Bridal May 27

A super-hot day in the Fraser Valley and not really conducive to long distance XC flying, but my goal today (shared by many) was to get high and try to overfly Mt. Cheam.  We usually get to do this a handful of times a year, usually in outflow conditions, but occasionally it will also work in inflow conditions.

Archibald and Mt. Baker in the background on a bluebird sky day!

Immediately beamed out to 1400m and I knew it was gonna happen!  Booted my way over to the shoulder of Cheam and rode the thermals up to the final ridge to the summit and then things seemed to fizzle; darn!  A bunch of us kept trying and trying, and we could see the summit, but not quite get high enough!

Getting high on the shoulder of Cheam, notice the cornices on the ridge!

But patience!  Usually this works later in the afternoon or even early in the evening, and we still had hours of useable sunlight left to go.  Eventually with a bit of blue-thermal scratching we were able to get higher than the summit (but out front), and then use the excess altitude to glide over to the summit and circumnavigate the peak.  Finally!  There was still oodles of snow, and no chance of hikers being on the peak (yet), so it was just us and the eagles and crows.  Lots of cornices and small snow slides to keep us occupied while we enjoyed the rare opportunity to fly close to the rock walls in the mellow evening thermals.

Mt. Cheam with Jones lake in the background.

Eventually it was time to head out to land, and I opted to top-land to drive a truck down.  The trees on the top-landing approach are getting a big high so we are hoping to have a work party to trim them to improve the safety of the site.  A beautiful evening!

Getting lower to warm back up!

Pemberton May 26

My first flight in Pemberton this year and it was pretty windy from the west up high.   Hard to get away from lower launch (although others seemed to do OK) and then it was tough to get high until Barbour.  Once high though it was easy to stay high, although the thermals were quite strong and rough, windblown I think.

At 3600m above Copper Mound, looking NE.  Blue in Pemberton but a few Q's in the Chilcotin!

At Goat it was quite windy, probably the windiest I have ever done the crossing in, and once I started across I knew I was committed to getting up on the other side as I was too low to make it back to the nice fields in Pemberton Meadows.  It was very windy and hard to penetrate, and after I got high enough to get some breathing room, I decided continuing the run wasn't for me and turned around.  80 kph on the way back!

Blue skies over Pemberton and still lots of ice and snow in the mountain lakes!

Back towards Pemberton it was doing weird things...pilots were reporting gusts to 30+ kph in the LZ, but from "Meager" (although I think it was actually from Miller, the strong west wind manifesting as a Miller drainage),  so a bunch of us decided to land elsewhere.  Andrew landed at the airport in 30+ kph, so Claudia and I landed further east towards the Mt. Currie Indian Reservation, landing in the largest field we could find.  My groundspeed during all this was in the low single digits, and occasionally told me negative single digits (which I very rarely see).

A nice big field to land in when it's windy!

We both landed safely and got a ride back to Pemberton, where it was not windy at all in town (where it should be during a Whistler Express), and only not that windy at all in the LZ from the Miller direction.  It was a weird windy day all around!

Miles in May, May 22

A dramatic difference from yesterday, as yesterday's instability and strong NW winds were replaced by moderate SSE winds and stability.  We opted for the Strome intersection since the ground winds were switching from east to south, and both directions can be used at this intersection due to no trees, fences, power lines, etc.

Yet more large farming equipment.  We like to give these a wide berth!

It was quite overcast and not looking that great, but we could see a blue hole coming from the west.  But when it came overhead it still looked very stable and not promising, although Andrew and I had set declared goals in Smokey Lake (~190 km to the NW).

Nobody made it very far today: Steven landed just south of Strome, Alex just north, and myself a bit further farther north.  Andrew never got away.

Pretty stable-looking skies from my landing north of Strome.

It looks like the weather is going to fall apart tomorrow for a couple of days, and we need to be back in Vancouver by the end of the week, so we'll see about flying tomorrow.

Blown-out day during Miles in May May 21

Looking a bit on the blowy side ;)

After yesterday's epic flights, long retrieve, and little sleep, we were back up and out at the tow road just after 10am.  The forecast was showing more north wind and possibly blown out but we decided to try anyways, because if you don't at least go out, you don't get to fly!

Andrew volunteers to test out the winds aloft.

Out at the tow road it was blowing pretty much straight north and with a fair bit of grunt...20+kph on the ground.  The Q's hadn't started popping yet but Andrew and Peter went for a couple of test tows to see how thermic it was, and the tows were pretty rough with lots of turbulence.

Steven getting ready as the Q's start to pop on the horizon.

Finally around 11am the Q's started popping overhead (right on schedule!) and the cloud shadows were whizzing by on the ground at 40+ kph.  As well the ground wind had picked up and was gusting to 30 kph with dust devils popping off around us.  Frankly it wasn't looking that great for safe and enjoyable flying, although I'm sure if you could get off the ground and stay in the air for the next 8 hours you'd be OK as the wind would have died off by dusk.

Peter thinking should he go or not?

In the end we decided to cancel the day and save our energy for tomorrow when the winds looks much lighter.  Despite not getting to fly yesterday and wanting to get a new personal best, I'd rather not get scared or maimed trying to do it on a marginal day ;)

In the end we decided to pack it up as the wind-driven Q's pop overhead

Epicness during Miles in May Camrose May 20

What a forecast!

A spectacular-looking day in Camrose and it was my turn to operate the winch and drive retrieve (we set the schedule a couple weeks ahead of time, before knowing the short-term forecast, to make things impartial).  Moderate NW winds which is the ideal direction for going long while avoiding the various airspaces and international borders!

