Adventures With Sam (Part One)

I took advantage of the Mt. Waddington "Van Diego" to shuttle up Mt. Cheam on September 27th. I joined a group of seven clients guided by Emma Graham and Sam Waddington, owner of Waddingtons. The van was absolutely superb in getting up the rough Chipmonk Road.

The VanDiego - The Perfect Shuttle Van

Sam and I arrived on the summit to find the predicted east winds which were quite strong, gusty and mixing with southerly thermals so we were quite prepared to hike down. We lunched with Sam's guided group, took the requisite summit photos and enjoyed the spectacular fall day.

The Man The Myth The Legend - Sam Himself

After an hour of assessing the wind, I elected to give the east face a try. It was smooth and steady at 15-18 km/hr right on the edge, but where the wing was laid out it was twitchy.  With some launch helpers holding the wing to catch the breeze between rotors I launched into "Baby Bum Smooth" lift and worked my way over launch where I stayed for well over thirty minutes watching both Sam and a visiting Norwegian pilot, Morten Kals, launch. 

Launching the East Face

Sam got off cleanly and had a safe traverse around to the Fraser Valley where he landed at Bridal. Morten, who I've renamed, "Viking" had hiked up from the Fraser Valley looking as if he'd just stepped out of an elevator on his way to Starbucks. When Morten launched his speed wing, he immediately put it into such radical barrel rolls that I could not track him with my Iphone.

Sam - A Cheam Virgin No More

Meanwhile, I noticed a chopper circling the mountain and Morten ran into the photographer a few days ago, hooked me up and I'm sharing some of the most spectacular Cheam shots I've ever seen. Thanks to Ginnie Frede for the shots.

Beautiful Ridge Lift

Amusing Myself Whilst Waiting For Sam and Morten

Big Mountains - Puny Humans

After some doubt about whether we would fly, it ended up being a spectacular Mt. Cheam flight after all.

Special thanks to Mt. Waddingtons Outdoors for their great guiding and the VanDiego!

The Golden Road

   In late July of this past summer, I took a little paragliding road trip to some of my favourite sites in the BC's interior. Over the next seven days, I spent fifteen hours in the air, flew further than I ever had and got higher than I have ever been in a paraglider.

   My first stop was Vernon where I joined another pilot to fly a popular site called Baldy Mountain. Launching at an altitude of about 1100 meters, we flew a nice route west  towards Kalamalka Lake and then back to the launch where a thermal took us up to almost 2600 meters. Alex and I  then flew east back to the town of Lumby for a nice little twenty-four kilometer XC (cross country) start to my trip.

   The next day, another friend Norm, and I drove to the Mara Lake launch. This time my flight path took me to and above the beautiful Enderby Cliffs, a truly breath-taking landmark in the Okanagan. I landed south of Armstrong for  another nice twenty-three k flight.

Flying towards the Enderby Cliffs

I landed several kilometres south of the cliffs

   From Vernon, I carried on to Golden, home of one of the most famous soaring sites in the world, Mount 7. There was a competition going on this week called the Willi Muller Classic. The NW-SE orientation of the Columbia Valley allows for some very long and dynamic flights towards the US border.  The dry interior air and immense mountains allow for huge thermals. Pilots can find themselves going up very high, very fast. Sure enough, On my first day, I climbed in thermals going up at 7-8 meters a second. Within minutes of launching I had climbed from 1800 meters to over 3,000 meters. Topped out at an altitude of 4300 meters. On this flight, I flew about eighty kilometres south of Golden, my furthest distance from this site.

Very high over very high mountains near Golden

Flying past Edgewater almost 90 km south of Golden

   On my second day, I reached 4500 meters or almost 15,000 feet and landed after eighty-six kilometres just past the town of Edgewater. If this seems impressive, some of my friends who had been there all week, flew 140 km and a really skilled US pilot flew almost 300 k into the US!

Mount 7 launch in Golden

Gliding over the verdant Columbia Valley

   On my third day in Golden, I had what is called an "out and return", flying downrange twenty-five kilometres and back to Mt. Seven. Out and returns are a little more challenging because the return is often against the wind and so the pilot has to choose the line very carefully to use the topography as a shield against the wind or fly further out to avoid turbulence.

   This flight ended the period of good weather in the interior and so I began my westward journey. The next day,  I had a chance to help my friend, Glenn Derouin of Vernon's Paraglide Canada with some tandem flights. Check out the photo of the little girl I took with a huge stuffed horse that was part of a global scavenger hunt being played by a friend of Glen's.

