Yam Battle days 11 and 12

The every-other day program on Yam is in effect, it's just too much of a physical battle to get up there more than every other day. The climbing, hiking, hauling, cleaning, it just all adds up into a rest day after a day on Yam.

On Wed. Kevin and I had a go at it, and managed to redpoint the second pitch, likely the hardest on the route. We then headed up to pitch five (third "hard" pitch for me), which had me pretty freaked out, I sent down a lot of big flakes but there was one on there that seemed suspect and possily rope-cutterish... With Kevin on the belay I was able to send the flake down in large pieces, amazing to watch coffee-table size rocks fall 500 feet to the scree, it just winds me up every time. We do a double-check on the trail before every rock goes down, the possibilities are horrifying (we're just doing big cleaning on week days). I managed to almost redpoint pitch five after the cleaning session, but it took a mental leap to start just dynoing and really climbing. I pitched off near the anchor, there's a heart-breaker last move on the smooth side of a dihredal, but I was super-psyched to put most of it together. It's so hard for me to go from drilling off hooks and sending down big blocks to busting out wild moves, but the climbing sort of sucks me in once I get going, the exposure becomes less relevant and the joy of the movement takes over. Until a hold breaks... Kevin did well on the fourth pitch, it's sure fun to watch other people get excited about the pitches we've worked on to clean up into decent climbing. I had another battle cleaning the sixth pitch, but figured out how to do almost all of the moves, it has the potential to be the hardest pitch on the climb to redpoint I think...

Today (Friday) Cory and I went back, it's his day five and my day six on the route this year. We opted to try rapping off the top to clean up what Raph and I had rap-bolted four years ago. That all went well and relatively quickly as the rock is generally excellent, still vertical to overhaning but with good holds when needed. We had planned to try and redpoint pitches 5-8, but it got more complicated when we discovered that a 70M rope hung totally free from the top of the sixth pitch... This climb is steep! Eventually Cory and I managed to get established down on the "lunch ledge" below pitch 4 and he had a good go on pitch 4, he'll redpoint it soon. I top-roped up behind him to warm up and then had a battle to send pitch 5, it has so much good climbing on it, three distinct cruxes--one power to get over a roof/corner, one super-tech but overhanging, and one desperate finishing "overhanging slab." From the ground it seems so unlikely that any line could go through those roofs, but with a lot of dihedral climbing and monkeying about it works! It took all I could do to finish pitch 5 off to the anchor stance on redpoint, one of those fingers uncurling on a jug battles, super fun (all anchors are at hands-free stances). Cory followed it, and then I had a go at pitch six, which slapped me around. Multiple cruxes, crazy three-dimensional moves, I think it's my favorite pitch on the climb so far. The final moves go from the wild overhangs of the roof pitches onto the 300-foot headwall at the top, which should be more reasonable, but there's a real bastard of a move to get established on the headwall, it took me some time to figure it out. It seems sort of V5ish, not so hard on the ground with a nice mat and a cold drink, but after all the earlier climbing on pitch six, well, it took all I had to sort it out on the dog. The last two pitches should go at more or less 5.11-low-end 5.12, or at least I hope they do, there is just so much intensive climbing on this route!

Tonight I'm just pounded, but looking forward to starting serious redpoint burns soon. I hope this route becomes popular and makes others laugh with the exposure and climbing as we have, the moves and crazy positions (at one point you do a big step-out onto a good hold with about 700 feet of nothing but air directly below the toes!) are unlike anything I've ever climbed, so much damn fun! The fall colors add to the scene too, when we first went up on on the route the trees in the valley were just showing hints of yellow, now the leaves are mostly on the ground with only the rare renegade tree flying brilliant colors. Fall is a glorious season, my favorite in the mountains, the blue sky, yellow leaves, it's like a perfect desert or cold beer for the mind. It's days like these I've had on Yam this season that help make life worthwhile for me, climbing is awesome, I feel damn lucky to have these days in the memory bank. Now it's time to try a bottom-to-top ascent; I'd be OK with doing it in sequence over a couple of days, but it would be cooler to send it all in a day. I've done bigger routes on perfect rock, but Yam has it's own vibe, it seems to take more to climb hard up there for me, but the rewards are so good.

WG

PS--thanks for the notes, it motivates me to write these ramblings and share the joy of Yamineering.

Also, we planned to climb back to the top but didn't have time, so we left Cory's pack on top of the route... Please leave it there if you're in the area. I also tried to remove the misplaced bolt on Balrog the other day but destroyed a crowbar in the process, I'm heading back up with a hacksaw and some expoxy for the hole next go. The crowbar did a BASE jump, let me know if you find it...

Yamnineering--Connection!

Well, after the snow melted out around here Cory and I got back up on Yam for another couple of days of it. On Saturday we cleaned the fifth pitch and bolted the sixth pitch--both are crazy steep and technical, the rocks I was dropping (after checking to make sure there was nobody on the trail below!) went all the way to the scree, that's about 700 feet of free fall! Cleaning and bolting on lead were a bit sketchy as many of the blocks were directly over my head, the position and "freak factor" was really high. Sooner or later I'm going to learn to relax up there, right now it's still a bit much. Some of the blocks are so big that I'm worried the whole damn climb is going to fall off the face of Yam--not likely, but that's the sort of scenarios that start running through my mind... But the cool part was connecting into a bolt from the "low point," the spot where Raph and I had rap-bolted to about five years ago. I was fully freaked out from drilling off hooks on lead, it was mega to reach up and clip a pre-existing bolt just as it got dark. I then started to fix the rope and rap off into the dark, but was so freaked that I put in another bolt, couldn't see doing it off one bolt. One bolt can look mighty insignifcant when preparing to rap off it in the twilight WAY over the ground... Two just felt so much nicer.


Yesterday the climbing started to feel reasonable for the first time, I worked the second pitch (Big Ass Roof) and was able to put it together in big links. It's a very physical pitch, but the biggest difference is that I finally started to relax and enjoy the climbing instead of hanging on for dear life. The exposure is wild--it doesn't make much different above about 100 feet whether there's 100 or 500 feet of air below your feet, but my mind just doesn't listen to logic. I finally started to forget about the air below, handholds breaking, the rope getting cut on some edge (very blocky climbing, the rope is always over an edge) and all the other worries and just focus on the movement. Sarah, a strong local Canmore climber, came up to sample the climb, it was good to get her perspective on the moves as she has climbed a lot on Yam. Cory took some photos as well, I'm fired up to see them, get more of an open perspective on the climbing instead of, "How the hell do I reach the next hold?" I managed to redpoint the fourth pitch at around 12c, it's bouldery but with a good sequence not so bad, just gunning through moves to keep the pump at bay. I think it's the best pitch I've ever climbed on Yam, good rock and stellar position, it fired me up. I also worked the fifth pitch a bit, I was concerned it wouldn't go but managed to do all the moves including a super-thin dihedral at the just before the belay. That sequence has the potential to be a heart-breaker on the eventual redpoint--you could get through the inital overhanging thuggery, clean the loose section with small holds,then fly off if a foot blew at the every end of the pitch. The climbing is super-technical due to the three-dimensional nature of the rock--foot way over there, oppose here, dyno there, it's a bit like Rifle mixed with Malham in England with a touch of Thai-style three-dimension or something, it's different than any other limestone climbing I've done. The rock is generally OK, but rope-drag is a problem because the line seldom goes straight up, it's all over the place, like a three-dimensional maze for human rats. We hope to go back up tomorrow and work on some more cleaning, I can't manage two days in a row because the whole experience is so physical it just destroys my body--I've got some elbow tendonitis and a tweaked finger, it's a race against winter and physical injury to get this rig done. It will be eight pitches, with only one of 5.10 to start...

PS--dD just sent me this link, holy shit!

Snow, Plastic, Yamnation

The last day of the HERA event started in the gym again due to the occasional rain squalls and general cold (40 degrees according to a bank sign...) weather. My group went to the Front gym, and beat ourselves silly for a few hours. I love plastic bouldering, it just winds me up every time. Some people deride plastic climbing as "boring." Over the years I've found that most people who don't enjoy plastic can be slotted into one of two basic camps: The unimaginative, who see only plastic dots and tape and not the fantastic movement between them, and the weak, who find the distilled strength of plastic bouldering ego-destroying. I can always go climb somewhat difficult routes (for me that's 5.11) even after six months of turning into a sloth while sitting under my paraglider, but I'll get slapped down by the junior youth team's warm-up problems in the gym after a long absence... Plastic demands power and skilled movement, most rock climbing up to about 5.something demands skilled movement. I'll always take a good day of climbing outside over climbing plastic, but my life is often a mess of time problems and work projects, plastic satiates my climbing lust. Anyhow, I like plastic, it was fun to share that enjoyment with the HERA women, one of whom is a bit older and hadn't done much plastic bouldering but was sending by the end of the morning with a smile, cool.

In the afternoon a brief sunhsine patch suckered us into Little Cottonwood, where we had at a classic corner in the Dihderals area. It wasn't too difficult, 5.7 or something, but it was wet and it started sleeting pretty heavily by the top of it, I was kind of sketched out clearing the slush out of the crack with my feet on wet granite, 5.7 can be pretty damn hard some days. Our group was down to 2, but they both sent it, thanks to Dave for all the help, getting out and doing that route wouldn't have happened with his enthusiasm despite the weather. On the flight home through Denver the Wasatch was covered in snow, I kept expecting to see tracks in some bowl, same for the Rockies all the way home to Canmore. There's still snow in my yard, the only one who seems psyched is the dog...

We're off the Yamnation project until the weather improves, which it looks like it might for Saturday and Sunday, we'll see. I've had a couple of decent short sessions outside and at the gym, but I'm fighting a bit of a tendon tweak and also something in my elbow. I can always tell when I'm at my peak fitness, it's a delicate dance between climbing too much and getting really injured, or not climbing enough and starting the slide away from top fitness.

