West Coast Hang Gliding Vacation

by Holly Korzilius

So…. As some of you might be aware… I've been on vacation. And let me say… life has been good.

It started off Monday, 18 May as I was driving down to Jacksonville, NC for a two-day business conference. Thankfully, work let me drive my own vehicle down, so that I would be able to head west from there.

Well… the weather on the drive down was great, so I figured, "why not stop in at Manquin and see if I can get some flying in?" So, that I did. The wind direction was less than stellar (ESE…. Not a great direction for truck towing), but it wasn't terribly strong, so I set up in hopes of getting some tows in. I got three in and earned my Hang 3 just in time for vacation:-)

Thankfully, my meeting in Jacksonville ended early on Wednesday, so I was able to start my vacation a day earlier than expected. Westward bound was I. Leaving at noon, I managed to make it west of Nashville the first night, west of Hays Colorado the second day, and to Salt Lake City by the third night with a quick stop in Colarado Springs to meet the folks at USHGA Headquarters and get my new rating card. (Lemme just tell ya…. They live a life maybe one step up from trolls… lol… The office is in the basement of a building that is located under a bridge and right next to some railroad tracks and the office is full to bursting, though there were only two staffers present when I stopped by.)

Anyhoo… so I found myself in Salt Lake City by the third night. My ultimate destination was Fallon, Nevada as that is where a hang gliding friend of mine lives who was going to take me to some of flying sites he frequents. However, shortly after leaving Jacksonville, I got a call from him to inform me that he had been unexpectedly sent to Key West on business and wouldn't be back in Fallon 'til Memorial Day. "No big deal," says I. "I'll detour to Point of the Mountain, Utah for a few days of flying before continuing on to Fallon." I had mentioned this possibility to Steve Wendt who said Pt of the Mt was a great flying sight. It was soarable in the early morning from one direction and then, like clockwork, the winds would shift in early afternoon making the site soarable for the rest of the day from the other direction. Plus… it was a great Hang 2 site. "Sounds just about perfect for my first western flights!"

Good plan.. however…

So… when at USHGA HQ, Natalie informed me that a lot of the staff was at Pt of the Mt since Demo Days was going on there over Memorial Day Weekend. "Okay… that's cool… lot of other pilots to play with." Well… what I didn't realize was this was PG demo days. Further, I didn't realize how much the flying population had changed since Steve had been out there in the early 90's. (Back then, it was about 85% HG, 15% PG. Today, the mix is pretty much reversed.)

I showed up at Cloud 9 Soaring Center in Draper, UT around 8:30 PM Friday night. No one was there, but I was able to get a hold of the shop's proprietor via cell phone (I believe his name was also Steve?), and he said to hang out for a few and "they'd" be back in a few to watch a new PG video. Well… "they" ended up referring to about 200 PG pilots who had converged at the Pt for PG Demo Days. I had a good enough time hanging out at the shop and talking with area and other visiting pilots. The video was mind blowing (PG pilots are friggin' NUTS! In my opinion… they were doing all kinds of crazy stunts in the air. Probably the most awe inspiring footage was when a gust front suddenly hit the point when about 5 PG pilots were still aloft. All made it down safely, but gusts were up to 40 mph by the time the last pilot touched down. Quite the display of skill and balls…. BIG, BIG balls). I also got to chat with a Lori Fitzgerald (long time HG pilot who recently became bi-wingual and now rarely flights here hang glider <sniff>). Anyway… she was very sweet and made me feel very welcome. Unfortunately, there was one problem… 200 or so PG pilots that would be flying the point all weekend. That just didn't sound like a good situation for a visiting hang glider pilot with minimal mountain experience. So… by 10 PM, I was back on the road headed to Fallon.

