I suspected today would blow out like yesterday in the Fraser Valley, so after dropping Alex off at Little Nic for his hike-n-fly, off to Woodside I went to fly early before it got too windy.
It was remarkably quiet on launch, few pilots except for the load that Jim drove up, which surprised me a bit as it was a sunny spring day. But hey, less congestion on launch!
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| At Bear Mountain, heading to Agassiz, with the incoming smog indicating the accompanying westerly wind. |
The climb out was slow and painful at first, Kevin and I were trying to get high but couldn't really break past 1100m. But I noticed some clouds forming over the antennas so I gradually faded my way back and got under them, at which point I was beamed to 1500m and onwards to Agassiz Mountain.
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| Alex coming in to land at the Bridal LZ. The LZ was mowed a week ago and it's now dandelion central! |
Over at Bridal Alan was reporting climbs to only 1400m which is not super-high for that side, and over at Agassiz and Bear Mountain I was only getting to 1200m. For the crossing to Bridal, I like at least 1400m and prefer 1600m. Today with only 1200m and zero landing options on the Fraser River (the river is about 1 month ahead of schedule for flooding!) I decided to bail on my idea to cross over, and landed in Agassiz instead along with Kevin.
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| Alex flying the Lynx at Bridal. |
Our group reconvened at Bridal for a late afternoon fly...I decided to stand down and drive instead as I had a good flight earlier and was looking to chill a bit. It was a bit spicy on launch and some pilots were getting hoovered in the elevator right off launch and reports on the radio were of some wind on the way to Elk.
Overall it turned into an OK flying day; if you were willing to take the punches you could get to 1500m, but the general consensus was that the air was a bit on the snarky side.
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