My young passenger and her big stuffy

   I returned to the smoky Fraser Valley a week after setting off.  It was wonderful to connect with so many pilots and experience some of the best flying in Canada.

Dancing with the Devils in Eastern Washington

Dancing with the Devils in Eastern Washington

Chelan Butte, in Washington State is a very famous soaring area for hang gliders and paragliders. Located east of the Cascade mountains, the “Butte” has Lake Chelan on its north side and the Columbia River on its south side. The dry desert air provides for very powerful thermals in the summer months allowing pilots to rise on thermals to over 12,000 feet.Temperatures can also reach over 40C so pilots who land out somewhere need to be very prepared with the right clothing and enough water.

I have only flown Chelan during the Women's Fly in in October when conditions are quite mellow.  Ever since the first US nationals were held there in July in the 90's with some associated carnage, I assumed that pilots who flew in July were “a few episodes short of a full season.”

However, tempted by Al, Alex and Nicole, I ventured down on June 30th with Al to join in the fun happening at the Chelan Classic, a low stress comp similar to the Willie. (As it turned out, Alex and Nicole later opted for some spectacular flying at Pemberton).

Already at Chelan were Andrew, Guy and Igor and the day that Al and I travelled down, these guys flew an astounding 180K, attempting to get to Potlatch, Idaho. They were still rarin' to go the next morning despite the long (five hour) drive back from wherever the hell it was they landed. They had teamed up with some visiting Australians, Liz and Matt Graham. Matt had flown far the day before and Liz had used her Ipad and their Spots to track and locate them.

Each morning the team would check their instruments and discuss possibilities

Our first day was not expected be anything like the day before and sure enough, it was blowing north on the Butte, with associated weird gusts that resulted in some exciting launches for about half the souls who took to the air.  Al and Guy launched and worked very hard, each getting quite low before achieving enough height to try crossing the Columbia.

Eventually, I decided to try the air and I had observed enough pilots passing through some strong lift right off launch that I decided to work the first bubble I got and sure enough, I was soon above the Bute and reached 2300 meters before crossing to the other side but deciding to fly back and land at the river LZ.

Crossing the Columbia is easy - getting up and going further is not. Zoom to see the     dusties in the BG.

The next two days, I continued to develop my understanding of how to cross the river, get to the flats and then look for dust devils as thermal markers. However, it wasn’t til Saturday, our last day that the necessary combination of luck and wind occurred to give (some of) us a big day.

Setting up on the Butte. Bring lots of water!

Al, Andrew, Matt and I planned to fly as a team. Matt launched first and discovered something wrong with his harness and had to go land immediately. Al, Andrew and I got very high above the Butte  (I got to 3200 meters) and we left together looking for joy on the other side.

We flew a long way onto the flats before seeing a dusty that looked workable. Andrew got there first, I second. Al arrived scant seconds after me but the lift was so light and he so low, that he was on the ground almost immediately. Andrew was doing quite well getting up but I struggled for about fifteen minutes before finally getting a decent climb and we were on our way!

Andrew and I flew mostly together. He led most of the time and the pattern was always the same. Look for a dust devil, fly above the debris cloud and hold on. Get as high as necessary to glide to another “dusty” and repeat the process.

Eventually, we got  too far apart for me to spot him  and I was on my own, actually ahead of him for a while but then I hit an area of sink, tried to get under a cloud and didn’t make it, going down at three to six meters a second all the way to a road I chose to land on. Minutes later, Andrew bobbed by. The sink cycle had ended and he kept going.

Minutes after landing in the middle of nowhere.

But I was happy. A truck stopped by and a woman asked, “are you OK?”

I replied that I was fine and that I had flown my paraglider from Chelan Bute. I asked if she knew how far away that was and her reply was simply, F___cking far!”

Liz, Al, and Matt came along in my truck less than ten minutes later and we chased Andrew for about another hour until he landed. It took two and a half hours to drive back to Chelan. Eventually my uploaded GPS track revealed that I had flown one hundred six kilometers, my personal best flight ever.

The details of the flight can be seen here

Huge thanks go out to my paragliding mates, Al and Andrew for their encouragement and tips and to Liz and Matt for their excellent tracking skills as they chased us across the plains of eastern Washington.

Rolling the Dice on Mt. Baker

Washington state’s Mt. Baker towers 3300 meters over the Fraser Valley and is one of the loftiest landmarks in the Northwest. It can be clearly seen from almost anywhere in the Chilliwack area and many are beckoned by its sheer magnificence.  Climbing Mt. Baker is a demanding challenge which requires fitness and experience in mountaineering and glacier travel. Most climbers ascend Mt. Baker in two phases - on day one, they climb with camping  gear to approximately 1900-2100 meters, set up a base camp and acclimate (get used to thin air) by sleeping until about 2:00 am. Then they get up, have a light meal and complete the final 1100-1300  meters with just light gear, liquids and snacks. The climb down is a long one as they usually climb down to their base, have a rest,  break camp and descend all the way back to the parking lot at 1400 meters asl.