Yesterday we actually made it to the Yam parking lot before realizing we were too late (funny how coffee can turn into coffees...), we simply didn't have the fire and thought the cliff would be under snow. It wasn't, we could likely have climbed a bit before the weather totally went to hell. We set up the spotting scope and could actually see one of the bolts from our "low" point, it looks like it's only about 10M from our "high" point, so that fired us up a bit, linkage is close. I think we have a minimum of four more days to get the route done, one to bolt/work the lower pitches, then another for final tweaking, then two more to redpoint the rig. I'm learning each pitch as we climb to the high point and then bolt a bit, but most seem really hard. I want to get this rig done before winter sets in like a frozen skating rink, I don't know when the next time will be that I have this level of fitness... The last time I could onsight and redpoint well on rock was about 2001, so it might be a while. Pressure is good.

HERA, Salt Lake City

I'm down in Salt Lake City to help out with an event for HERA, a group of climbers and friends dedicated to raising money for ovarian cancer research. Cancer has been on my mind a lot lately as a good friend is currently fighting it, my family has been smacked around by it over the years, and it's suddenly seemingly everywhere. I take strength from my friends and family who have fought it off, and others who fought hard against a strong foe. HERA is a cool group of people united against something big, it's good to be a part of it. HERA has a large climbing component, and while I love climbing it's ultimately a somewhat hedonistic thing to do. It's nice to see the energy of climbing pooled and focused to swing some blows against cancer. The group down here has raised over $140,000.

I've been running non-stop since I arrived here, various events and the added confusion of getting rear-ended in a rainstorm. It's the first accident I've been involved with in about 20 years--no serious damage to any people, but the rental car isn't looking so new anymore. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt, but if the three-car pileup had gone a little sideways I could have wound up in the oncoming traffic. Getting randomly slapped around by the universe make me think about the fragility of our lives, even doing something (as compared to a lot of the other stuff in the adventure' junkie's life) safe like driving on a city street. I was stopped behind a car that was turning left when a young guy just blew it and stacked into the car behind me, which then hit my Hyundai rental... It was a really intricate loud noise, and my neck is a bit cranked but seems to be OK. The other two drivers were nice people, and it turned into a bit of a funny situation as we stood around in the rain waiting for the cops and tow trucks. I think we were all relieved that it worked out OK--all three cars were small, I shudder to think what have happened if we had been hit by an F350 crew cab instead of a small car. I'm suddenly a lot more paranoid about driving, there was nothing I could do to prevent the accident as I was stopped and boxed in. The impact force was impressive to experience.

Today we took our HERA group into the climbing gym as the thunderstorms were booming, and got worked. I had the pleasure of bouldering with a very young guy (early teens? 12?) who was strong as all hell and climbing brilliantly. It was cool to watch his rubber-like limbs flail upward with some sort of weird kid-precision movement, as though a force field of lower gravity and less inertia turned on when he pulled off the ground. We were working on a sloper problem from hell and both getting slapped around when I got frustrated and said, "Sheesh, I suck!" The kid looked at me with a clear smile and said, "No, you don't suck, I don't suck, we just haven't done this yet." The kid's comment hit home. We don't suck 'cause we can't do a problem, we just can't do it right then, and the problem has no bearing on the overall scheme of life. I liked that. He did the problem a few tries later, while I just haven't done it yet. Thanks for the wisdom young master...

Yamnineering

I really like putting up new routes, whether it's rock, ice, mixed or alpine. There's just something fun about heading up into totally unknown terrain that's fired me up for over 20 years. The best new routes follow amazing lines into the sky through slight weaknesses in a mountain's best defenses. Raphael and I started work on a line up the steepest part of Yamnuska about eight years ago (just right of Balrog). We averaged slightly less than a pitch each fall as we started to get fit for rock climbing, then the snow would fly and we would think, "Next spring we'll get that one done!" But then spring rolled around and we were fit for hanging off ice tools but not small edges, and it became a fall project again, repeat for the last eight years. Raph and I managed about five trips up Yam, plus I got up there once with Kevin W. on a bitterly cold day, but nothing has been done for the last two years. This year I have some decent rock fitness at the end of the summer, so I'm fired up to make some progress...

This fall I've managed to get two good days into the Yam project, both with Cory, while Raph is building rock strength after an alpine trip to Pakistan. The first day ("Yam Day 7") we cleaned up the first five pitches, took down old fixed ropes (nobody had been high on the route for almost four years, and the ropes we had fixed were trashed) and worked the moves on the hard pitches, which is everything after the first two. It was a long, hard day complicated by having to haul a drill, two batteries, four ropes, a rack of normal gear plus pins, etc. up to a ledge at the top of pitch four. The climbing is really hard, continuous 5.11-5.13, and it just beat the hell out of us in a satisfying way.

Yesterday (Yam Day 8) Cory and I went up again. The weather was cold in Canmore in the morning, down jackets and heat on in the car cold, but warmed up to scorching in the sun by the time we hit the big ledge where our haul bags were. The first crux pitch, which we're calling the Big Ass Roof, or BAR for short, felt good, I linked it together with a few hangs. It's full-on swinging in space thuggery between decent holds, with a lot of exposure. The fourth pitch is supposed to be relatively easy, but it's run out and technical 5.11+, I had to grab a draw at one point when I rushed the super-technical movement.

We managed to bolt another 30M above our high point--it's a wild position, drop a rock and it goes 200M to the scree below. Bolting on lead is always an adventure--I wanted to space the bolts farther apart than just a bolt ladder, so on terrain that steep it meant drilling off of sketchy hooks or bad blades, spurts of free climbing with a heavy drill and rack to a sketchy stance, just full-on combat. As the sun set I put in a belay about 20M from the lip of the big roof section and fixed a static, it's a crazy-ass place up there! A few years ago Raph and I broke with ethics after one of Yam's illustrious pioneers asked, "Why are you bolting ground up? Wouldn't it be more logical to do that on rap?" We had felt honor-bound to bolt grond up to that point, but our defenses fell apart like wet bread... We hiked to the top of our route and rap-bolted two pitches, but were then unable to continue rap-bolting down through the roofs, it's just too steep. We called our rap-down point our "low point," it just didn't seem the same and in retrospect I'd like to have bolted the whole thing on lead. Now we're only about 20M from reaching our "low point," but can't tell where it is--there's a good chance we'll pop out of the roofs in a different place than we intended to, the mid-section of the route is a maze of massive roofs and corners with no reference. The remaining 20M of climbing looks (again!) super steep and powerful. The 5th and 6th pitches have the most amazing exposure I've ever felt on a climb, swinging out roofs, delicate arettes, I keep hanging on too tight--that's an instinct that will need to be overcome for free-climbing success. Most of the rock is good, but it wouldn't be Yamineering without some quality choss--I took a good 25-footer when a handhold broke the the other day, it's always exciting on Yam!

This is probably the last trip up Yam this week as I'm heading down to Utah to help out with a HERA climbing event on Thursday, and the weather is supposed to be poor tomorrow. Cory and I talked about heading up again today, but we're both destroyed. I have intricate bruises on my hips and shoulder from aiding and climbing with all the weight, plus my skin is again thrased. My lead took two hours to get 30M of new route done, thanks to Cory for his patience and enthusiasm, it's hard to find partners who are up for the commitment level of big-walling on limestone. We staggered down the trail last night with various ailments ranging from suburn to mangled feet, it's rare to feel that pounded. Only another 20M to go, and then it will be time to try and redpoint nine pitches of climbing, of which at least four are hard 5.12 or 5.13, and all the rest 5.11 except for the short opening pitch. It's a lot of climbing to do free in one day... Let's hope the weather holds into October, it's going to take some time.

We've also got some re-organizing to do, including getting rid of a bolt we mistakenly placed on Balrog for a belay on an early attempt. Balrog should not have bolts added to it obviously, so that will be coming out, my apologies to anyone who was bothered by the bolt.

Sun Valley Final

Sun Valley was a hell of a lot of fun, with five solid flying days out of seven, amazing conditions. Paragliding comps are always good fun when the flying is on, if all comps were like Sun Valley I'd go to everyone, it's always a total learning experience. I didn't do all that well, but then again none of last year's top five were in the top five this year. I'm going to do some thinking about paragliding comps, mainly along the lines of, "Are they totally random or can a pilot figure out how to win them regularly?" Hang Gliding competitions generally have one or two pilots who manage to place on the podium, but paragliding comps generally produce wildly variable results. I don't know what the difference is,but I'd like to figure it out. Thanks to all the pilots at Sun Valley, the meet organizers and the crew I hung out with, it was fun!

On Sunday we took another go at the Lava Tube on the way home, I sent the thugfest 5.13 that had been slapping me around. Although I was only able to climb three days in 10 I don't think I lost a tremendous amount of fitness, it felt good on the redpoint even though my skin was tattered. Dave Bingham reportedly opened up the routes in the Lava Tube, thanks for doing that, we had an awesome time there. It was crazy hot Sunday, but the tube was still nice and cool, strange to feel the temp go from about 95 on the surface down to about 60 in the very bottom of the cave, you actually had to wear a sweatshirt belaying. Amazing.

I'm back at home and aiming for a route I've been working on Yamnuska, it's a big rig with many hard pitches, the focus is now fitness and work to get it done.

Sun Valley Task 4

Still cold here, so another late start with relatively stable conditions. The last two tasks have involved flying across the main valley and then over a small pass, and yesterday was the same program except we couldn't get very high on launch, so made the first glide a bit low. I worked hard at launch to get high, but it just wasn't there. I started a bit behind the main gaggle, but basically just flew straight across the valley and only worked the strong lift, and soon found myself at the top of the lead gaggle as we got ready for the pass. One glider got out in front and it seemed to be working for him, so I went into chase mode. The climbs were working really well for me, and soon I was a thermal and glide ahead of the lead gaggle and catching what turned out to be Josh Waldrop. The first turpoint was at about 40K, Wildcat Mountain, and we'd had a battle going south from there on task 3 so I was a bit nervous, especially after watching Waldrop sink out under me. But the climbs were working really well to this point... I waited for one full thermal cycle for the gaggle to catch up to me, only to see Eric Reed and Keith Mac come in under me and sink out. I really wanted someone to fly with for the section south of Wildcat, but with Josh, Eric and Keith gone I started slowly working south figuring the lead gaggle would catch me shortly, but they got stuck on Wildcat... The air felt much more stable, and I just wasn't connecting with good climbs. I bobbled along then got flushed down the side of the ridge into Copper Basin without hitting anything going up--4,000 feet of sink, crazy. A few other people got flushed with slightly more altitude than me and climbed out over my head, then I watched the entire lead gaggle fly slowly over my head, cautiously circling and moving slowly. It's moments like these that can drive me to madness in paragliding comps...

