Inner City Soaring

get it while you can!

 

By Myles Twete

May 22, 2004

 

 

So the past few month’s I’ve been thinking---‘OK, lift can be found almost wherever, but still, there’s no good lift nearby, right?’.  PASS members insisted that indeed there are slope soaring opportunities and that we hold contests there---each is ‘within a 2-hour drive of Portland’ I kept getting told.  All good and well, I thought, but I grew up in SoCal where I could walk to a slope or drive 15-minutes to one---not 2-hours!

 

With the handlaunch Seeker glider in car at nearly all times lately, I’ve taken it upon myself to find lift locally, by field or by slope/cliff/rock/tree/building.  What my thought would be a disappointing waste of time, searching for lift in the inner city---has proven very valuable and fun in the search itself !

 

Not only have I found that occasionally long flights can be had at local school fields (e.g. Reed College at SE Steele and 32nd), but I’ve found cliffs, slopes and bowls locally that with the right winds generate booming lift!  So who needs to do a 2 hours drive to go soaring…

 

In fact,  in addition to the obvious local spots (Powell Butte and Mount Scott), I’ve found 2 sites recently in Inner SE and North Portland that can generate the most amazing lift and offer tall grassy fields for safe landings.

 

Dog-bite park (aka Jessup/Willamette Bowl)*-

 

This site works with SW to WNW winds.  It’s above the East end of Swan Island, just below Willamette Blvd in North Portland.  If you took Greeley to Jessup, left to Willamette Blvd, then drive around the huge bowl to the North side and park, you can walk right down a trail to a truly great local place to handlaunch, or even bungee launch.

Figure 1  Map showing location of ‘dog bite’ bowl from N. Greeley Ave

The site consists of an elongated circular upper bowl area, perhaps 100 or more yards across with sporadic trees and utility poles partially lining the upper part of the bowl (along with Willamette Blvd and its guard rail).

Figure 2 View of upper bowl area showing trees, road and utility poles

As you can see, the bowl’s slope faces drop about 20ft high to the bowl, which gently slopes windward to a very wide, straight face which drops another 80-100ft down steep cascading slopes to Swan Island.

Figure 3  The bowl is wide, grassy and devoid of trees except at the upper slopes

Figure 4 View showing lower bowl dropping off to Swan Island below (Swan Island and Forest Park seen in distance)

 

The views are great.  The landing area is fine (for awhile).  The lift can be incredible!  As mentioned, the place works best with a stable SW to WNW wind, but given the wide bowl area, even when winds come off the top or other directions, handlaunch flights are fun, if short.  The BIGGEST downside of this site is the dogs.  It seems that 90% or more of the people who use this park (it appears to be land owned by the city) are dog owners.  And since this is an open, ungroomed field, nearly ALL of these owners seem to think it’s just fine to have their dogs unleashed, and yes, don’t even think they need to clean up after them.  So this presents a big landing challenge when dogs are around---- to catch your glider before Frisbee-catching FIDO gets a wing.

 

What makes this site a great place now, and what makes using it for gliders perhaps fleeting, is that a recent fire had scoured the bowl and the lower slope.  This of course got rid of bushes, blackberries and other things and allowed lots of great grass to come up this Spring.  But along with the grass are new blackberry shoots and other baby bushes/trees.  This will make retrieving gliders and landings a bit gnarly---eventually blackberry growth will make it an undesirable spot.  But RIGHT NOW this is THE site in town for west winds.  It could make a great Fun Fly and even Slope Combat site before next year’s blackberry growth sets in.

 

* I had to give this place some kind of name---Dog Bite seems appropriate since that’s what your wing will have if you let the glider land when dogs are around.

 

ROSS Island Bridge Cliffs -

 

This site I just ‘discovered’ this week.  It, too, is likely to be a fleeting soaring opportunity, only more so, since this site is For Sale and will likely be covered in concrete and multi-story buildings in a couple years.  The site at 306 SE Ivon is accessed by heading South on Water Ave past OMSI, following the street ‘til it dead ends.  Veer right across the street into the Spirit of Portland parking lot and drive through the lot toward the grassy field in the distance.   Park somewhere (don’t know if it’s legal at all or who owns that section, but if you’re asked, say you’re considering buying the grassy 3-acre lot and you’re checking it out).

The grassy field is the place.

 

Figure 5 Map showing ‘Ross Island bridge cliffs’ site location

This site gets lift with South to West winds which blow along the Willamette River, under the Ross Island Bridge and slam into 20ft cliffs along the shore:

 

Figure 6 View from the water of the gnarly rip-rap cliffs which create the lift at this site (Ross Isle Bridge shown---grassy landing site is behind the For Sale sign, in front of the towers in distance)

Lots of old concrete, rip-rap, trees and other obstacles line the cliffs and 30ft inland, but the landing area further inland is pristine grassy acreage.  I didn’t expect much from this site, but I gave my SEEKER a good hurl and BOOM, as the glider reached the cliffs area it just went up and up---as high as Ross Island Bridge.  I had an Osprey check out my glider.  Yesterday, 3 Bald Eagles soared over to check it out.

This site also offers incredible views: of downtown, West Hills, Ross Island Bridge, Willamette River, Ross Island and its Slough.

Downsides include loud sounds from Ross Island Sand and Gravel (?) operations inland from the 3acres as well as the risk of losing the glider over the water.

There may be low altitude good cliff slope soaring at the water’s edge, but I’m not that daring and don’t trust the lift to be that stable, so I stay well back in the landing area.

Finally, from the landing area you need to get the glider a good distance out before getting into the big lift, so it takes a good discus or side-arm launch to get it out there.

Oh yeah, and technically, there’s a trespassing issue…

 

Bottom line is:

 

There’s lift out there and places to fly which have really surprised me.

It may surprise you too.

 

Seek out and get it while you can---tomorrow may be too late!

 

-Myles Twete