For those of us who have flown paragliders from Mt. Baker, the challenge is magnified in two ways. First, we complete the entire climb overnight, all the way from 1400 m to 3300 m in one long go with no acclimation time. Second, we carry all our climbing gear, food, liquid and our flying gear all the way to the summit, so the weight is considerable. Exhausted doesn’t nearly begin to describe how I feel when I step onto Baker’s summit, but if the winds are right, the physical ordeal is over. I can’t even put into words what is feels like to take those four or five steps and then fly seventeen kilometers and descend 3,000 meters to the town of Glacier with its warm, thick air and a fine meal just thirty-five minutes after standing on a the vast  snow sculptured plateau of Baker’s summit.

I have flown from the top of Mt. Baker five times. I have climbed it four times without a wing. Thankfully, I have never needed to carry a wing down from the top of Baker- until last Sunday. Despite, our usual pre-trip weather research which indicated a perfect 18 km/hr  (or less)  WNW  wind, the conditions did not allow me to launch. This was the first time I’ve rolled the dice on Mt. Baker and lost.  The adventure was nevertheless, wonderful in other ways so here is a brief synopsis with photos.

Sweet snow, sweet moon

This climb was done with my long time adventure partner, Richard Teszka. We began hiking at 12:30 am on June 7, 2015.   I have always tried to climb on a night with a moon and although it wasn’t full, the moon was stunning as it rose above the Deming Glacier after we had been climbing for about three hours. We could see the twinkling headlamps of several parties slowly making their way up the glacier above us, but by the time we reached the col at 2700 m, we had caught up to two of the parties. The snow conditions were perfect. We followed the obvious climber’s highway in snow that didn’t even require crampons. In late summer and fall the snow melts and exposes blue ice as well as crevasses and then crampons become essential on the steeper sections. For us, the crevasses were still mainly covered over and we stepped lightly over the thin depressions indicating what could could be huge crevasses below. There was only one gaping crevasse and it still had a nice snow bridge over it.

Only one significant crevasse to cross

A snow bridge makes this crevasse easy

The last part of the climb, up the Roman Wall is very steep and seems to take forever before the slope slowly rolls out onto a vast escarpment that a skilled pilot could land a plane on. We had noticed a significant amount of north wind on the Roman Wall, so we had an inkling that conditions might not allow a flight but at this point we just maintained our climber’s enthusiasm and hoped it would change.

Pumice Ridge with two converging lines of climbers ascending the Roman Wall

We completed the climb in record time (for me), six hours, forty-five minutes arriving at 7:15 am . Normally we launch between 9 and 10 am after the sun has begun warming the west side to create an updraft, so we we opted to hang out on top for a while and complete the 500 meter trudge to Grant’s summit. the highest point on the mountain.

Layering up on top in the cool breeze

The obligatory walk to Grant's Summit

It was cold, bitterly so. We bundled up and sat with some other climbers on the leeside of the summit but the wind was swirling from everywhere and it was gusty. Eventually, we walked back over to the west shoulder where our paragliding gear sat in the bright, snowy sunshine and accepted the reality that we would have to shoulder these packs and carry them back down. We began the descent at 8:30 am and despite feeling exhausted and nauseous from the altitude, we were back down to the col in forty minutes and with each meter descended, the effects of the altitude began to dissipate. Even the wind calmed down below 2600 meters and by 10 am it began to get very hot on the warming snow slopes. As the snow softened, we elected to remove our crampons so we could slip more easily down the slope and by 11:00 am we reached the toe of the glacier, called the hogsback. From here the trail descends steeply down to thick old growth forest and then all that remains is a long traversing trudge down another 600 meters, fording several creeks swollen with snow melt from the sun-baked snow slopes above.

Although the trail is easy, the hard ground and rock surfaces are are jarring on tired bodies wearing stiff climbing boots. Blisters began to form on my feet which had gotten damp from snow sliding into my non-gatored boots. My own fault - exhaustion leads to laziness when the end is in sight.