Allen Sparks was kind enough to give me the names and phone numbers for a couple HG pilots from the Tahoe area, so I thought maybe I'd be able to hook up with one of them to fly until my friend returned from his lousy Key West trip (yea.. right… if only I could be so luck to have an all expense paid business trip to Key West!). Plans were laid to fly with Bob, one of Allen's friends, for Sunday. Plans fell through and were shifted to Monday. Plans on Monday got slightly shifted as he was afforded an opportunity to ski Tahoe on the last day of the season. So.. plans were to fly late afternoon Memorial Day at Redrock… a location north of Reno. While hanging out in Reno, I get a call from my buddy. Yep… he's back early and has made plans with his friends to fly a site south of Carson City.

So… what's a girl to do? Fly with a friend who she hasn't seen in nearly 2 years, or fly with a kind stranger who has kindly offered to show me around? Yea… I suck… I bailed on Bob and joined my friend.

Minden Hot Springs was the site we flew. It's a west-facing site located about 4 miles north of the town of Minden. As we were driving south on I-395 south of Carson City, it looked like conditions might be too strong to fly, but we made our way up to launch all the same. On launch, my friend and one of his buddies looked at one another and said almost in union, "Its PERFECT!"

So… perfect was a pretty consistent WNW wind blowing 15-20 mph. Being primarily a tow park pilot, I'm not accustomed to these kinds of conditions (10 mph straight down the runway is about as strong as it seems to get at Manquin before flight operations are curtailed). It wasn't gusting and the local pilots assured me the flying would be excellent. There were four of us. So, one pilot launched to show me how it was done leaving my buddy and one other to wire me off. I picked up my glider, felt the wind for a few minutes, cleared my nose man, took a couple steps and quickly found myself airborne. And airborne I would remain for the next 2 hours and 15 minutes, soaring until the sun was nearly set.

Okay… at this point, I need to back track a bit. My vehicle was left in the LZ. This meant I had to grab what I needed from it to take to launch. No worries, right? Surely I grabbed everything I'd need, right? WRONG. I was wearing shorts and failed to grab my jeans to wear for the flight.. and more importantly, for the landing. At launch I had a choice to make… fly an unfamiliar site in the high desert in shorts or remain earth-bound and watch my friend fly. I chose the former.

So… the sun is dipping lower and lower over the snow capped Sierras I'd been gazing at for the past 2+ hours. The other 3 pilots had already landed. My buddy had joked earlier in the day that I would likely have the best landing of all of them. I'm sure this jinxed me (just joking Trey wink>).

I'd been warned about this wicked ground effect in the LZ, so I come in hauling ass, not wanting to stall. Well… I turned onto final at the far upwind end of the LZ thinking I was plenty low to make a landing in the field. But I had LOTS of energy cause I was flying fast. So, my glider continue to fly, and fly, and … "Oh shit! There comes the road."

So, the road….

The LZ is bordered by a raised road on two sides. The sides of the road are built up with this really ugly, jagged, black rock. On the other side of the road is low scrub brush…some still green, other dead and unfriendly looking. (Guess what I learned… the dead stuff, though unfriendly looking, breaks pretty easily upon impact with an object. The green stuff is pretty resilient and will put up a pretty good fight should something stupidly try to pass through it).

Alrighty… so I'm whizzing toward the road. My flying friends here me utter an "Oh shit!" as I whiz past them. So, I pop up and over the road ("Shoo! One ugly situation avoided") and flare just in time and land in the scrub brush. Thankfully, my flare was pretty effective. Unfortunately, it wasn't a not step landing. The glider was fine (barely even nosed over); however, the exposed flesh of my legs made pretty good contact with the scrub brush. The right thigh got scratched by a dead bush. The left shin was bloodied by a green bush. Oh well… nothing more than a flesh wound. I was fine, but my battle wounds did draw curious stares and comments like, "What happened to you? Cat fight" for the next few days.. lol….