I should have waited for the gaggle, I knew the next 40K would be tough, but it's hard to go from race mode to caution mode. I did slow down, but in that kind of stable air a gaggle is the only way through. File it under lessons learned. Josh Cohn and one other pilot made it to goal, good work!

I'm now out of the hunt for any sort of top-five placing--I really need to compete more regulary to do well, I haven't been focused on paragliding competitions this year and it shows. We might have one more task today, that would be fun!

Task 3 Sun Valley

It's really cold here--yesterday morning the sprinklers were encasing the green lawns in ice as we drove into Sun Valley. Launch was moved back an hour to let things warm up, but the thermals were still pretty weak as we slowly climbed out. I was quite concerned with the winds aloft, which were predicted to be very strong. I've flown enough in Idaho to know that high winds aloft can sometimes drop down to the ground and provide a high-quality ass-kicking. We went over Trail Creek again, and there was a bit of a shear at around 11,000 feet but nothing too nasty. Overall the air was substantially more "growly" than it had been on task 2--Brian commented, "It's clear that when launch is nasty the air is nice, and when launch is nice the air is nasty." Weird.

We had a good aggressive pace going to about the 40K mark, when the day really slowed down. A few pilots went to 17,000 feet and did a long glide to goal, but most of of us battled for the last 20K. I could see there was a valley wind at goal, so took my final climb until my 5020 said I had goal at a 4:1 glide. Of course I came in 2000 feet over the ground like an idiot (waste of time), but I was not going to come up short on my final glide as several pilots did. The Red Bull six-wheel drive vehicle was there with music and a barbecue, pretty good scene. I haven't seen yesterday's results, but things are going to be shaken up pretty seriously due to the top two pilots not making goal. Matt Dadam is likely in first, he had a great day, as did Tom McCune and the hungry Josh Cohn. It was another crazy good day of flying here, and today and tomorrow are both supposed to be better. I'm packing more clothes today, it was below freezing at 14,000 feet, my feet are stil cold. Nicole McLearn had an interesting landing and hike out, we were a bit worried until she finally showed up around 10:00 last night, her story is here. Time to go up the hill and get it on again!

Sun Valley Winds

A big cold front is rolling through Sun Valley along with the usual high winds, which put a stop to the meet for the last two days. That's OK, as it was time for another climbing day--we've had three days off from climbing to let our skin heal. We gathered up a good posse of grounded pilots and friends and went back into the lava tube yesterday. It's still hard to believe there's a good climbing area out there in the flat sage brush, but the tube again delivered a lot of desperate pumped climbing and shredded skin. I managed to onsight the remaining 5.12 I hadn't done thanks to some good crowd particpation---I kept blindly dynoing over a lip to a hidden hold, guided by the yells from the crew "An inch higher!" "An inch right!" "No, you halfwit, the OTHER right!" It was comedy. A lively debate ensued about whether an onsight still counted as such with people yelling hold locations to me--none of the crowd had done the route or seen anyone on it, so they couldn't exactly give me beta, but on the other hand it wasn't entirely my skills that got me up it... The debate was solved with beer, I forget how, but that sure was a fun climb, made more so by the group participation. We all shredded our skin to the point where it was impossile to hang onto the sharp basalt for even one more route. I did battle with the tube's hardest established line and got reasonably far on the on-sight before pitching off, a great pump. Lots of fun in a hole in the ground. It's still blowing a hoolie today, so we're going hiking, BASE jumping (not me, I'm done with it), working, etc.

There are some good photos of the PG meet from John Clifford up here, as well as results here. I'm back in a reasonable 9th place and only 230 points out of first after two days, but I know the pace is going to be aggressive the next flying day, a lot of the top pilots failed to make goal last task day and will be in full starving dog-pack mood when we get to fly. The complaint over the conditions on the last task day was resolved, primarily by the big smiles of everyone who got out on course and found the conditions big but definitely reasonable. I have no idea why it was that windy on launch, it was one of the best days of mountain flying I've ever had, just a bit weird off of launch. I'm hoping for three more big tasks, but if we can just get two more flown after the front passes I'd be happy. We need to fly tomorrow or we'll have to go climbing again, it sure does suck to be here in Idaho, grin...

U.S. Paragliding Nationals, lava tubes

Sun Valley, site of one this year's US paragliding Nationals, is one of those ultra-rich resort towns in an incredible place. Kim and I arrived a couple of days early to fly, but the first day was too windy so we went for a hike and then headed down south to a very unusual climbing area--a lava tube. There are no mountains around the lava tube, just a huge flat sage brush plain for as far as the eye can see. We couldn't believe there was climbing there, it was odd to walk through the sage and find a pit in the ground. The climbing was super-steep thuggery out the side of the pit, lots of fun. We had a good crew and a good session, only leaving at sunset with lots of ripped skin and sore muscles. I was psyched to send two hard routes (for me), I'm starting to climb decently again and it's a lot of fun.

Day one of the nationals was fantastic, about a 100K task north over the mountains. I was slightly in front of the field as neared about the 15K mark, and had to choose between taking the line with clouds or staying close to the road. I went for a line directly over the heart of the Sawtooths with Len, and the next two hours were simply stunning flying from cloud to cloud with nothing but alpine lakes and big granite cliffs below us. Unfortunately our line was less direct and we ended up being a bit slower to goal, but just flying over such stunning alpine terrain was absolutely worth it. Len landed a bit short of goal, but I was paranoid about my final glide and worked a last thermal higher than I needed to before going on glide and made it in a bit late but with tons of altitude. I'd rate the flight along the Sawtooths one of the top ten flights of my life--I saw a hundred places that I need to visit, and I like flying deep in the mountains. It would have been a very full day walk out if we hadn't found the next thermal, but I was loving the terrain and wouldn't really have minded a nice walk out. Len and I never got low, and of course my oxygen system promptly stopped working so I spent a lot of the day over 15,000 and had a hypoxia headache at the end of the day. Well worth it.

Day two brought an even longer task--125K to the west and north. Launch conditions were a bit erratic and windy, but I watched the pilots in the air and it looked OK so I launched. Unfortunately I just couldn't connect with a good climb for the next 30 minutes. I was wondering why some pilots weren't launching as it was a bit windy but not too bad, I think the combination of less than stellar launch conditions and the prospect of a long task preyed on peopele's minds. Flying is mental, it's always a trick to correctly match one's perception of the conditions with the reality. I know conditions over launch were reasonable as I had to take a pee, so if the glider flew fine for a few minutes without input then it wasn't that whacky.

On course it was tricky as the tops of the climbs weren't that high, and we struggled a bit to get established after crossing the first valley. The first turnpoint took down most of the lead gaggle, and I came in just as they were dirting. I had one of those stupid lucky thermals low and got out with Brian and Dean, then went on one of the most entertaining flights I've had in a long time. We cut the corner between the roads, and were, as they say around here, "deep." The terrain was sun-blasted sage and rolling hills so landing would have been OK, but we were for sure a 20K walk from any reasonable road. Even at 16,000 we would have had a long walk... But there was a good cloud street, so deep we went, and the clouds worked perfectly. About 20km from goal I got low on a after a valley cross, and for some reason it just didn't work despite being perfectly west facing... I realized as I sunk lower and lower that I didn't have a glide out of the bowl I was in, but it was possible to slope-land if I had to. It was frustrating to watch Brian and Dean fly away at base, I'm not sure if I was tired or just had a bit of bad luck. In the end I grovelled out and made it to goal for the longest comp task I'd ever flown, and possibly in US paragliding history. Pretty cool, about 12 people made it in, with Abby, who flew most of the task by himself, winning the day. Nice one Abby!

Unfortunately there was a formal complaint about the launch conditions, and an effort to get the day cancelled. Conditions were a bit windy and messy, but it was far safer yesterday on the Baldy launch than it normally is at other "big" sites such as Chelan. You had to wait for a reasonable cycle to launch in, but there wasn't much chaos once in the air--I'd say the air over launch was mellower than it had been the first day, but the perception on the ground was that it was bad so about 30 people didn't launch. I respect their decision, but the complaint was a bit much given that the air was fine. Each of the previous two days of flying had brough at least one reserve ride and injury, yesterday was totally safe, so I think the people who didn't fly made a good decision for them. I'm not sure Sun Valley is the best place for a non-selective paragliding competition--it's fine for those who enjoy flying "deep" and are used to high-altitude big-air flying, but it's full-on flying for sure. In the end each paragliding day, whether in a competition or not, is up to individual pilots to evaluate. Those who didn't fly yesterday lower the potential points for the day, so that's a legitmate form of saying, "Conditions were more than I wanted to do battle with."

Today is blown out, so we're going back to the lava tubes for another afternoon of skin shredding action!

An Interesting Day in the Media

I'm a news junkie, and today the habit is getting fed with some very interesting news.

First up, a US Federal Judge has ruled that President Bush's NSA surveillance program is unconstitutional, and in even simpler language, flat-out illegal. This is a slight sign of sanity from the US, and I am actually rejoicing in the news. Bush has long held himself above the law, aruging he can do whatever the hell he wants with the pretext of fighting terrorism. I read a lot about his eavesdropping program and it seemed clearly illegal, but I had about given up on the US ever reigning the Bush adminstration in. Well, it doesn't get much clearer than the judge's words: The program "violates the separation of powers doctrine, the Administrative Procedures Act, the First and Fourth amendments to the United States Constitution, the FISA and Title III." Hell yeah! Finally it's clear that actual freedom counts for something in the US, and that turning into a police state to fight terrorism is no victory for actual freedom. It's time to impeach George Bush, a fitting end to the worst presidency in US history.

