Spring Time at McClure

Oh, it's on. Spring is hear and the best part of the season in the bay area with it. Last weekend a crew from the Bay headed out to McClure to getussome. 14 or 15 pilots in all were out on Saturday for some nice smooth lift.

Gaggles a Plenty

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The air was a little challenging. Light at times, but wide and smooth for the most part. Staying at the top of the stack was the goal as the crowds were thick and everything was easier to work when you were up high with space to move.

Noman briging it in tight.



After about an hour and a half, I was circling with Tom Low. I cut in tight on a turn and fell out of the core. I lost a couple hundred feet and decided I was too low to make Horseshoe when Tom headed out that way. We then got seriously flushed on the main hill and I was soon setting up my landing. Tom and Ken continued to fly in good lift over at Horseshoe until they chose to come land.

Chris, Dirk, Eric F, and the famous Joe Jackson decided to camp and make it a weekend excursion. Hanging out on top of the hill, having some beers, talking the talk. Good times.

A view to wake up to


















Sunday was another good day... for some at least...
A hard flush cycle and I found myself on the ground early. A few hit it right and flew for hours. Oh well

Glen caught some good footage as always. Here's my landing from Saturday


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Lonely at Windy

My plans had been to get up at 4am and go join T and her mom for a day at Squaw. After powering through the alarm till 8am I figured I needed to make some other plans. I'd worked enough for the week, and it was looking like a nice strong East day. Perfect for Windy Hill.

I tried to rally some troops, but there's only a few of us signed off to fly Windy, and it was a Friday. I decided to go check out the hill and fly if it was good. I could hike back up and retrieve my car.

Direction and velocity in the bay area was looking good on my way to the LZ. As I arrived Urs called and said he would come drive me back to my car after flying. Things were looking better. I put up the streamers in the LZ and drove up to launch. It's a long hike up from the parking area to the launch so I went to check the conditions before committing to the dreaded glider carry. Perfect. 15 straight in. It was not as cold as usual, hawks were circling overhead. It was on.

As I walked back to my car to get my gear I called the Ed Levin wind talker. It had gone from NE at 25 to NE at 5 in 40 minutes. Uhh ohh. I better hurry.
Rushing to setup it was still looking good. I hustled my glider up the hill and got it ready. Suited up and stepped out to launch. Dead calm. Crap.

As is so often the case at Windy I found myself wishing I had been there 60 minutes earlier. A no wind launch at Windy is not a endeavour to be taken lightly. But it really is a pain to hike your glider all the way up there and there was no way I was hiking it back down. I waited for a tiny 5mph cycle and launched.

It was a beautiful day. I had certainly missed the best air, but was able to find some small thermals to play in for a while. The LZ is green and freshly mowed. I brought it in for a slighly downwind, but slightly uphill landing. Glad to get in the air on such a nice day!

Looking SE from the air.

XC Scoutin!

Always look hardcore. Even when you know your not.

Eric H was kind enough to take a few of us on a little XC scouting trip last weekend. We checked out the first crucial bailout options for XC South from Mission/Ed Levin, and XC West from the same.

South requires some good top landing skills for the first 15 miles or so. The rolling hills we must land on are hard to judge from the air, so it was great to drive the route and find good LZs with easy road access. After about 10-15 miles the houses stop coming right up to the hill so the landing options open up wide.

West takes you over the back towards Livermore, Tracy and beyond. It looks like we will need to stay pretty far out on the foothills as the landing option in deep near the mountains are sparse to none. It would be a kick to thermal up at the Altamont pass and fly downwind over the sea of windmills.

This is the season for XC from these local sites. It doesn't happen a lot, but I'm eager to try.

Remembering Keith

Keith was a pilot, a Sky Rider, a friend. He was one of us.


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Fly high brother. You will be missed...