Bob (the guy I bailed on) was a true good sport. He actually called to see how we'd faired. Seems he was the ONLY pilot who flew Redrock that day (it was strong and cross, and he only got about an hour in before top landing). When I told him about all of our flights he stated that I had certainly made the right choice:-)

Okay, so that was Memorial Day. Tuesday was spent getting some R&R while my friend was at work. Since it looked like he was going to be working ridiculously long hours the remainder of the week and it didn't look like I was going to be able to hook up with any other local pilots for week day flying, I bailed and drove to San Ramon, CA to spend some time with a friend of mine (a professional triathlete by the name of Alexis Waddel… look for her in the 2004 Olympics… she's currently ranked #16 among US women professional triathletes!) It was great to see her if only for an evening. Thursday morning, she flew out for a race in Bellingham, WA, so I headed south to my old stomping grounds: Monterey, CA and the Marina State Beach. I ran into my old instructor soaring the dunes on a Condor (aren't those supposed to be 5 feet off the ground, training hill only type of wings?). I waived him down and he offered to introduce me to crosswind beach landings Friday morning.

Friday morning arrived and I got to hike my glider down to the south dune. NOTE to self: Pod harnesses SUCK for flying the dunes especial when you get to walk a 1/2 mile down a beach wearing one while ground handling a glider.

Anyhoo… I got to drag me, my glider, and sand collecting harness up the dune for 5 flights and honed my X-wind landing skills. With my final training hill launch, I scored myself a mini soaring flight making 5 or so passes over the training hill/dune before coming in for a good X-wind landing. "Woo hoo! That was fun! I want more of that!" More would not come until the next day. By the time I walked my glider a 1/2 mile back up the beach I was plum tuckered out. The wind had gotten pretty chunky and ground handling became very challenging.

I FINALLY made it back to the set up area and broke down as the local pilots were setting up. It was great fun watching the seasoned dune pilots do their thing. Soon, I found myself chatting with a man who showed the greatest amount of skill. He introduced himself as George Reeves (someone who I now consider a great friend…. Thanks for everything George!). While making small talk, he asked where I'd learned to fly. Upon hearing that I'd learned at a flight park outside of Richmond VA, Georges eyes got all big and he became obviously excited.

"You're one of Steve Wendt's students?!!!" he exclaimed.

"Sure am," I responded.

Turns out George and Steve are good friends and were instructors together down at Kitty Hawk Kites for a few years together and are great friends.

Saturday, I came back and George declared, "Don't worry… I'll get you soaring these dunes, no problem." He put a radio on me (everyone at the beach uses FSR's vice 2 meter radios, so my radio was pretty useless), flew my glider down to the south dune for me (the dune I had walked my glider down to the previous day), and waited for me as I made my way on foot.

On a side note, flying with a hook knife is critical on the beach in case you have the misfortune of landing in the water. If you do this, you stand a good chance of dying, especially in the Monterey Bay with the good surf and often-dangerous undertows. Also, you only hang by your primary loop (one less thing to cut through in the event of a water landing) and you don't lock your carabineer (in case you have a chance of unhooking vice cutting through your hang loop.

Okay… so I did my hang check, got a few more pointers from George (the best of which was "Just remember…. altitude is irrelevant until you don't have enough."), called clear and launched. Soon, I heard George talking to me on the radio.

"Okay… turn here… that's right, now drift in closer to the dune… good, .. now turn back… okay, fly at me… there ya go…. Now turn… nice job… okay… this time… try to drift back higher on the south dune… okay… turn… right… there ya go… on this turn… do it nice and smooth… GREAT job… okay, turn… yep.. that's right… turn…"

It went on like this for several minutes. I felt like I was actually getting the hang of this! It was slightly crossing from the south (west is perfect, but the beach is soarable WSW to WNW), so turning back upwind felt like sliding into home base given the 20 knots winds. This was a blast. Soon, George wasn't talking with me anymore. He was just standing on the dune watching. A few minutes later, he was sitting on the dunes talking with another hang 2 pilot he'd been working with earlier. Meanwhile, I kept flying and flying. After 40 minutes, George said, "Okay… that's enough for today… how about landing?"