Second, I lived down in Boulder when a little girl named Jon Benet Ramsey was murdered. It was huge mainstream news and tabloid fodder for years. We all speculated about the case--I used to ride my bike by the house regularly on the way up to the mountains, it was beyond weird. Today some psycho teaching school in Thailand confessed to the murder. It all seems a bit weird to me and I'm curious what actually happens in the long run, but if true this confession answers some questions and removes the huge cloud of suspicion that had lingered over the heads of her parents.

Now it's time to go climbing, but the net is pretty damn interesting this morning.

In praise of pointless behaviour

I've done several stellarly pointless things lately. The first involved a bouldering session up an obscure drainage. It wasn't Bishop, it wasn't Joe's Valley, but it was a super fun afternoon. My bud has created terraced landings with engineering skills that would have make any red-blooded man grin. Perhaps one day archaeologists will spot the terraces and wonder about the obscure religious rituals practiced by early twenty-first century Bow Valley residents...

Paragliding yesterday was also really, really pointless. On launch I loaded a sleeping bag, food for two days, insect repellant, maps of the entire Rockies for 300K in every direction and a big bag of food into my paragliding harness. Perfect cumulus clouds filled the sky, it looked epic, and I planned to go big. There are a couple of deep wilderness flights I've wanted to try, the kind where you could spend a couple of days walking out if you couldn't find the next thermal and went down deep in the range. This year has been frustrating for big flights at Golden, but finally base was high and it looked ON. I launched and spent the next hour scratching 20 feet over the trees before landing in the normal LZ with all my gear. I tried again later that day and sunk out again, the first time I've ever failed to get up reasonably high when launching mid-day from Golden. I'm pretty goal oriented--pick a mission that looks cool, do it. Yesterday no mission was accomplished, in fact it was the least rad paragliding I've done in years, and it was super fun. We did handstands in the LZ and threw the ball for Chili until she and we collapsed. Somewhere in there is a metaphor--Chili has chased the ball thousands of times but still goes at it with total abandon and joy. I've sat in LZs around the world and still like it. Both activities are pointless, but it's the sheer fun of doing them that makes them worthwhile. Someone made the point that a lot of the world is a mess, and that we're incredibly lucky to have days where we can do exactly what we want all damn day. Doing something pointless is the finest expression of luxury and freedom that I know.

So here's to doing pointless stuff, whatever it is.

wg

More Race Willi

This page has all the scores, plus some notes and links to various commentary and some photos.

Thanks to everyone who flew in the Willi, both HG and PG pilots, it was a lot of fun.

WG

Race Willi Paragliding Comp

I've been in Golden running the Race Willi Paragliding competition, a five-day event held in conjunction with the Willi XC event. It's been a really fun five days, with four good competition days. Right now we're downloading the GPS tracks and scoring the last day, I'll put up a link when it's all done. I haven't run a meet in almost 10 years, this one was generally a pleasure thanks to the collective effort. Some competitions are high-stress, this one followed the Willi XC style of "Get it done, have fun, fly safe." Randy Parkin has run the Willi XC for the last few years, and as usual he cooked, flew, and generally kept things happening. Without the Willi XC the Race Willi would never have happened, nor been half as much fun. Where else can you get breakfast every morning, a couple of free dinners and two comps for under $100? Bill Hughes did all the scoring, Kim was co "meet head," it all worked out. We hope to run it next year, it was a good experience thanks to all the help we had frome everyone here.

-wg

The Tour de France sucks

OK, this is a disgression from the normal mountain sports action--I really enjoyed watching the Tour de France this year. I don't even own a road bike anymore, I just like watching the Tour. It was a real race this year for the first time I've watched it, with many leader changes, lots of drama, everything a great sporting event should be. Watching Floyd Landis was pretty damn entertaining, especially after Lance Armstrong's "I am the ice man" routine. Floyd has a bit of country in him, a lot of the geeky bike guy, and a bit of everyman. His collapse and recovery in the Tour was spectacular and heart-warming, which makes the doping results all the more maddening. It's like getting done wrong by a friend--we all expect to get worked by used car salesmen so it's OK, but when a bud does you wrong it feels worse. I cheered for Floyd, and the bastard let me down. "Wait!", says Floyd, "the Tour is making a mistake!" Well, if he didn't cheat and is actually innocent then the Tour de France is a joke--it's either one or the other, and both smell like the ass-end of a rhino. Today the media is reporting that the testosterone found in Floyd isn't the same type his body produces, and that he was almost three times over the limit. If this were a drunk driving case he would have been way too drunk to open the door, never mind drive. It's not a borderline case anymore, so either Floyd was doped to his eyebrows or the Tour de France is making a horrendous mistake. Either way the Tour sucks. Maybe it's time to stop the charade of heart-warming victories and admit road racing is like body-building on 26-inch wheels. "Take all the drugs you want, let's see who can mix the right cocktail for today's stage! See a man ride with blood like honey from all the EPO! See quads explode on live TV!"

Tyler Hamilton says he's innocent also. Either these guys are con artists who have had their scams exposed, or drug testing is ridiculous. Either "truth" stinks.

We will now resume the mountain sports commentary...

Workouts:

I've been climbing a ton, Yoga, even starting to run again. For the last three weeks I've battled this sinus infection, it's just now totally clearing out. I'd forgotten what it was like to smell anything.

Will Gadd, drug-free but revved well past the sane limit on Red Bull.

Sport Climbing, Grades

It's been a great summer in the Canadian Rockies for sport climbing. I've been having these "give 'er" weeks followed by rest weeks due to paragliding or sickness, it's been a lot of fun and my general level is slowly coming up despite the erratic training schedule. About a month ago Utah Scott and I went up to Cougar Creek to the legendary Planet X crag, which took some finding but was well worth it. I think it's the best "hard" crag I've climbed at in Canada, both for the climbing and position. It's also the most "Rifle-like" crag I've climbed on, lots of funk body position and long, continuous routes. I've now done four trips to Planet X, it's my favorite crag for sure. Right now there are only four routes on the overhanging 30M wall, all 12d or harder, with lots of ropes dangling on projects. One project went down yesterday, when Derek sent the rig he had been working on with BC Scott. Likely 14a or so, damn hard looking, congrats to Derek and good luck to Scott, watching these guys climb is inspirational. I'm working Packer, 5.hard for me, yesterday was good 'cause I was finally able to do all the moves and clips thanks to beta from Derek and Scott, who opened the route. I've only climbed one other route of that grade, it's beat me up. It's going to take some time to develop the stamina--generally I get two burns in on Packer and a few others on the mega-classic Shooting Star and Sticky Buns. All the routes are a full 30M, generally 5.11 or easy 5.12 to start and then about 15M of "business." Today my tips and back are blown apart, feels good. Yesterday was almost crowded--there were seven people up there! I haven't sport climbed seriously in about five years, it's fun to get back into it with a motivated crew. Thanks to everybody I've been going up there with, I'm fired up. Paragliding will inevitably get in the way to some extent, it's always a bit of a conflict but this time of year air will always win over rock until about September, but I'm staying after it enough to develop fitness again.

Bow Valley Grade Commentary:

Most of the grades around here are pretty solid, but I've noticed a general grade creep going on in the Bow Valley over the last few years. The new guidebook up-rated some routes a letter grade or two. Some of the classic 12+ routes such as Tintin are now 13a despite being classic 12+ for many years. There's always some grading confusion at every area, but it seems like there's a trend to call many 5.12 routes 5.13. Stygian Ayre is a classic example of this, it's 12c or maybe D max, yet it's become a popular "13a" despite being a short boulder problem. Grades don't matter in the sense of world peace, but they should be reflective of a climb's redpoint difficulty and bear some relation to grades around the world. The flip side of over-grading is under-grading; if you get a route wired enough it may feel easy. Some of the Grassi routes are starting to suffer this syndrome; get some of the 5.12a or b routes hideously wired and they do feel 5.11, but that's not how to rate a route either. To get a valid grade on a route takes a fair number of redpoint ascents by people who climb that grade reguarly. I think what's happening in the Bow Valley is that some people are rating routes based on quick comparisons to one or two other routes roughly in the same grade, not a broad spectrum of routes. Using the softest possible example of a 13a to justify upgrading multiple 12d routes to 13a also doesn't make sense; better to more realistically down-rate the soft 13a to 12d. Grade bitch mode off, give 'er.

Aviation Rules

The following list is from an Australian Aviation mag, my mom sent them to me, good advice:

RULES OF THE AIR


1. Every takeoff is optional. Every landing is mandatory.

2. If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger. If you pull the stick back, they get smaller. That is, unless you keep pulling the stick all the way back, then they get bigger again.

3. Flying isn't dangerous. Crashing is what's dangerous.

4. It's always better to be down here wishing you were up there than up there wishing you were down here.

5. The ONLY time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

6. The propeller is just a big fan in front of the plane used to keep the pilot cool. When it stops, you can actually watch the pilot start sweating.

7. When in doubt, hold on to your altitude. No-one has ever collided with the sky.

8. A 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away. A 'great' landing is one after which they can use the plane again.

9. Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself.

10. You know you've landed with the wheels up if it takes full power to taxi to the ramp.

11. The probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival. Large angle of arrival, small probability of survival and vice versa.

12. Never let an aircraft take you somewhere your brain didn't get to five minutes earlier.

13. Stay out of clouds. The silver lining everyone keeps talking about might be another airplane going in the opposite direction. Reliable sources also report that mountains have been known to hide out in clouds.

14. Always try to keep the number of landings you make equal to the number of take offs you've made.

15. There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.

16. You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck.

17. Helicopters can't fly; they're just so ugly the earth repels them.

18. If all you can see out of the window is ground that's going round and round and all you can hear is commotion coming from the passenger compartment, things are not at all as they should be.

19. In the ongoing battle between objects made of aluminum going hundreds of miles per hour and the ground going zero miles per hour, the ground has yet to lose.

