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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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