I was getting pretty tired from my efforts, so his recommendation was well received. I landed just south of the south dune and started walking back up the beach. At the bottom of the dune, George took my glider from me and offered to fly it back to the set up area for me. How cool! Yea! All I have to do is walk my sorry butt back there and break down:-)

That evening, I joined a few pilots for dinner at a local pub, English Ales in Marina. Great pub. It's slightly off the beaten path, but I encourage anyone who visits the area to visit this fine establishment!

Sunday, I came back for some more. Lots of local pilots out this day.

Well.... on this day, I had a close encounter of the not so pleasant kind.... It involved a face (and nose) full of sand, two hyper extended elbows and a blown down tube. Note to self: Downwind stalls 5 feet above the ground at 20 knots really suck:-( So much for thinking I'd figured out the dune thing.

So... what exactly happened, you might ask. Okay... so the wind is blowing kind of northy when west would be straight in. No biggie... other local pilots are taking off from the set up area okay. I ask my local mentor what he thinks about me giving it a go (launching from the set up area) and heading south along the dunes instead of walking my glider down to the "south dune" (a bigger dune that's generally easier to launch from). He said I could always give it a go. If I loose lift, I'd just land and at least I wouldn't have to walk the glider quite as far to get down to the south dune to relaunch. (the south dune being much taller and steeper than what is afforded launching from the set up area).

After talking with George and hearing what I should do to get around the first dune finger south of the set up area, I got my wings all nice and balanced, called clear, got airborne (all good so far) and then started trying to kick into the boot of my harness (this is wear it starts going badly). I kicked and kicked and it took far longer than I wanted to get prone and in my harness. Post accident analysis yielded the following observations: While screwing with my harness, I unintentionally was pushing out. Plus... I got a little too far out in front of the dune I was trying to go around which resulted in me falling out of the lift band. So... I'm flying down wind, getting slow and flying out of lift. That equation equals bad (*$&. So yep... next think I know, I'm headed back to mother earth… FAST! I stupidly think that I'll be able to flare and belly in (sure… wheels are great, but they don't roll so hot in sand!). The good news is, I never went to the uprights (I think if I had I may well have broken my arms). The bad news is, I never let go. So, yup.... hyper extended elbows resulted as I swing through the control frame and a nice tail wire hickie on the left side of my neck from impacting the lower flying wires..

Pain... Wow! Did I hurt! I felt all quesy and achey. After and hour of wreathing in pain on a picnic table and later the back of my truck, I called an ol' local friend who took me to the hospital.

It was actually a little funny…the nurse who was inprocessing me asked, "So, are you still at 2048 North Main Street, Salinas…" Yep.. I've been here before… lol… I updated my information and took a seat.

The good news, after an hour of sitting in the emergency waiting room, I started feeling much better (when I first checked in, my blood pressure was way low... 90-something over 60-something, so I don't think my discomfort was *all* in my head). Anyway, I ended up checking myself out without seeing a doctor.

The bad news is, I wasn't up for flying on Monday, so I missed out on flying Big Sur. I still went down and checked the site out and served as driver. The view at this place is amazing. I WILL fly it at some point in my flying career. Big Sur is rarely soarable, so it's a lot of work for a 15-minute sled to the coast. One of the few soaring days at Big Sur was had when pilots were getting 2k feet over a couple years ago when Big Sur was on fire…. lol… It seems the hang glider pilots were told to land by one of the helicopters that was in the area dropping buckets of water on the flames… "Hang glider pilots!! LAND NOW!!!!" :-)

Tuesday, I returned to the beach and had the pleasure of hang waiting with George for about 4 hours. Conditions never became soarable and we finally bailed (him to get ready to go to work and me to spend some more time with my friend Alexis up in San Ramon). I arranged to meet George again on Thursday (assuming the beach was soarable), but when I called him early Thursday afternoon… the outlook was bleak. He advised that it wouldn't be worth driving back down.