20. Good judgment comes from experience. Unfortunately, the experience usually comes from bad judgment.

21. It's always a good idea to keep the pointy end going forward.

22. Keep looking around. There's always something you've missed.

23. Remember, gravity is not just a good idea. It's the law. And it's not subject to repeal.

24. The three most useless things to a pilot are the altitude above you, runway behind you, and a tenth of a second ago.

25. There are old pilots and there are bold pilots. There are, however, no old, bold pilots.

Golden July 21

Kim and I have been flying in Golden the last two days, it's been good value. Kim has about doubled her cumulative thermal time from the last three years over the last two days, and managed to get up above Mt. 7 last night, which fired her up. It was one of those perfect Mt. 7 evenings--abundant lift until around 9:00 p.m., nice light on the range, just a great evening, and the morning was good for thermal aspirants also.

I'm still feeling congested and was pondering not flying yesterday as the air looked a bit stable, but I'm a sucker for thermals, and the cycles on launch looked good enough. Amazingly, there was almost no wind yesterday, it was like flying in France or something. The early afternoon thermals were a bit small, but going up well if you could lock into them. The lack of wind meant there were only localized winds, it really felt like France where you can stuff it into the "lee," play close to the rocks and just enjoy the range. Base was even lower than yesterday, and there wasn't a cloud to be seen anyhow, so once again the wilderness flying ideas didn't happen. But after about 20K, just above Castle Peak, I spied this perfect alpine ridge with a little meadow. I've always wanted to land up high in the Candian Rockies, but mid-day conditions normally preclude this idea... Today things were perfect, so I did a few fly-bys just to make sure the wind wasn't stronger than I thought it was, then tried to top land a few times. The ridge was above treeline and directly south-facing, so the thermic breeze would just lift me up the side of it too fast to land each time I came in. Finally I gave up with the standand top-landing techniques and went for the "surge and swoop" trick, which I've really been getting into lately. Hang gliders have been downing "fly on the wall" landings for years, but only recently have paraglider pilots been trying the trick. Basically you just point the glider at the hill from well below the top, slow it down with brake, then release and let the glider surge up the hillside. With the lift on the hillside you end getting a surprisingly long flare window, and for extra points you can hammer one brake and neatly spin the glider just as you touch down. I didn't get an extra points due to coming in through a bit of a sink cycle and thinking I was going to pound in a bit hot, but it ended up working perfectly, I was just so surprised that it worked well that I forgot to spin the wing and managed to fill the leading edge up with quarter-sized rocks when I "whacked" it. I balled the wing up on top of the alpine ridge, took off my shirt, ate lunch, and marvelled at being in such a cool place. Paragliding is so good sometimes!

I kept careful watch on the winds; there have been at least two people who have top-landed along the range and then had to walk down when conditions got too strong to relaunch. My day was perfect, so after a while I got back into the air and flew down the range a bit more with a Swede before turning around and going hard back to Mt. 7, maybe 60K out and back with a lunch stop. I've been flying the Boomerang Sport a lot lately, it just gives an extra margin of confidence and relaxation to flying; I don't think I would have top-landed on my Boom IV, but I have a lot of faith in the Sport, it's definitely more forgiving. I was able to keep half bar on while flying through some pretty turbulent air, something I'm normally not up for.

After another downwind uphill landing on 7 I realized conditions were still good and Kim wasn't yet ready to fly, so I set myself a mini-task to fly onto the range north of launch across the Kicking Horse Canyon (the rocks behind the photo of Keith on his Boom IV) and back; with the top of the lift at 8500 feet that wouldn't leave a lot of room for the long transition, but it just looked like fun to fly over the canyon and explore the rocky cliffs and then try to make it back to launch to drive the truck down while Kim flew. The 5K glide over was pretty sinky and a bit upwind (a light north set up later in the day), so it was near full-bar all the way there. I came into the west-facing hillside low but immediately climbed back out to 8300 feet, sweet! Unfortunately I sunk like a rock as I flew a bit morehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif north and ended up down to below 6000 feet. From that altitude it wasn't clear if I had the glide over the bump between me and Golden, and certainly not enough altitude to make it back to launch. I started thinking I had pushed the day too long, but finally got back out to 8,200 and went for the glide back "home." Somehow the whole canyon was lifting off this time and with the tailwind I got back to launch plenty high to land again, and to drive the truck down for Kim, who was already thermalling out. Keith was in the air over launch as well, we did some long glide tests between the Boom IV and the Sport I was flying. The Boom IV had a slight speed edge at 1/2 bar, but the Sport was gliding very, very close at 1/2 bar. The air was calm, which favours the Sport a bit, but I was very surprised at how well the Sport glides. It's becoming my favorite glider for its handling, nice to get a confirmation that it also glides very well. In an upwind glide in more turbulent air the IV would likely have a bigger performance edge, but still...

So this is a long story about doing nothing but having a really good time flying in Golden. Nothing beats just messing about in the air for hours.

Canmore Paragliding Page, Golden

The paragliding scene is growing quickly in Canmore--when I first moved to Canmore there were only two or three active pilots, now there's around 20 of us at various skill levels. It's gotten to the point where I'll see gliders in the sky and not know who it is, almost strange, grin.

To help both the newer pilots and visiting pilots I wrote a short Canmore Paragliding Guide. It has useful weather links, hike descriptions, etc.

Kim and I are over in Golden getting an air fix. Kim had her longest thermal flight yesterday morning, and another good one in the evening. One of the great things about Golden is the morning and evening thermal action, nice and relaxed but still above big terrain. I had big plans to fly off into the wilderness after flying about 60K down to Parson, but it was a bit high pressure, the thermal were topping out at about 10,000 feet which is low for Golden (but still 7K over the valley). I ended up cruising down to Radium, 90K, in around three hours, then spent a half hour soaring a small road cut in town just above my chosen landing field. The hawks and ravens were also playing there, I really enjoyed messing about low with the birds. I'm often pretty goal-driven when flying, yesterday the goal wasn't smart to chase but the flying sure was fun--saw some goats on an alpine ridge, got a good view of the Bugaboos and Assinaboine, nice to just turn some circles and groove on the mountains.

Today also looks good, so Kim and I have stayed in Golden. Maybe today will be good for back country flying. I've got a strong desire to try a new back country flight, we'll see.

Workouts:

I managed to stay reasonably fit during the Paragliding Nationals in Quebec through going to the Allez-up gym in Montreal, but came down with yet another case of Crud on the way home. This is the third time in six months I've been sick, it's getting old. Anyhow, didn't train for a week but then got after it with Kevin at Grassi, a couple of good but short gym sessions and then a trip up to Planet X in Cougar Creek with Scott. I think Planet X is the best crag I've climbed at in the Rockies, it's a lot like Rifle. Not very many routes yet, but the potential is amazing. Scott redpointed Sticky Buns, a super-classic, congrats to him. I had a go at on-sighting it but pitched off, I'm not at that level yet. I managed to redpoint second go with Scott's helpful beta, then decided to get on Fudge Packer, which is named after Derek, a super-talented local who actually makes fudge as his primary job. Anyhow, it destroyed me, feels very hard. I've only ever climbed one other route of that grade, Fudge Packer is savage. I'm going to try that again. Managed to do a victory lap on Sticky Buns, I'm looking forward to going back up there with Scott, who plans to bump it up a letter grade and do Shooting Star, one of the best 13a routes anywhere.

Gin Glider Comments

Gin "Glider Family" Notes

I’ve flown Gin gliders exclusively for the last four years. The following are some comments on my experiences with the current Gin "family" of gliders; other pilots may have different impressions, glider preferences and even results seem very pilot-related. I am a Gin Team pilot.

I have 100+ hours on the SM Boom III and a similar amount on the IV, and around 40 on the new M Boomerang Sport. I've flown both in all sorts of conditions ranging from light to very strong, mountains and flats. I also have a fair number of hours on the Zoom Race (50+) and Gangster. I’ve also been flying the Beetle tandem some this spring. The gliders are all related, so these notes are written that way.

The Boom IV is the obvious performance benchmark for the family. The IV excels at gliding well at speed--it's a competition-focused tool. It also climbs well--I can normally get to the top or near the top of the stack on the IV. Brake pressure is stiff and precise, and the whole glider feels very hard in the air. Every single air movement is translated to the pilot, which is great for locating thermals and really feeling the air. This “air feel” is primarily why I prefer to fly comp gliders most of the time. The IV out-glides the old Boom III, especially at higher speeds. The IV prefers to be flown relatively fast in thermals, and is always "in front" of the pilot. It almost never pitches back behind the pilot when encountering thermals or headwind gusts, which makes it go into the wind very well. It requires regular strong input to keep the glider from pitching forward aggressively in strong air, but this is also why it tends to go upwind so well. The IV tends to frontal when it collapses on bar, which is generally a faster recovery than an asym deflation. It also tends to frontal in big collapses in extreme turbulence, again preferable to a big asym. Most frontals are relatively casual even with some bar on, but big asymetrics at speed generally result in excitement and some loss of altitude. At comparable speeds the IV is about as stable as the III, but because it's faster at 1/2 bar collapses can be more dynamic at similar bar settings—for the first year of flying the IV I’d often look down at my GPS and think, “Am I really going that fast?” The only issue I have with the IV is that the tips get stuck in the lines somewhat easily compared to the II and III. The IV is an "orbit" glider, meaning that it's best to just set the bank angle and then ride it around instead of constantly adjusting it. A friend called the IV a “sail plane,” that’s a good metaphor.

I had given up flying 2/3 gliders a few years back as all of this class of glider that I'd flown seemed to only offer the performance of a 2 with all the instability of a 3. The 2/3 gliders also didn't offer very good "feel" for the air, and without the air "feel" I would think the glider was fine and then it would all go to hell, especially on bar. Recovering 2/3s was every bit as entertaining as a 3. For this reason I started flying DHV 2 gliders like the Gangster and the Zoom when I needed something solid for deep wilderness flights (Andes, over the Grand Canyon) or to film and take pictures in the air, and various Boomerangs when I was free flying or competing. I take more collapses flying the 2s because I pay less attention to the air and the wing, but the collapses are benign--on both the Zoom and Gangster I felt confident flying in even very strong conditions with the brakes in one hand and a camera in the other, or both hands off the brakes. I've folded the Zoom Race up a few times without the brakes in my hands, no big deal. The Zoom Race offers very respectable performance with a large margin of inherent stability, plus it’s more fun to mess with (wing-overs, acro) than a comp glider, at least for me. The Zoom Race does take proper weight shift control and input to stay open in rough air.

