Oktoberfest at Williams

Flew about 2 hours, and ended up landing out on Willows. The condition was very marginal. There was fire in the valley, and it was very smoky on my way back.

Smoke over Williams

Gliding back from T15

Flew about 3 hours at Williams. The highlight of this flight was coming back from T15 (about 85 miles away from Williams) in one glide from 15,000 ft.

Stonyford and East Park Reservior

Statistics

This is the summary of my gliding trip this summer from June 26th to September 13th.

Days spent: 80 days 79 nights
Glider sites visited: 11 (Truckee, Ely, Parowan, Durango, Moriarty, Boulder, Logan, King Mountain, Hamilton, Kalispell, Crazy Creek)
Flights flown: 28
Hours flown: 125 hours (avg 4:28 per flight)
Distance flown: 9116 km (avg 326km per flight)
Landouts: 4

National Parks flown over: 9 (Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Zion, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, Glacier)
National Parks visited by ground: 7 (Great Basin, Zion, Canyonlands, Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Glacier, Crater Lake)
Miles driven: 6,100 miles
Photos taken: 3,000+


A(Q) = Sunnyvale, CA
B = Truckee, CA
C = Ely, NV
D = Parowan, UT
E = Durango, CO
F = Moriarty, NM
G = Boulder, CO
H = Logan, UT
I(K) = Moore (King Mountain), ID
J = Yellowstone, WY
K = Moore (King Mountain), ID
L = Hamilton, MT
M = Kalispell, MT
N = Bend, OR
O = Middletown (Crazy Creek), CA
P = Williams, CA
Q = Sunnyvale, CA

Sectional charts used for this trip

The last flight of the trip

I had a very interesting last flight of this trip at Crazy Creek gliderport.

Crazy Creek gliderport is located only 60 miles from San Francisco. It has an unpaved but long runway dedicated to glider operations. It reminded me of King Mountain. There are small hills all around the runway, and it is easy to get the first lift over one of those hills.

But today, we had waves. It didn't look like we had waves in the morning. There was almost no wind. But a few gliders reported that they were in a wave, so I flew up little before 2pm. Around 4,000 ft, I saw a couple of gliders (Ginny's G3 and Matt's 22T) flying back and forth, and they looked like flying in a wave, so I released there. But it turned out that they were just struggling and looking for lift. Without any other choice but to join them, I kept searching any sing of wave or whatever lift. I found something consistent, and managed to go up to 4,500 ft, but the wind was 8 kts from the west, so I thought that this was just a convergence. But then, Jim Indrebo reported that he was in a wave and at 7,000 ft a few miles south of where we were. So, after gaining another 500 ft, I headed south to see what was there. And indeed, there was a wave. I eventually climbed up to 9,000 ft in that wave, and that was the top. The wind was about 25 kts from the west at that point.

The unique thing about today's wave was, because we had so much moisture in the air, the clouds generated unbelievable view over the pacific ocean and the west coast. I was flying way above the clouds. It was a very interesting 3 hour flight.

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Flying over a gap between wave bars

A surreal view

Crazy Creek gliderport

Going back to California (cont)

Spent a night at Bend airport, but left there early morning, and kept driving to Crazy Creek gliderport in Middletown, CA. I arrived at Crazy Creek around 6:30pm, and joined their BBQ event.

Drove 436 miles

Going back to California

Drove from Kalispell to Bend, OR.

On hwy 97, there is no gas station from Biggs junction to Madras, OR. Actually, there are a couple of small ones in Grass Valley, but one was closed, and the other was member-only station. I almost ran out of gas!

Drove 621 miles

Flying over Glacier National Park

I wasn't supposed to fly today. Instead, I planned to hang around with Kevin Wayt, a glider friend of mine who happened to be in Kalispell. But we looked at sky around noon, and it looked too good to miss. Luckily, tow pilot was available, so I changed my mind and flew up.

On my way to 3,000 ft AGL, I already had a good feeling. After releasing, I headed to a cloud a few miles north of airport, found a lift without much trouble, and went up to 10,000 ft. I kept going north hoping to get to Eureka, a small town next to the Canadian border. But clouds ran out, so I jumped a valley to the east to fly over higher terrain which had more clouds. I went north several miles, and ran out of clouds again. I had to fly over a blue gap to go further north, but I wasn't perfectly sure if the clouds beyond the gap was on the US side or in Canada. Since I didn't want to greet Canadian airforce, I seeked the way to jump a valley again to the east to the even higher terrain. But the valley was totally blue, so I needed a trustable landout option in the valley to commit to the ridge east of it. I circled several times to try to identify a private airstrip named Langton shown on the sectional charge, but I couldn't find it. I punched in a few other nearby airports such as Crystal Lakes and Ryan. Crystal Lakes was about 20 miles and well within the range, but the ridge I was flying would block the path. Ryan was also within the range, but it was 25 miles away, and I would have to fly in the valley to get there (meaning that no lift can be expected). I circled and looked the map again and again, and finally found Langton. It was almost buried in the forest, but the runway looked to be in a good condition.

Gaining confidence, I committed to the ridge to the east which was also Glacier National Park's main ridge line. After gliding a few minutes in a quite air, I got to a cloud, and it was working greatly. I climbed back up to 11,000 ft, went north a few miles to hit the Canadian border. Actually, I stayed about 1 miles south of it just to be safe. There is a lake called Kintla Lake a mile south of the border, so I tried not to go north of it.

Took some pictures, and I followed the ridge to the south watching Chief Mountain on my left. According to the tour guide, it is a very holly mountain to native Indians. When a young man becomes an adult in their tribe, they'd send the man to the top of the mountain, and he prays and fasts for days and weeks until he sees his future (i.e. what occupation he should assume for his life).

