly until 7pm easily, and with the days getting longer and longer, we'll soon be able to fly until 8 or 9pm!

42 km Bridal OR.

Bridal Falls May 2

 After dropping Alex off at Dewdney Bench (he and Pete were planning to fly to Bridal) I made my own way over to the other side of the Fraser Valley for an afternoon Bridal run.

A beautiful afternoon at Bridal.  Photo courtesy of Simon Beaumont.

I figured the wind would pick up in the afternoon so after launching I decided to head downwind first to the Butterfly, to take advantage of the lighter winds earlier on in the flight for the upwind return leg.  Easy cruising between 1000 and 1700m, not quite high enough to get over the peak of Cheam which is still very snowy!

Windy enough to kite in the LZ.  Photo courtesy of Rod Frew.

There were lots of clouds forming out over the flats at Rosedale as well as at the end of Elk Mountain, so I decided to push to the west under those clouds to Ryder Lake before the easy downwind glide back to Elk, Gloria, and back to Bridal.  A bit spicy in the LZ with gusty thermals coming through but doable, a nice change actually to have some wind to land in!  All in all a very nice strong spring day running under the forming cu's out front of the main mountain range.

45 km Bridal OR.

Pemberton April 20, 2021

A generally rough and turbulent day in Pemberton.  Light north wind forecast, but in reality it felt more like light NE up high.

There were several XC plans discussed on launch today...our original plan was to do the MacKenzie-Goat-Birkenhead-return triangle, but the Russians were talking about flying to Harrison Hot Springs so some of the other boys got fired up for that instead.  But I wasn't interested in that kind of flight so opted to stick with the original plan along with Curtis, Gary, and Dave.

I was ahead of everyone heading to the end of Owl Ridge when Alex and Peter and James radioed that they would be chasing Igor and Vlad down Lilloet Lake and onwards to Harrison Lake and the Fraser Valley.  So I guess I would be driving back the car to Vancouver!

When I got to Copper I realized the air wasn't that nice and didn't have a great feeling about plunging over the back to Birkenhead Peak, so I decided to just return to Pemberton the same route and go to Lil'wat Peak that way.  Curtis/Gary/Dave, who were behind me, had just jumped over the back at Barbour and were on their way to Seton Portage and Lilloet, so I was on my own.  Getting back to MacKenzie I was getting to 2900m, which is easy to cross to Lil'wat Mountain, but the air was rough and not very pleasant, so after tagging the shoulder of Cassiope I glided over to Mt. Currie for an eventual landing by the car.

Meanwhile the boys had gotten to the south end of Harrison Lake and were (finally) encountering the inflow wind that is typical at the Hot Springs in the afternoons.  Since we had all gotten a late start, they were especially late getting to the end of the lake and were racing the sunset at the same time as the strong headwind.  They were able to get a final climb and sneak through to the Fraser Valley via the "back way" at Hicks Mountain, landing in Laidlaw in 20+ kph of wind and a retrieve vehicle already organized by James.

The other XC group had gotten to Lilloet and landed in various spots and also had a retrieve lined up, so they were taken care of...so it was an easy decision for Claudia and myself to drive our respective cars back to Vancouver and wait for the boys to get home from their XC flights.

68 km flight in Pemberton.

Tunnel Bluffs April 17, 2021

 This was my first time flying from this 950m hike-n-fly site in Howe Sound.  There is no road access and (for me) a 3.5 hour hike.  Fortunately this is an afternoon/evening site (faces west) so I had all day to make my way up there!

View of Mt. Harvey, Harvey's Pup, the East and West Lions, and Vancouver in the background.    Photo courtesy of Alex Raymont.

The forecast was for rather stable conditions down low, but the potential for high climbs to 2000m+ if you could break though the stability.  For me, it took almost 1 hour of scratching below 1000m before I finally found a climb around the SW corner of Mt. Harvey and climbed out to 1500m, where I could finally see the glory of the Coast Range, the East and West Lions, Brunswick Mt, and of course Howe Sound itself.  The highlight of the flight was ridge-soaring up the NW side of Harvey, and flying directly alongside the sheer rock cliff and underneath the cornices still overhanging on the summit.  I saw lots of footprints going up the summit of Harvey (and Brunswick as well) but no people...probably a good idea given the time of day (late afternoon) and anybody still up there that time of day would likely get caught up in the dark during the return trip.

Looking north up Howe Sound with Anvil Island on the left, Squamish just out of view on the far right.

There was actually a bunch of NW wind up high (we are allowed only to 1981m here, due to Class C airspace above this altitude) so it was upwind going north up high, but upwind going south down low :). I chose to stay local and enjoy the scenery, while Alex and Peter (it was Pete's first flight here too) flew north to Deak's Peak and then back.

Sunset glide out to the Brunswick beach LZ.  Gambier Island, Bowen Island, and Gibsons in the distance.

Uncharacteristically, there was little to no wind at the Brunswick beach LZ (normally there would be a typical flowing-up-Howe-Sound-seabreeze), so landing was a bit hot and of course there is all the driftwood and barnacle-encrusted rocks to avoid.  But the tide was still low so we had lots of space...perfect for no-wind landings!

A beautiful flying site, if you can handle the hike, with incredible views on-par with flying sites anywhere in the world.

The sunset view from Brunswick beach and our packing up spot.

Woodside triangle day April 11, 2021

 The forecast was looking very good, maybe one of the best XC days this year, so pretty much all the XC hounds were out in force today!  The forecast was for light north wind and high cloudbase, both recipies for a big triangle, or at least an out-and-return to Hope.  (Normally Hope is not in the cards due to the funneling effect of any valley wind, concentrating on that town to make it very windy.)