I first flew the new Boomerang Sport while shooting photos with a French friend. I was honestly prepared for another DHV 2/3 that didn't go all that well compared to a proper comp glider, and yet blew up a lot. My first few flights were into windy strong spring conditions here in the Canadian Rockies--the valleys are already hot, yet the temps aloft are usually below freezing, meaning the lapse rate and thermal strength tend to be high. Right off launch it was clear that the Sport is a new glider--I could feel the air very well despite the "buttery" smooth feeling of the wing. As I thermalled out in rowdy air I thought, “Hey, this feels nice!” On the first glide I pushed half bar and the glide was good; I kept the bar on as I flew into a mild lee, surprisingly the glider stayed open and cut through the chop smoothly. I actually forgot to completely release the speed bar when I connected with the first lee thermal, the glider just felt good on bar and the step-down speed system means the bar pressure is quite low. My 5020 confirms that glide and speed are both better than the Zoom Race and very close to the Boomerang III on most glides.

After many more flights I’ve decided the Sport does three things very well. First, It's incredibly pitch stable, meaning that it seldom gets "out front" of the pilot, yet it doesn't lag behind the pilot in thermals or when hitting headwind gusts. I don't know how Gin and the other designers made these two contradictory factors work, but they did, a first for DHV 2 or 2/3 glider for me. Second, the Sport is also the best coordinated glider I've ever flown--set the angle, relax, go up. It's almost like cheating. Finally, it glides on bar very well--it feels very close to the III in glide up to about half bar, and it's stable even with a lot of bar on. I can keep the bar at half or more in air that I would have to reduce the bar on the IV in. I’ve done some filming and photography while flying the Sport; at first I was concerned that it would be too hectic to fly one-handed, but it’s solid enough that I’ve sold my Zoom Race, my old “one handed” glider. My French friend, a professional photographer, also uses the Sport as his photo platform while flying one-handed even in strong conditions. That says a lot about both the glider and my friend's skill flying one-handed...

In short, the Sport has changed my basic opinion of DHV 2/3 gliders from “No” (all the instability of a 3 with the performance of a 2) to a “Yes!” It seems like the first 2/3 with very close to “3” performance and “2” recovery characteristics. I’m considering flying my Sport in my next two competitions—both are at big mountain sites with strong conditions where the glides between thermals can be very turbulent; if I can keep a decent glide with more bar on then I can with my IV then perhaps I can actually fly faster overall? The climb rate seems as good as the IV, so if I can fly faster between thermals then it could be a good solution. I’ve done enough competitions with people on Boom Sports to see that the Sport glides well compared to anything in the sky; it’s annoying to be on a Boom IV and have a Boom Sport keeping pace. I can drop the Sports with more bar, but sometimes I have to get off the bar in choppy air that the Sports can glide through on bar. Maybe this is lack of skill or faith on my part, but either way it makes me wonder if a Boom IV is the best tool for me to go fast at rough sites.

For competitions in relatively humid air (Eastern North America, Europe in general) I’ll continue to fly the IV, same for flatland comps where the climbs are strong but the inter-thermal glides generally OK (Chelan, Texas). Nothing goes like a Boom IV on 3/4 bar!

My only complaint with the Sport is relatively minor; the brakes attach to the riser with magnets, which seemed like a great idea at first. However, the bakes tend to detach from the risers when laying out the glider, and then also re-attach when launching, which is annoying. I like to feel my glider as it comes up, the feeling of the brakes being locked to the risers as I lift the glider feels like a possible brake line knot until the magnets release. I prefer snaps.

The final glider I’ve been flying some is the Gin tandem, the Beetle. I’ve flown a lot of tandems over the years, but my favorite was always the old Merak from about 1997. I’ve wanted a glider that flew like that tandem ever since. The closest tandem I’ve flown to the Merak was the Advance tandem, but the Beetle now takes the place of the Merak in my “best tandem” category. It launches easily (always the first consideration when flying passengers with very inconsistent responses to the command, “RUN!”), has good brake pressure and just flies well. I set my first tandem landing on the Beetle up like I did for my old tandem and found myself much too high; it’s more like a Zoom in terms of glide.

I wrote all this down to help me think about the differences between gliders, if you’ve read all of it you’re persistent, good luck with whatever you fly!

Climbing Gyms

In the last two months I've climbed in somewhere around six different gyms due to the travel schedule. I actually really like climbing on plastic and always have. I generally get my ass kicked, but that's what's so good about it--on rock I can often trick my way through difficult moves, but plastic strips climbing movement down to its most basic form. Back in the sixties my parents used to joke that one day you would be able to buy hand holds in the climbing stores, their joke is now a fun reality.

I've honestly enjoyed every gym I've climbed in over the last few months, and have some decent fitness going at the moment thanks to the plastic abuse. Paragliding season normaly leaves me a bit, as my my friend John Winsor says, "Fat and sassy!" but this year the comps have been near good climbing gyms so I've at least avoided the fat part. Good gyms share a few features. First is a motivated local scene. We've all seen the forlorn climbing walls inside health clubs, abandoned by the clientele and largely ignored. Some gyms inside health clubs, such as Chelsea Piers in NYC, thrive thanks to the local scene. Chelsea has a monster over-hanging wall and a good manager (Les), plus a crew of motivated locals, so it's going well. The bouldering needs work at Chelsea, but it' the most entertaining roped climbing I've done in a gym of late.

Height isn't everything--the Vsion, in Canmore, is short like a pygmie but has the best bouldering of any of the gyms I've climbed in lately. There is no excuse to walk out of that gym without blasted fingers and arms.

Good gyms also use a comprehensible system to mark holds. My biggest complaint in any gym is a poor hold marking system. This is going to be a controversial statement, but after climbing in dozens of gyms all over the world I'm going to make it: Plain old colored tape is WAY better for marking holds than using holds of the same color, putting colored doo-dads on the bolt heads or any of the other schemes I've seen (putting colored pieces of plastic behind the holds so that they stick out is second best in the marking scheme rankings). The colored hold idea sounds great when presented with a box of new bright red holds, but the reality is that using colored holds to set routes limits the creativity of the route setter (there are only so many types of hold per colored set), the number of routes that can go on the wall, and confuses the hell out of climbers. Those bright red holds start to look a lot like the bright orange ones after a few years of thousands of chalky hands grabbing 'em. I spent the last week climbing at a great gym in Montreal (Allez Up!), which has all the requirements of a good gym (great local scene, good staff, good routes, good bouldering) but suffers from using colored holds. I often heard even local climbers arguing about whether or not a hold was "on" the route, that's just frustrating for the climbers in the gym.

The floor system of a gym is also important, especially for bouldering. My favorite is the huge thick track and field crash pads found in gyms such as Allez-Up and the Calgary Climbing Centre. You can pitch off from even 15 feet up and relax. Second best is thick padded carpet with mobile crash pads, such as is found in the Wall Crawler gym in Atlanta, the Rogue Rock Gym and the Vsion. The problem with mobile crash pads is that you have to move them around, and landing on the edge of a pad can result in a twisted ankle. Pea-sized gravel is actually excellent for crashing into while bouldering and for protecting lead plummets, but turns the air into an Asthma-inducing miasma of chalk dust, gravel dust and who knows what else. Cut-up tires are a nice bit of a recylcing, but the chalk dust tends to settle into the tires and get disturbed each time someone falls on the tires. I also shudder to think what those tire bits are releasing into the gym air.

Health-club style fitness equipment is generally a waste in a gym. Nothing makes you climb better than climbing, and most of the time the bench press in a climbing gym is relegated to holding climbing bags or as a good place to sit between sessions on a boulder problem. Get rid of it. A good pull-up bar and a campus board is about all it takes, but many gyms don't have a decent pull up bar for working on front levers or just doing pullups.

The staff also counts in a gym; I'd rather have a relatively average climber who checks my belaying skills out and is friendly than a local rock star who can't be bothered to be friendly to everyone. I've seldom had a bad experience with staff in a climbing gym; occasionally someone will recognize me, but often I go through the check-out procedure just like everyone else, and that's cool with me. I heard through the grapevine that John Bachar once failed the belay test at a gym in San Francisco, I'm always a bit nervous about whether or not I've using my ATC in the locally approved manner. Standards vary. Good gyms tend to recognize that lead belaying requires a dynamic response from the belayer, but some gyms still insist on tying the belayer down. That's OK for top-roping with a fat dude and a small women, but not on a lead wall.

I've got some more opinions on climbing gyms, but time to get on a flight back home to Calgary, and the "I fly way too much so I get to sit in a nice chair and drink while I wait for my next flight" lounge is threatening to cut me off the good scotch.

WG

Canadian Paragliding Nationals

It's over! It's been an entertaining week here in Quebec, with lots of good people and adventures. The flying wasn't very good, but the local scene is great. The hub of the local activities is the school, Distance Vol Libre, or DVL. DVL has a huge LZ with a perfect training hill in the middle of it. Distance Vol Libre has the best infrastructure I've ever seen at a paragliding/hang gliding school anywhere in the world, and a great staff of instructors for both HG and PG. I would definitely recommend the school to anyone wanting to learn to fly, I was surprised by the how well-organized the flying scene here is--we don't hear much about Quebec flying out West, but this place is cool. There's also a local aerotow operation (thanks for the party the last night!) for HGs, so it's a one-stop place for all forms of free flight. You can tell a lot about a school by how their ex-students fly--the skill level was very solid here. If you're ever in Montreal it's definitely worth checking out.