Friday morning, I headed back to Fallon in hopes of flying in the Sierras with my buddy that weekend. On my way, I stopped in to say hello to Kenny Brown (Moyes American rep) as he lives right along the route I was traveling. Great guy! I called before heading over and despite the fact that he and his family were in the middle of having lunch, he invited me to stop me. He gave me a warm welcome and we chatted with me for a while. He showed me around his shop (his current project was setting up a Sonic with a Doodlebug harness) and offered to hook me up with some of his buddies that had left just before I'd arrived to go fly the foothills. Unfortunately, I had dinner plans with my buddy in Fallon and had to turn down is offer. He did give me the name and phone number of a buddy of his in Denver (Airtime Above) since I'd be driving through there on my way home.

Anyhoo…. Saturday, the winds were blowing east… perfect for flying Slide Mountain. By the time we made it to the top of the mountain, there were already a BUNCH of gliders already set up. I didn't start setting up right away as I wanted to talk with some of the seasoned locals first to learn more about flying at Slide and to see a few pilots launch off what is certainly the most intimidating launch I've ever been too (that's not saying much based on my experience, but Man! What a launch!). Based on what I've heard about Jacks, Slide is similar. You have to climb over a guardrail (a new, improved taller one the state put in since some wacko pushed his wife over the cliff in their family sedan). The slope has got to be something like 60º down with only loose gravel for footing. There are trees below launch, but the slope is so steep, I don't think they would really become an issue unless you really tossed away your launch (i.e. launching in a leeside rotor or something equally horrific).

Well… the pilots who'd already set did a fair bit of hang waiting, so it took a while before I got to see someone launch. Two pilots had launched before we got there and one of them… a hang 2, was loitering at about 15k MSL for about an hour before folks decided he wasn't going to sink out, so they might as well launch.

I tell ya what… when they decided conditions were right… the pilots wasted not time at all hurling them self from the mountain. I had to scramble to set up and ended up launching a little too late and missed the better conditions. I found some tiny bullet thermals, but couldn't hang with them. I never got above launch and only 23 minutes later found myself safely on the deck in the LZ 3000 below launch (launch was at 8200 ft MSL, btw). I was VERY disappointed to find myself on the deck so quickly. Pretty much everyone else flew for an hour or longer. Oh well… I had a safe launch, safe landing (on my feet, control frame didn't touch the ground and the glider didn't nose over), and had familiarized myself with the site a bit.

That night, we camped out on top of a hill just south of McClellan (a west facing site just across the way from Slide). It was great. We were on top of a pretty good-sized bump in the middle of the valley and could see the lights of the houses and businesses all around below us. I must say, the scintillation of the lights both above and below made for a rather spectacular view.

Morning arrived and we received word that it was to blow east again Sunday morning.

"Whoo hoo! A chance to redeem myself at Slide!"

Back to launch we headed after tending to breakfast and getting some lunch on ice in the cooler for later in the day. This time, I made sure to set up right away even those we were the first pilots to arrive. Winds were much lighter today and there were concerns that the mountain would soon start "doing its weirdness," meaning the wind would start blowing over the back soon. Two or three pilots were soon off as I finished getting my stuff together. I did my hang check and climbed over the guardrail. The cycles were much lighter today than the previous day. I waited through a couple in hopes of getting something a little stronger so I wouldn't have to work quite so hard to start flying. It became apparent that I would simply have to run my ass off, so with the next good (though light) cycle, I called clear and began what could be described as a controlled fall down the side of the mountain (its so steep, that's kinda what it feels like!).

Just out in front of launch I found myself a reasonably sized bubble of lift and so I started to turn. I was actually able to hang on to this one for a while and soon found myself 2k over launch gazing on Lake Tahoe below me in the distance. What a GREAT site! I'm so glad I was able to go up at least once at Slide. To travel all that way only to sink out twice would have sucked.

Well… I was still a bit thermally challenged. The local pilots had warned me about the strong thermal conditions that were routinely present. When entering a thermal, I was reminded to pull in a bit to make sure the nose of my glider didn't get popped. Likewise, when thermaling, I was advised to carry a little extra airspeed to avoid getting tumbled should I get spit out of a particularly unfriendly thermal. I think I may have spent much of my two flights from Slide flying to fast because I found plenty of lift, but the thermals all seemed way to small to stay with. Oh well….