Fortunately, climbers don't need to navigate this part of the glacier

11:00 am. Off the glacier and descending from Hogsback - ninety minutes still to go

Finally, at 12:30 pm, Richard and I staggered into the stifling parking lot where we at last doffed our sweat-soaked packs and guzzled the water we had waiting for us in the vehicle. A frantic search of the vehicle yielded some Advil to ease the ache in our battered bodies. Soon we were down to my truck, stashed at the landing field just north of Glacier where I could, at last, take off my boots and expose my feet with several bleeding blisters to the fresh air and slip on a welcome pair of sandals.

Richard was so tired, he opted to sleep in his car for a while before driving home. I can hardly remember my own drive apart from the usual joy of using my Nexus to slip past the vehicles lined up at the border.  By 3 pm, I was home. By 3:30. I was showered and horizontal on a couch. Apart from missing the opportunity to fly, we had enjoyed a safe climb in splendid conditions and I’m sure that when the blisters have healed and the sore muscles and joints have recovered, I will be listening once again for Mt. Baker’s beckoning call.

PS. When it does go well, it looks like this Baker Busters 2011

It's On

 Thermal Season is Officially “On” in the Fraser Valley.

 Paragliding pilots look forward to spring because that's when the increased sunlight begins to warm the earth and produce thermals- rising columns of air. We use these to soar higher than our launch height and once up,  we go XC, (cross country) which means anywhere other than down to the normal landing area. An XC flight could be five kilometers or 500 kilometers depending on the location and the pilot’s skill level.

   For me, this is the most challenging and rewarding type of flying. It's very exciting and beautiful to travel somewhere new using the wing and the wind. I've flown to Hope from Mt Woodside and from Bridal Falls a couple of times.

  A route that has become a classic is the Raymont Challenge named after the first pilot to accomplish this flight which is essentially a loop around the Fraser Valley starting at Mt Woodside and heading east to Bear Mtn, crossing the Fraser River to Mt. Ludwig on the Mt. Cheam side and then flying west to “tag” Elk Mtn and then re crossing the Fraser River to get back to Mt. Woodside. This route requires pretty good conditions and I’m lucky if I get to do it a few times a year. The flight takes between three and four hours to complete.

  We use GPS to help with decision making. For example, a GPS gives us our ground speed so we know how well we’re doing relative to the wind which can either help us or slow us down. GPS also gives us our altitude and this helps us to know when to leave a thermal and glide to another place on our route. Finally, the GPS provides a track of our entire flight which can be uploaded to a computer and then to programs like Google Earth so we can really see where we went.

  I upload my big flights to a website that collects flight data and keeps an ongoing record. I can compare my flights as well as the flights of other pilots. Leonardo (the website) even allows me to watch my entire flight on a map as an animation!

Here is the link to my last big flight from Saturday, May 2. On that flight, I actually completed considerabley more than the Raymont Challenge and was in the air for five hours, ten minutes.  Play around with the buttons and enjoy the ride.

Click Here to see it

The Life of A Winter Parahiker

In these dark, December days, I make my call to go up Elk five minutes beforehand because of weather and general busyness. There’s almost no point planning. When you put it on the calendar, it pours rain or the wind blows over the back.  Even my friend,  Eddy, who lives right under the mountain hiked up and down four times last week.

Yesterday, December 22, I woke up with some hope. The day’s forecast called for light winds and a low probability of precipitation. The windgrams showed west southwest winds from 10-20 km/hr at 1500 meters.  If you fly Elk and land at Eddy’s, it takes an hour to hike back up to the vehicle so it’s always great to have a retrieve lined up. I began making a few calls at midday and could reach no one. However, after several rainy weeks, I decided to drive to Eddy’s, scope out the mountain and if it looked good, just bite it and damn the torpedoes.  

 Imagine my joy when I saw Eddy’s black iron gate open and rang the doorbell to find that he had just arrived home. Eddy had already done a hike that day so he opted not to join me but he gladly drove me to the trailhead. It takes me about fifty minutes to hike up Elk from the high start point and the entire journey is therapy for my mind and body. The strenuous climb  shakes all the “sillies” out of my stiff joints and the beautiful old growth forest and progressively dramatic view allows me to leave all my cares down in the valley below.

Parahikers are like Spiderman. Our “spidey” senses are constantly attuned to whatever wind direction and strength we feel as we ascend the mountain. With Elk, feeling a north wind coming from the Fraser Valley is never encouraging….we need the wind to be from the hiker’s right, a nice steady south breeze. If the trees are making noise on the lower parts of the trail, that doesn’t bode well either because wind strength usually increases with elevation and Elk frequently receives 60-80 km/hr winds on top, far too much to even consider flying a paraglider. I could hear a little wind on my way up and just hoped it wouldn’t be blown out at the top.