The non-flying locals are also friendly--yesterday I landed about 4K from goal and ended up drinking beer with a local farmer, which turned into a birthday party. Hanging out in the shade mangling French and drinking beer was a lot of fun, definitely one of the highlights of the competition for me. I was a little bit concerned about my very bad French and the local response, but without exception the people were amused rather than offended by my Franglais. Many people in rural Quebec speak a little English, and if you just try to speak French a bit it all works out. It's nice to be in a place where the locals don't all speak better English than I do the local language, I learned a lot (relatively speaking) of French this trip.

Mt. Yamaska is a relatively small (300M) bump surrounded by farm fields, with launches that face all directions. Despite the low height it's fairly difficult to sink out, the hill is the perfect shape for ridge soaring while waiting for a thermal. The low altitude and high humidity tend to make the air relatively smooth also. We managed to score five tasks, but the average validity of those tasks was under 400 points for the winner. Even that number is high given that validity was artificially inflated on one task because of some scoring technicalities involving turnpoint radi. Anyhow, the local pilots said flying five tasks in a week was good, but I don't think I've ever competed in such random conditions. The scattered scores from each day reflected this--it was frustrating to head out on glide and deck task after task, but that was the norm. The ground and air are very moist, which severly limits the lift. The locals said "normal" conditions are better, but anyplace this green must get a lot of rain normally. We used a relatively low "nominal distance," 35K, which is meant to be the distance of an average flight. This was obviously set too high as the average flight was about 10K, but you can't have a competition with a nominal distance of 10K, that's one thermal... Most of the tasks were decided in two or less thermals--good tasks should involve the pilots making multiple decisions, but the flights here were simply too short to do that.

Bruno Berti won the two tasks that had decent validity and won the meet, congratulations to him. I beleive he is the first Quebecois Canadian Paragliding Champion or at the least the first in the last ten years that I remember, nice one. Although I don't think much of the conditions for this competition I do respect Bruno's ability to stay patient and circle in light lift, it's a skill I find very difficult to apply in a competition.

I ended up second after racing a bit too hard on two days--this is something I've done lots of, I'm always over-optimistic about the possibilities for better thermals just down the course line. The reality is that the maximum sustained climb rates here in Quebec were under 2m/s, so you had to be extremely patient--1m/s sustained was about as good as it was likely to get, and because cloud base was so low it only took a short glide to be on the ground. At no point during this competition did we get to race, it was simply a battle of survival to stay in the air. I can do that when it's not a comp situation, but I need to learn better patience for competition situations in bad conditions. I always think, "There MUST be something better than this just down the course line!" Usually there's not.

I will come back to Yamaska and fly for sure--I imagine there are amazing days here with good lift and clouds, and the friends I've made here would be fun to visit without ever turning a circle in the air. Thanks to Eric Olivier, Mark Dowsett and the many volunteers who gave this competition a great flavour. A special thanks to Sylvie, our heroic driver, who often found us before we found ourselves. Also thanks for the great lunches each day, the hikes to launch (cool path with ropes on the steep parts, we hiked to launch every day, great way to start the day), and the $2 beers in the LZ--it's all a good memory! I hope to see many of the Quebec pilots out west this summer.

wg

PS--my bud Josh and I have been traveling together as usual, and we've had a good time speaking Francais as we see it, which occasionally but not often is how the locals actually hear it. Anyhow, we also had a bet on the last day's results that inspired me to turn a few more circles in the .5m/s lift--If Josh flew farther than me I had to spend the morning installing software on his new Macbook, if I flew farther he had to apply his bulk to moving large rocks out of my yard. Without that bet I would have landed earlier for sure, so thanks to Josh for the good week, and I look forward to getting those rocks out of my yard, grin...

Fun with Flying

It's been an insane week of flying here in the Rockies, I've flown about ten hours in the last three days. I put up some photos of the last day here. It just doesn't get any better in the Rockies!

Kim and I hiked Lady Mac on the 24th, had a super fun flight in very strong conditions, just touring around the valley.

Kim, Graham and I flew Golden on the 25th, a nice 50K+ out and back. Blue day, but good lift. Flew the Boomerang IV.

On the 26th Frank, Doug and I wrangled a heli ride to the Lady Mac Launch, nice to just step out of the heli and be ready to go. Frank has had some health issues or we would have walked, at least that's my story, grin. Super crazy good flying, about the best I've had the last year. It was a go-anywhere kind of day, so we ran a task down to Lake Minnewanka and back, then I flew around some more including directly over the top of the Three Sisters. Amazing day!

Workouts:

Got a quick one in the 26th after flying at the Vsion, mainly finger/core power/Cross-Fit mix. Went to Heart last night with Kevin, Scott and Greg. Left the house at 5:00 and walked out of Heart at 10:00 just pounded, managed to send a harder route and deja vu (I've done the routes before but damned if I can remember 'em) a bunch of stuff in the Bayon. Greg sent his second 12a, his goal is to climb 13a by the end of the summer, should be possible. My base fitness is hangin in there well despite all the paragliding of late, if I can just climb one day a week and hit the plastic gym a couple of times it seems to work out.

Conan. NYC, Home

I survived the Conan show and so did Conan despite his best efforts--he chose to "summit" the mock iceberg, which had the producers a bit freaked out as that wasn't planned and there was no padding on the far side of the wall, so Conan's head was about 15 feet off the concrete... Conan is actually a decent athlete and didn't fall off, impale himself or me with an ice tool, break a leg, in short the long list of concerns the show's producer went through with me at length and with intensity just before I walked on didn't happen.


Doing the show was as intense as anything I've ever done, I can see why people get addicted to the pace and glam factor of big-time media--I did my normal comp or hard climb warmup before I went out, I needed to get rid of the bats flapping around my stomach. Backstage was pretty fun, I got to meet some "real" famous people--the actor Ty Reece said he might try ice climbing one day but not anytime soon. Kate Blankinsett (sp?) is indeed pretty damn hot, but she didn't show much interest in the guy ripping up the floor with his crampons on while waiting to go out (that'd be me). I had a pose-down contest with the actor playing the Incredible Hulk, I did not win that one, going to have to work on the old double-bicep pose some more (read, I'll need to get some biceps and he definitely has some.).

It was full madness, as was the evening with some friends in NYC after the show. I went straight from the show to Chelsea Piers climbing wall and got a great session in on there with Ivan and his bud Rex, thanks for the pump! My old friend Les runs the Chelsea walls, good to see faces from my sport climbing past still at the game. We did a tour of bars in Manhattan afterwards, somehow the Red Bull guys had amazing hookups. I of course missed my flight yesterday morning and felt like ass all the way home, but it was worth it.

I'm now back home in Canmore, it's a spliiter blue day and time to get outside and give 'er a bit. I'll publish some photos from the Conan show when I get 'em, should be some fun stuff there...

Workouts: In the midst of all the travel and general chaos I've actually managed to keep some degree of climbing fitness with bouldering and climbing gym visits, sent my first really hard rock (for me) route last week. It's been hard to find the time/energy with everything that's been going on, but climbig keeps me sane when everything else isn't. I'm definitely addicted to just slapping chalk on my hands, I care less and less about where, just going climbing on something is what's most important to me these days.

NYC, Late Night With Conan O'Brien

Somehow I'm in New York City to do a show on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." I feel a bit like saying, "Um, you know I'm not exactly Adam Sandler?" I bring that up 'cause I'm watching Conan's show right now and Adam Sandler is the first guest (Figured I should do some research before going on the show..). I'm probably going to get bit by Triumph the Insult Dog, a sock puppet sketch gag Conan uses. Triumph alienated half of Canada when he insulted all of Quebec a year or so back with some pretty over-the-top (OK, I laughed at it...) comedy at Quebec's expense. I don't think I'll bring up why I went to NYC when I return through customs in Calgary on the way home, they'll probably strip search me or something. Anyhow, I'm pretty nervous about the whole experience, I haven't done this sort of thing before. Conan's back from break and there on the screen interviewing Adam Sandler again, who is actually funny, and funny is what people on the show want. What the hell is funny about climbing icebergs, which is apparently what we're going to talk about? Icebergs rolling over with me on them isn't too funny, or even if they rolled over on Ben Firth, who I did the iceberg climbing trip with. So I'm pretty nervous about it all--I'm fundamentally a dirtbag in need of a haircut, here I am in NYC in some monster hotel suite getting ready to do a TV show that's broadcast world-wide. I'm going to have to remember not to swear, not to fart excessively loudly, no picking my nose, in short it's going to be just like going to visit my grandparents when I was a kid. So I'm nervous.

I just noticed that everyone on the show is wearing nice clothes. I brought two dirty T-shirts and some chalk-covered Arc'teryx pants 'cause I want to bust it to the climbing gym tomorrow night after the show. Doh.

OK, now Conan has got some freak wrestler on the show, a guy named John Ceena or something. He's at least wearing a T Shirt, but has the steroid-enhanced frame to make a T-Shirt look good. I've got arms like a 10-year old. This show is giving an inferiority complex already, my hands are sweating like I'm 20 feet out on bad gear. I'm gonna have to chalk up and send it. I tape from 5 to 6 tomorrow night, Conan just mentioned that I'll be on the show, jesus!

Gatherings

We just finished up with Karen McNeill's memorial. I went into it feeling sad, that's just how it is and has been. Life moves forward, but there's always a sad presence in my mind. Today I listened to the stories of Karen's life, and they lifted my spirits through remembering hers. There are friends from all over the world in town, and it's good to see so many people connected with Karen. She spun a big web of friends, and I'm happy to have been a small strand of that. Some of the Morley First Nation's people attended, and added some deep drumming, along with some wild art from the classes she taught at the school there: life-sized paper pants painted up to match Karen's infamous choices for clothing. I "stole" a pair, they will hang with pride in our house. I was impressed with how diverse Karen's web is--at times it would have been hard to believe the speakers were talking about the same women. Perhaps one measure of a well-lived life is how broad a spectrum your friends span; Karen's was one hell of a rainbow.