The boys getting ready on a record-setting day!

We have to be careful not to get the towline caught up in the local farmer's equipment...

We set up at the Rosalind tow road under blue skies, knowing from previous experience that it will transition from totally blue to Q's popping everywhere within ~30 minutes, usually between 11am and 12noon.  But Andrew wanted to do a test tow so of course after his tow he found an early thermal at 10:50am and was off!  After that it was a made rush to get off the ground and Alex followed soon after, followed by Peter and Steven.

Andrew getting ready for his "test tow"

I was just packing up the winch when I got the first text message from Andrew, saying he had landed due to not getting high and sinking out before it really turned on.  So I guess it's time to start driving!

Epic-looking skies from the tow road.

Picked up Andrew and Steven shortly after, and then we started making our way SE under very yummy-looking skies; there was a line of development in the distance but the radar showed it moving SE as well and keeping away from the pilots' tracks.  The winds aloft were more like NNW instead of NW, so the upcoming Suffield military airspace was becoming an issue.  Fortunately both Alex and Peter realized this and altered their courses enough to fly west of the restricted airspace.

Driving south chasing the boys.

I had estimated that they would land around 7:30pm and I think I was pretty close, as Peter landed just short of 300km and Alex landed at 334km around the same time.   Finally after 15+ years of trying, somebody beat the Canadian PG open distance record!  Also it was a personal best for both Peter and Alex, who previously had PB's in the mid-200 km's.

A happy Alex after landing 334km from the tow road.

The drive back was very long (the total retrieve took 12 hours and we arrived back in Camrose at 1:30am) but it was well worth it; everyone's phone was going off with congratulatory text messages for a lot of the drive.  The Aurora Borealis also put on a nice lightshow during our drive north, which was a nice way to keep us awake!  Tomorrow is looking very similar although windier so who knows, the record could be broken again tomorrow ;)

Aurora Watch predicted a spike in Northern Lights after midnight and they were right!

Miles in May Camrose May 19

Our tow group is in Camrose for our annual Miles in May, where we try to fly far and work on bettering the Canadian PG Open Distance record.  This year our tow team is myself, Alex, Peter Spear, Andrew Berkley, and Steven Semisch.  Many thanks to Brett Yeates, who despite being unable to join us this year, graciously lent us his winch and told us to fly far and bring it back with a bunch of new records on it.

Peter coming in after a test tow on Steven's winch

Yesterday was blown out and thunderstormy so we bailed on the day, but the HGs managed to get a short window in between the wind dying and the storms arriving.  I think Ross did something like 60 km yesterday.

Today was looking much lighter winds but still a chance of thunderstorms, and there was a lot of overcast and shade so it was not going to be super-early, although there were Q's forming to the west and north where the skies were bluer.  After doing some experimental tows on Steven's winch we changed venues and went to Rosalind to join the puffy Q's which were starting to form in our vicinity.

It was not going to be a fast or easy day as there were storms brewing to the west and north, and with the SE winds it was blowing us directly into the maw of the shade.  After getting a low save after my tow (97m AGL!), I was able to get established and start heading NW with Peter a few km's ahead of me.

Alex and Steven also got away although they had bad sinky lines and ended up landing quite early.  Alex had a bit of a circuitous walkout as as he landed in a dry spot but surrounded on most sides by water, and had to find a dry route to the road and a waiting Andrew.

A line of storms to the north, and it's getting hard to skirt around them.

The climbs were pretty slow considering the way the sky looked, and the going was slow enough that I had to decide on each climb whether it was worth it to climb all the way to cloud base and allow myself to drift closer to the storms, or leave the climbs partway up and try to fly east to skirt the edges of the storms.  There was an obvious blue hole to the NE which Peter and I were attempting to skirt, and the geographic distance between the blue hole and the storms was getting smaller and smaller, so Peter and I opted to land before things got too hairy.

I decided to land before the storms got too close.

We discovered something when landing on the prairies in mid-spring: you can either land in a plowed or stubble field and deal with the accompanying turbulence, or you can land in a nice mellow green field and get devoured by mosquitos (presumably they are living in the grass).  We both opted for the latter and gave a generous blood donation to the local wildlife ;)

Not much distance made today since we both had to do a bunch of zigzagging to jump between clouds and make our way crosswind as the wind direction switched during the flight, but it was nice to get back in the prairie air and see the enormous countryside which is central Alberta.

Follow us on live tracking at XC Find Canada.

52 km not-so-straight-flight.

The boys out at the local driving range to work off some extra energy.

Woodside May 2

Alex was off trying his new Gin Explorer at Little Nic, while I was trying out the BGD Cure at Woodside.  I had actually already had a flight on it down in Colombia, but it's now my main glider for the next season or so.

The Cure launches much nicer than the Artik, mostly due to the lightness of the glider and the lack of mass.  Thermalling is quite easy and intuitive and I had no problems segueing from the Artik to the Cure within a few minutes.

It was pretty lame conditions at Woodside but I was able to eventually get high enough at the towers to go over the back to Agassiz Mountain.  Lame there as well, with the occasional boomer up to cloud base, but reports were of roughness at Bear Mountain so I decided to turn back.  Getting back took a few climbs and some patience, but I was able to get back easily via the northern route and an easy top-landing to enjoy the sun on the black carpet and drive a truck back down.

Mark Tulloch getting some airtime as the skies cloud over.