The north wind was causing a huge cu to form directly to the south, shading out launch, so it was closer to 11:30am before we could start launching when the sun came out.  Peter was first, and then myself, and a whole pile of others came shortly thereafter.

Today's windgram for Woodside!

I went straight up over the venturi between launch and the south knoll, and at 1100m I went for Agassiz Mountain.  I had a gaggle of 4 pilots chasing me but Alex caught up to me at Bear Mountain, where, unlike most north wind days, it was actually OK turbulence-wise, and we were able to climb out to 1500m for the glide to Hicks Mountain.

Hicks is a smaller mountain and usually has no clouds, but today the clouds were forming there as well, so it was not much of a delay to get high again for the glide to Squakum Peak.  Peter, ahead of us, said Squakum was not very nice in the north wind, and we discovered this as we had to glide around the lee of it to get to the larger Dog Mountain, which overlooks the Hope airport.

Dog Mountain was not very nice as well until you got high, the north wind meant most of the thermals were leaning out over the valley and were a bit messy.  But there were big clouds galore, so eventually I was able to get up to cloudbase, at which point I decided to turn around rather than do the extra 3km to Hope proper, and risk getting back lower in the less-nice air.

Crossing from Archibald to Green Hill.  Harrison Lake in the background; Agassiz in the foreground.

Going back I was liking the look of the highway #1 side of the river vs. the highway #7 side of the river, so after getting high at the west end of Dog Mountain I crossed the valley to Laidlay, trying to stay out of the narrowest part of the valley where the wind usually is strongest.  Arriving on the other side low, I had to scunge upwind to the sunny, windward (it was west wind down low at this part of the valley) side of Mt. Devoy to find a climb to get me out of there and into the nicer air up higher.  This happened to be directly over a group of people enjoying some target practice with a variety of firearms, so I was glad they weren't tempted to fire upwards ;)

Finally safely up high it was time to evaluate how to get around the Ludwig corner, which is another pinch-point for wind and usually no easy landings, fortunately this time of year there are lots of connected sandbars for outlandings.  I had to be patient and wait for a climb to get me to 1800m so I could push upwind and around/over Ludwig, at which point I knew I was in familiar territory and easy cruising of the Butterfly/Lakes/Cheam/Archibald stretch.

XContest.org top scores...look at all the Canadians!

Alex and Tom Gregg were still behind me, and I announced that I was recrossing the Fraser Valley via Green Hill since I had been watching cu's form repeatedly over that peak, followed by a continuous cloud over Agassiz Mountain.  Crossing over there was more north wind than I expected, so it was good thing I left Archibald at 1900m, in order to get to the very north end of Green Hill where the thermal was feeding the cloud.  Alex came in under me, and we both climbed out high enough for a comfortable glide to Agassiz Mountain, the waiting cu, and no worries about the Agassiz Prison airspace below us.

Home stretch to Woodside was easy, courtesy of a bunch of cu's forming the entire way (we had to keep an eye since cloudbase was higher than our allowed airspace altitude, over Woodside class B starts above 1981m), and Alex and I parted ways as he went to Banjo with Peter Spear, and I went to Sasquatch Mountain to stretch out the flight a bit.  Surprisingly, Sasquatch Mountain was lame and I thought I'd have to limp to Eagle Ranch for a landing.  But on the final glide to ER, I saw a group of eagles thermalling out at the base of Harrison Highlands and joined them to re-climb back out from 300m to 1300m.  I also had the pleasure of Martin Henry strafing me on his ATOS as he returned from his own giant triangle.

Western Canada XC Find and all the routes flown today in the Fraser Valley!

Of course, now I couldn't get down into Riverside since the sandbars were going off everywhere!  I figured a pilot could launch from Woodside, glide to Riverside, climb out on the sandbars, and repeat all the way to Agassiz.  Even at 5pm, pilots were still launching from Woodside and climbing to the giant cu which was still over launch, probably into airspace, and we could tell tomorrow's huge outflow conditions were starting up as the cu was forming from the NE and the wind started coming down Harrison Lake.

In the end we had a half dozen pilots go to Hope and return successfully, with many turning those flights into triangles.  Vlad and Igor flew up Harrison Lake and return after doing the Woodside-Big Nick run, making a triangle in that direction instead.  It was a rare day with light winds, high base, and strong conditions!  85km FAI triangle.

Lower MacKenzie April 3-4, 2021

 I was in Pemberton to cat-sit over the weekend, and brought my glider although early April is very early for Pemberton XC flights.

I decided to do the hike to lower launch on Sunday, and it's so early there are no bugs yet...yay!  The hike is snow-free, and the front part of launch is also snow-free, with maybe 6" remaining in the back top-landing area.  The actual parking lot is still fully snowed in however.

A fairly large crew showed up during the afternoon (both hikers and drivers) and the cycles started up around 1pm, with the occasional strong one coming through.  There was lots of clouds around, and I could see overdevelopment around Mt. Sampson, Birkenhead, and the Duffy Lake area.  So it was not to be a big XC day but rather stick locally.

OMG it was cold!  The air at cloudbase (2600m or so) was -10C, so I could only stay up that high for a few minutes at a time before sinking down to find some slightly warmer air to thaw out.

I did pop over to the Miller side of the valley (it was north wind up aloft) but no joy, so I had to limp back to the MacKenzie side.  Upper launch is still completely snowed-in with the hut buried under meters of snow, and the road to upper won't melt out anytime soon!

View of Squamish and the Chief from the Tantalus Lookout on a stable blue day.

The following day I opted to get a ride, and you can drive to ~10 minutes of lower launch.  Unlike the previous day, it was stable and blue, no cu's at all, a big change!  It was tough getting through 1000m, and many pilots kept around the lower launch, although I believe a few later pilots managed to get past Owl and out to the Barbour area.  I eventually landed due to the cold...