Sue was also there in my mind, I'm going to miss her too. Many of us at the memorial knew both women, and they are linked in all our minds for their climbs together and what a friend called,"Putting the girly back into climbing." I always respected Sue's opinions, even if we were both sure the other was a taco short of a combination plate at times. "Fiesty" was an oft-used word when describing Sue, and I will miss that energy whether she was talking about climbing or whatever was on her super-charged mind at the time.

I wish that these gatherings of the community happened under "better" circumstances, but they are also an opportunity to see the web in tangible form, even with some strands missing. The web of life will be there long after all of us are gone, Karen and Sue helped the web shine in the sun for me. Mt. Foraker is about the most beautiful resting place I can imagine, and I'll always look at photos of it with the knowledge that Karen and Sue are now part of that beauty. Peace to the families and friends of both women.


WG

Memorials

I've had a bunch of people email and ask about the memorials for Karen and Sue, here's the info.

Karen McNeill: 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 20th, at the Canmore Seniors Centre located at 600 9th Street in Canmore, Alberta.

Sue Nott: A Celebration of Life for Sue Nott will be held at the Ford Amphitheater in Vail, Colorado on Sunday, June 18, at 1:00 PM.

WG

Karen and Sue, Yukon

Karen and Sue

The rescue mission for my friends on Foraker has officially ended, as the rangers believe there is realisticially no hope of finding the two women alive. I've felt this way for some time, but really hoped I was wrong. The rangers will continue to fly with the hope of possibly recovering their bodies or at least gathering some more information on what went wrong. I would like to commend the Rangers and Denali National Park for a job well done both on the rescue and conveying information to the public and friends about what was happening with the search. It's very easy to let a slight mis-wording or piece of bad information turn into something confusing for everyone during a high-profile rescue, yet the rangers kept it very smooth. The rangers also gave a lot of information quickly and accurately; I had some inside information, but was always impressed with how quickly that information was availible publicly--usually within minutes of the families hearing it. I have full faith that the Denali Rangers and everyone else who worked on the rescue did a great job, and that is very comforting. I know Karen and Sue's friends from around the world who followed the rescue on the web appreciated the information even if the news wasn't good. No rescuers were also lost despite hours and hours of dangerous high-altitude flying, which is a testament to the skill and dedication of all involved. Good job and thanks to all who worked on the rescue and conveying information to all of us.

Plans for the memorials to both women are near-finalized. If, against the longest odds imaginable, my friends do somehow show up it will be a joy to cancel their memorials.


Yukon

I've spent the last week up in the Yukon researching the flying there for a possible paragliding competition the locals want to put on next year. I felt almost guilty at times for chasing thermals while the fate of my two friends was still undecided, but I'm certain that both Karen and Sue would have heckled me mercilessly if I had cancelled the trip because they were missing. That's not a very logical thought, but damned it it doesn't bring a smile to my face.

I'll write something up on flying in the Yukon once I get my feet back under me here, but the short version is that the Yukon has some great flying based on a very active and enthusiastic group of local pilots. Despite being a bit distracted with Karen and Sue I had a fantastic time both flying and "parawaiting" with the locals. Two hours before my flight yesterday afternoon I cored a last thermal, that's how it works in Whitehorse. More later.

WG

Karen and Sue

Karen and Sue

Two friends, Karen and Sue, are missing in Alaska. They left basecamp on the 12th of May and and started up the challenging Infinite Spur route on Mt. Foraker on May 14. A rescue effort started about a week ago when friends became concerned that they had not been seen on the descent route, which faces Denali and is pretty easy to see with binoculars. At this point the details of where and when they were last seen, tracks, and gear found at the base just do not add up to a good outcome. The pair likely ran out of fuel and food over a week ago, and without fuel there’s no way to melt snow for water. No water means no life. There are stil lingering thoughts of hope along the lines that they have descended the back side of the mountain all the way to tree line and are, to quote a friend, “Roasting porcupines and wondering how the hell to get out of the woods.” If the two are in fact alive it would be the survival story of the century, and I would love to get the good news. But reality is harsh on hope most of the time in these situations. Friends are starting to plan memorial services, and personally I ache for the families of both women.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time with both Karen and Sue over the years; Karen has always been generous with her research, time and smiles. Karen had started to really make her climbing life work, yet remained very honest about what she did and how. Some “Professional” climbers seem to be on a quest to support their own egos, Karen was on a quest to climb in stupendous places with close friends, and did so with a modesty that was as refreshing as sticking your head in a glacial stream. I just realized I wrote the above in past tense; I would so love to be wrong!

Last year Sue and I, along with a couple of other friends, had a long discussion about alpinism. She sat on the steps in our house and just went off, it was impressive. Her energy and bounce were all out of proportion to her size, in the best possible way. I also remember Karen sitting on those same steps at a party with glitter all over the place, those two memories make me bust a smile right now.

I’m feeling very conflicted about alpine climbing at the moment. The sublime beauty of the mountains is absolutely worth exploring them, but mountains are so damn big and oblivious to the small human ants scurrying around on them. Karen and Sue are yet two more friends I miss deeply. I so hope they are instilling fear in the porcupines of Denali National Park, but know intellectually that this just isn’t likely. Peace to their families and friends around the world.

WG, up in the Yukon.

Rat Race Task Two

This morning looked grim--foggy, windy and building high clouds. Somehow it all cleaned up by about 12:00, and a short (42.5K) task was called. Waiting for the start in the air was interesting--it was very windy above about 7,000 feet (I use feet in US meets to keep it simpler), we kept drifting downwind at high rates of speed up high. But the cloud flying was amazing--I think there was some sort of wave action, we were able to surf the front of clouds at least 1500 feet above base, a rare treat in paragliding.

The task was a couple of laps around the local Wood Rat valley, then off into the small hills of the Rogue valley. I had a solid start and hammered around the first two laps in the lead with Eric Reed, the conditions were really nice with smooth glides and fast climbs. Eric and I were able to glide the first two laps with only one thermal, but had to use a lot of bar on the into the wind legs. Most of the field wasn't far behind us, which lent motivation to pushing on the speed bar. We then headed out into the Rogue valley and got slowed down--Bruce Goldsmith, Bill Belcourt and a couple of others caught us, and we all climbed together in a weak thermal. I was sure that there had to be something better and left to go find it. I thought the hills were going to work better than the flats, but got flushed out of them and very low, about 200 feet above the ground, but I could just tell it was going to work and sure enough I was able to slowly grovel back into the sky. Unfortunately Bill and the others had gone on glide to goal by then, with Bill into goal first. I'm pretty sure he won the meet as he also did well on the first task. I played it conservative into goal, once I've lost the lead I'd rather be solid in getting to goal than land early as many pilots did. In the end there were probably 20+ pilots into goal, amazing given how the day looked. I don't know where I placed but had a great flight. It's always better to end a meet with a good day of flying!


Workouts:

Last night I hit the Rogue Rock gym again, and started out by learning how to slack line instead of climbing for about 45 minutes, super fun. I've only tried slacklining a few times, I'm going to have set one up in my yard for the future. Got a good session of bouldering on the crew there, we ended up in keeping the gym open to beat ourselves up on a cool hard route into the night, a great workout. I really like visiting different gyms as I travel, I always meet good people and have a good time. The Rogue Gym is a good gym if you're ever in the Medford area, well worth a visit.

Rat Race Rain

The last three days have been rained out. It happens.


Workouts: A fair amount of drinking, running, climbing in the Rogue Rock gym, Yoga and drinking has gone on and been fun.

Rat Race Day One

A good task, a good day! Len won, something like 45 people in goal, fantastic! Good to see so many friends again, it's a gathering of the winged tribe for sure.

I had a very mixed day--somehow mis-timed the start and was a bit low when it happened, but high enough. The strange thing was my GPS didn't flip at the first turn point, and I didn't check it until I was about 3K past the point--I knew I'd flown right over it from the comp last year, but the GPS didn't switch, so... I flew back, got it for sure, then continued on the course but 15 minutes behind the leaders. Comp experiences like that are mind-taxing, it's easy to let the negativity of making a stupid mistake ruin the day. I was pretty much last on the course after my additional turnpoint, but managed to rally enough to make it into goal about 20 minutes behind the leaders. The whole time I figured I was in dead last, so I just relaxed and enjoyed the good flying, and it was worlds better to at least fly the course rather than blown up mentally. As happens so often, I ended up doing OK but forgetting the comp attitude and just flapping. I think it's important to compete a lot to be in practice, I haven't competed in a year and my systems were not tight. We loaded up my flight last night and I did indeed fly directly through the first turnpoint, but for some reason my GPS didn't flip. I should have been paying more attention.

Keith, Rob and Grahame all made goal, Nicole missed it by being a bit late and geting shaded out. Still a very good showing for team Canada.

OK, we're heading up the hill right now although the sky looks like grey.

Rat Race, Medford Rock Gym

It's been a fast-paced few days. On Friday Kim and I drove up to Jasper to wish my Mom a happy 60th birthday (happy birthday again), followed by a drive back to canmore, mad packing, then to the Dom semi-invitational suffer fest in his home gym that night. It's always a wicked event, thanks to the Dom family and all the other people who poured sweat, chalk and blood on the holds all evening, I always crawl out of Dom's garage. Then the party games started, which I suck at but lots of good energy from all the folks. Knut put me up at his house in Calgary that night, then up early to fly to Medford, Oregon, for the Rat Race paraglding competition. I got a great Yoga session on in the Portland airport, I always expect to get hassled as a potential Jihadist or something for doing yoga in US airports, but all cool, and it helped work out the kinks from Dom's desperate comp. Finally made it to Medford, amazing how much can happen in such a short period of time.

Today was one of the best flying days I've had in a long time--the area around Medford is just made for paragliding, awesome flight out to Grant's Pass and back--I didn't have to turn for around 30K straight, just blasting along at and above cloud base, amazing. Flights like that are why I fly. There are over 100 pilots down here, it should be a very competitive comp and conditions look stunningly good...

After flying all afternoon and doing a tandem in the morning Keith and I hit the Rogue Rock gym in Medford, it's a good gym, still worked from the comp but had a good time pulling on plastic. The comp starts tomorrow and it's late now, time to wrack and get fired up in the morning, yeah!

wg