As the trail opened up at the first lookout, the wind was coming up very nicely from the south side, but there was obvious cloud forming, almost obscuring the lookout which is still one hundred meters below the summit. I continued hiking, stepping carefully on patches of ice formed from the footsteps of frequent hikers. Minutes later, I climbed the last steep stretch to the west shoulder, took off my pack and immediately changed from my sweat-soaked t-shirt to a dry top and layered up with a down jacket, shell, insulated pants, thick ski gloves and a toque. No matter how warm you are when you arrive on the the Elk summit, it is best to trap that heat quickly before the icy wind sucks it from you. Looking around, I could see that the conditions were rapidly changing. One minute, I was in a white out of cloud, the next, it would open up and the valley became visible again only to disappear as another cycle of dewpoint-induced cloud rolled through.

However, the direction and strength were perfect for launching from the west shoulder and I was sure I could navigate around any cloud that formed near this point of the mountain. I readied my gear, turned on my ham radio and checked in with Eddy who, from his house below, confirmed that the cloud layer was sporadic and only formed near my launch place.

Less than ten minutes after arriving on the summit, I clipped in, turned to face my glider, simultaneously flipping my lines over my head into reverse inflation position, gave a gentle tug on my risers and watched the orange, red and white canopy inflate and pop up over my head, eager to ascend. I did a little alpine line dance getting the glider under control and then began running  down the hill towards the little mountain hemlocks at the bottom of the meadow, less than ten meters away. With only a couple of steps between me and the trees, the wind worked its magic.  I lifted my legs and settled into my harness and began to soar, going steadily up as I flew away from the mountain. Within seconds, I was looking down on the west shoulder of Elk and I turned eastward to fly along the ridge using my “bird” sense to locate the strongest lift. My climb quickly allowed me to rise above the next wave of cloud that was forming on the mountain and soon I was flying along the edge of the cloud. I had a clear view out to Ryder Lake but the mountain below was partially whited out like the other side of a sauna when someone pours water on the element.

For the next half an hour, I danced above, through, and around the rapidly forming and dissipating “white room”. It was surreal and in those moments nothing in the world mattered but the swooping turns I did as I played back and forth along the ridge.  The wind was strong but smooth, my control over the wing effortless, and my only regret was not bringing a camera to share the stunning views and images of the ridge below the mist. The wind had an icy kiss and I missed my annual beard as my face tingled and burned from the cold. The rest of me was warm and that made it easy to stay. I have had some flights where I have been so cold, that my shaking body vibrated right up through my lines to the wing.

At some point the wind strength lessened and with each pass I slowly lost elevation until I was soaring at the same level as the lower lookout. Eventually, I began to fly westward along the ridge, high over the trail and past to the microwave towers above Elk View Road. From here, I turned south and did a series of lazy zig-zags until I was over Eddy’s property. I could see him walking around, an ant on a grassy anthill waiting to greet me.

I touched down on his field about forty-five minutes after taking off from the top and was greeted with a warm handshake and an offer to come in for tea. I don’t know how many times this scene has been played out but it never gets old and I hope to keep going in for tea with Eddy after an Elk flight until I am a very old man.

Elk Mountain - One of My Favourites

   I started flying Elk Mountain on my fourth or fifth flight in 1989. My first flights were down to the closest field which was east of Ryder Lake. In those days, the gliders had a poor glide ratio (they couldn't fly very far) so the first time we flew out to the Fraser Valley it was a big deal, landing near Annis and Prairie Central Roads.
 
Since then Elk has become the favourite hike and fly for a group of people I call the "People of the Elk". One of these guys, Eddy loved the area so much that he bought nine acres on Elk View Road and built first a little bavarian cabin and later a large bavarian house to retire to.

Eddy's First Cabin

These days, the Elk People frequently meet at Eddy's, do the hike and fly and land in his field and enjoy a beverage together.
   
We do this twelve months a year even when the top is snow-covered. Paragliders can fly from snowy places. It just can't be socked in with clouds, precipitating or too windy. The hike is always a great workout with twenty to thirty pounds of gear.

Carl"gift-wrapped" in his wing by a dust devil

    Sometimes, even in winter, a beautiful southerly breeze hits the mountain allowing pilots to soar above Elk and fly the ridge all the way to Mt. Thurston and back ...for hours!
    Here is a video I made of a friend and I flying from Elk all the way out to Prest Road. Gliding out to a landing without going up is called a "sled ride" and this is one of the most beautiful sled rides I know of.
https://vimeo.com/112989360

    If you are hiking on Elk on a nice day, particularly in the mid morning, you are almost certain to see one of the "People of the Elk".