In any case, I stayed aloft for 40 minutes this time (still short compared with just about everyone else's flights that day), but I was happy to have at least soared.

Eventually, my buddy found his way to the LZ and we packed our stuff up. While heading back to launch to get his truck, we received a call from one of his buddies who had done a mini XC and landed at the LZ in front of McClellan. So, we turned around to go fetch him before climbing back to the top of Slide.

Conditions had definitely turned by mid-afternoon and the winds were now fairly westernly. A couple of us were game for heading to a west-facing site for an evening flight, so off we went.

We headed back to the Minden Hot Springs and soon I found myself aloft for the second time that day. I had another GREAT flight climbing to 1800 ft over and staying aloft until I began to run out of sunlight. 1 hour and 18 minutes later, I made a landing IN the LZ this time (no more close encounters with roads and scrub brush for me!).

Though I didn't have to return to work until the 15th, I decided to head back east Monday morning. I figured I had plenty to time to detour back to Point of the Mountain. I did, but the weather was abysmal all through Utah. Storms were brewing everywhere and winds were gusting up to 45-50 mph (which made for an exciting drive with two bicycles and a hang glider lashed to the top of my truck!). Oh well… there's always Denver (since I had gotten the contact info from Kenny Brown just a few days earlier). Well.. Tuesday, when I was driving through Denver, really unstable conditions were again present. Though there was plenty of blue sky and puffy white cummies, the forecast was calling for scattered thunderstorms, some strong with a chance of damaging hail. That didn't sound like fun to me, so I continued my trek east. By Wednesday evening, I arrived home safe and sound.

I spent the next couple days recovering from my travels (my two and a half month old truck now has about 12,000 miles on it!) and hanging out with a friend. Sunday, I had the itch to travel down to Blue Sky Flight Park as I knew my new Litesport had arrived only days after I'd left for Nevada.

Conditions didn't bode well for soaring, so though I'd brought the Sonic down, I didn't even bother setting it up. The skies were totally over cast and the winds were light.

"Hey… this might be a good day to get my first flight in on my new glider!"

Steve walked me through setting up my new glider and talked me through things I could expect to experience when flying it. John Claytor managed to get a 42 minute soaring flight in despite the conditions, but was back on the ground to help out on my first launches on the Litesport.

Boy! Was that first aerotow exciting and NOT in a good way!. The tow dolly I used was lighter than the one's I've used in the past. Normally, I let go when the front wheels of the dolly start getting light. Well… turns out I released a little early as I ended up ground skimming about 4 feet off the ground before finally starting to climb with the tug. One "oh shit" led to another as I soon found myself in the midst of some mild PIOs. Turns out, I've developed a habit of cross controlling on my more forgiving Sonic. Cross controlling on the Litesport is DEFINITELY not effective! I did a full tow, but it was the most nerve-wracking tow I've ever taken. The landing went really well though… on my feet with only a couple steps, so at least I had that going for me.

Prior to setting off on my second tow, Steve pointed out what my problem was and I made a strong mental note to NOT cross control on future flights. The next two tows went great! Subtle inputs was all it took to stay nicely inside the box behind Tex. I even played with the VG a bit once off tow just to see how the glider handled.

I was surprised at how responsive the glider was to my inputs. I was doing reasonable coordinated turns and smooth figure 8's by the end of the day and my last two landings went well too. The second landing was nearly a no-stepper:-)

All in all…. It was a GREAT 3 week vacation. I added a few more mountain flights to my log book, spent some time with friends I haven't seen in a couple years, made a bunch of new friends, and got to fly my new hang glider despite the lousy east coast weather. It would have been nice if I'd been able to fly a little more, but I'm sure I'll get lots more time in later this season ("Gaea, please stop with the rain already!")