I kept flying south to reach Lake McDonald. There are lots of glaciers around it, so I spent half an hour or so watching them and taking pictures. I also flew over Logan Pass, and watched Going to the Sun Mountain from sky. Going to the Sun Mountain is another holly mountain to the native Indians. According to the same tour guide, in the prehistoric time, a god of sun came down to the earth, and taught the Indians everything they needed to know to survive, such as how to raise crops, how to shelter from snow, etc. After teaching them all those good stuff, he climbed to the top of the mountain, and went back to the sun from there, hence the name Going to the Sun Mountain. This name is also used for the main road of the park (Going to the Sun Road) that goes through Logan Pass.

After watching enough glaciers, I kept going south, but realized that there aren't too many landout candidates in the south. The high ridges also made it difficult to see the glide path. So, I cut my way to the west flying over Hungry Horse Lake, and flew over to the center of Flathead Lake's before going back to Kalispell. It was a very nice 4.5-hour flight, and I was really glad I flew today.

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Mountains in Glacier National Park. Going to the Sun Road is seen in the middle of the mountain.

Going to the Sun Mountain

One of the largest glaciers Harrison Glacier

First flight at Kalispell, MT

Flew around 4 hours. I was ready to takeoff at 2pm, but tow plane had only Schweizer tow ring, and we spent 1 hour looking for TOST double ring. We finally found it, and I launched around 3pm. I found a good lift just north of airport, and went up to 10,000 ft, which was about the cloud base. I headed northeast towards Glacier National Park, but the wind picked up as strong as 22 kts from west, so I turned back. I caught another good thermal, went up to 10,500 ft again, and headed north this time. North didn't look too good either, so I headed east again towards Glacier National Park, this time following slightly northern course than before. I went further than before, but got low again, and turned west. Got back up to 10,500 ft again, and headed northeast gain towards Glacier National Park, this time taking a course somewhere between the two courses I tried earlier. This one worked best, I passed Lake McDonald, and got pretty close to Harrison Glacier and I was still at the cloudbase. Going to the next cloud would have given me an arena view of the glacier, but that would put me too close to the mountain peak, so I decided to stop there and turn back home. Besides, it was reall COLD. At this was the coldest flight I've had, even compared to many flights at 18,000 ft. My feet was almost freezing.

I had to fight 24 kts of headwind and lost quite an altitude before getting out of the park, but caught a good lift west side of the ridge where hwy 2 enters mountain area. There was a factory or something in a large black rectangular property, and it was generating a strong lift along the ridge surface. After gaining enough altitude to get back to Kalispell, I flew south along the ridge to see if there is any ridge lift. I was probably about 1,000 ft above the ridge, so it wans't really a ridge soaring, but I flew without loosing any altitude for 6 miles or so and back. On a west wind day, probably this ridge is a good reliable source of lift to get a final glide back to Kalispell.

Click here to view more photos of this flight.

Harrison Glacier

Flew 180km

Driving to Kalispell, MT

Drove up hwy 93 to Kalispell, MT. At its latitude N 48º10'42.85", Kalispell City airport is the northernmost glider operation in the US. It's only 60 miles to Canada-US border.

Drove 166 miles

Second flight at Hamilton

The day started earlier than yesterday, and was clearly a better day than yesterday. I launched around 2pm as soon as towplane became available. I went to the west ridge as yesterday. This time, I was able to catch the first lift easier, but boy, it was very rough. Those sharp pointing ridges produces very rough lift near the surface. It felt like riding a rodeo horse or riding submarine in a boiling water. I managed to get up 12,000 ft or so, and headed south hoping to make Salmon and back. The wind was southwest at 15 kts, so going to Salmon meant going upwind and easier way back.
But after I went 40 nautical miles south, the cloud density dropped, and they looked broken to the south from there. So, I diverted west where cloud density was still good to see how far I could go. But as soon as I went into the mountains for just 5 miles, I realized that I was in a tiger country. In front of me was all sharp pointing ridges without any view of the flat bottom. On the map, there were a few private strips some places and other, but not only I could not see them, I didn't know if I could make them with the altitude I had because the flight computer does not take those ridges into account. SeeYou Mobile does take terrains into account, but I wasn't sure how fine its terrain database's resolution was. The ridges were very sharp.

So, I turned east to see how the water tastes there. From yesterday's flight, I knew the mountains in the east were lower and roundish thus less promissing of lifts. But clouds were there, so I followed them. Actually, I found that this was much more fun than the west part of Hamilton soaring area. Because mountains are lower, I had more AGL, and there were enough decent airports (not private strips) to help safe landouts if necessary. After all, I went as east as 50 nautical miles from Hamilton airport, and saw Bowman and Dear-Lodge airports. Both had very nice paved runways. That was about 5pm, so I decided to head back before lifts died. There was a blue hole between Dear-Lodge and Hamilton, and I had only 2,000 ft above the glide path. Because of the mountains, I estimated that that did not give me enough ground clearance if I flew directly to Hamilton. So, I decided to go around the south following the path I came from, hoping to pick up the same lifts I used. But lifts were already weak there, and I went down as low as 10,500 ft but was still 50 nautical miles away from Hamilton. At this point, I was 500 ft below the glide path to Hamilton, and it was 5:30pm. I had a flashback of landouts at King Mountain and Logan, but this time, I had a luck with me, and made it back to Hamilton. I had 4,000 ft above the glide path when I crossed the hills east of airport, and figured out that I want at least 3,000 ft above the glide path to comfortably cross the hills. I landed around 7:30pm after flying 5.5 hours.

Hills on the east were low and roundish

Salmon River flows at the base of the valley

Flew 340 km