Yeah, it's been awhile since I posted anything, but flying has been slow lately. 'Tis the season for hunkering down and anxiously awaiting next spring. I don't like it, but it does give me a chance to get caught up on other things. "What?" you may ask. "You do other things than fly?" My standard response to that comment is "Only when I have to".I did manage to get one last 'real' flight in before resigning myself to occasional sledrides when the weather cooperates. The paragliding group was planning a trip down to the Shasta Valley in northern California to do maintenance on a flying site there. I'd never flown the site, but had driven to the top a few years ago to check out conditions. Years ago, The Whaleback, a volcanic vent that rubs shoulders with Mt. Shasta, was an often-used hang gliding site. Over the years, however, it had been used less and less, due in large part to the fact that paragliding, the more convenient 'fast food' alternative to the 'home-cooked meal' of hang gliding, saw more and more would-be footlaunchers taking short flights at their home sites on lunchbreaks rather than making the commitment of an entire day at more distant launches. When hang gliding sites are not flown, they're not maintained to facilitate that type of aircraft, and the lz at The Whaleback has over the years been overgrown and all but useless to landing hang gliders.
From the story told to me by another paraglider pilot, a pg from the local club arranged for the USFS to do the major clearing of the lz. The deal as I understand it was that if he flagged the area needed, the FS would do the major grubbing and leave it up to the pg's to do the final clearing. The pilot proceeded to flag the spot as he saw fit, but the FS actually took it upon themselves to expand the limits to where a hang glider could land there as well. I don't know if the FS person in charge was a hang pilot himself and make the site available to the pioneers as well as the fast-fooders, but I salute the USFS for accomodating those of us who require more runway.
At any rate, a work party was arranged so the final clearing could be done, and maybe a flight could be taken to christen the site once again. Since the word was out that the improved lz was now hang-friendly, another local hang pilot and I decided to go check it out. Sure enough, the site looked like it would work, so after digging a few roots and raking a little brush, all two dozen para pilots and us two hangs headed up to launch to give it a go.
When we got there, we observed that the wind was a little cross from the south, but was still launchable. As Dave, the other hang pilot, and I set up our gliders, the paras all bailed off and cruised out toward the lz. Many if not most of them landed short of the mark, but that's the tradeoff for convenience I suppose. Dave and I were last off the mountain. Dave launched first and headed south to avoid the congestion of the few paragliders who were still scratching to maintain in front of launch. By the time I got off the hill, the last stragglers were gone and the traffic was clear. I launched to join Dave in front and to the left of launch where the house thermal resided. As we started to work the lift, I noticed that my drop flag had come loose and was hanging by my rear wire, so after gaining some altitude I struggled to put it back in its keeper. In the process I'd lost quite a bit of altitude, but the house thermal was still working and I gained it back.
Meanwhile, Dave had worked his way back to the face of the mountain and gained enough altitude to make a run for the other side of the valley. I lost sight of him eventually and thought he'd landed, so I headed out toward the lz. Dave's radio wasn't operating, so I radioed the lz to see if he was down yet. The response was that he hadn't, so I figured that I'd try to work back up and find him. The only problem with that idea was that I'd already seemingly committed to landing, but fortunately I found a little something over the valley and proceeded to work it back up. That 'little something' really came through, and with persistence I found myself working up the face of the volcano and soaring above the crater at around 10,000' ASL to rejoin Dave.
With the breathtaking view of Mt. Shasta a few miles to my south, I cruised the face for over an hour. It was a bit chilly up there at 10k in mid-October, but the scenery made the numb fingers worthwhile. After a couple hours in the air I finally decided to fly out and watch Dave's landing. I was still a bit tentative about the size of the lz and really wanted to watch someone else do it first. As I boated around in the light lift, I watched Dave angle across and nose in hard about halfway down the clearing. The glider didn't move, but I saw him unhook and walk away from the wing. It wasn't really encouraging to watch, and I had no way to contact him to find out what happened. I tried radioing down to the paragliders that were still hanging around, but it seems that once the last paraglider has landed, they switch off their radios and leave you to fend for yourself.
Dave's wing was still protruding a good distance into the middle of the lz, and I didn't want to try to swerve around it halfway into my approach. From the ground it probably appeared that it was clear of the lz, but from my vantage point it was an obvious hazard. I needed to tell someone on the ground to please move it out of the way, so I resorted to the only means of communication left - yelling. As I circled in a pocket of light lift over the oblivious group, I began yelling down "MOVE...THE...GLIDER!" Finally after a dozen or so yells, someone with a radio heard me and responded. Eventually the glider was moved, I set up for an approach, and brought my wing down into the lz and landed about 50' from the upwind side. Dave's glider hadn't moved because he'd broken a downtube during his hard landing and he was looking for something to splint the break so he could move it.
It was early enough in the day that a few of us decided to drive over to Herd Peak a few miles across the valley to check out conditions. I'd flown there twice, but as I remembered it, the lz was very small and hard to land in. As I set up, another pg pilot launched and cruised across the face barely maintaining altitude. Eventually I launched just as the wind was shutting down and the face was no longer soarable. The paraglider left the hill and headed down as I scratched my way across the hillside attempting to stay aloft. After a few passes I resigned myself to landing and headed for the lz. The pg had since landed and radioed that the wind had completely shut off. The two times I'd landed here, there was enough wind that I could bring my wing to a stop before running out of runway, but in no wind this would be a challenge. I fumbled with my drogue chute to increase my descent rate, but there wasn't time to get it out of its pouch and get it deployed. I came in fast and low - so much so to cause the pilot on the ground to dive for the sagebrush to avoid being hit. The approach was hot, and I used the entire lz and needed more. A few feet from the junipers at the far end I flared as hard as I could and lit in the dust, sending a cloud into the air. Unless there's some work done on this lz, I doubt I'll be landing here again...
