Day 16 -Hurricane, Graff's Peak

Originally, Stacy had planned to fly Graff's Peak in the morning and then continue to Hurricane (this would also have been the more 'logical' way), but due to predicted winds we went to Hurricane first. Just as we arrived on launch, another flat tire...

Stacy launched first and found a nice thermal so he could come back and topland.
I launched next and could soar for about 30 minutes, but the thermals became more inconsistent and in the end I landed not far from my car. I guess that it just was too hot for good thermals to devellop.


So then we drove North to Graff's Peak (my second new site on this trip).
We might have arrived a little late for really good xc-flying, but still all had a good flight; Junko made it to Parowan - congrats!



looking South towards Kolob Cyn

Day 15 -Brian Head, Cedar Mtn

While driving to Ceadr City after our flight from Mt.Edna, we made a slight detour and took a scenic route, which led us by Brian head, another possible flying site.

looking East from Brian Head



The winds were too inconsistent for a safe launch, so we continued to Cedar City and up Cedar Mountain.

looking NE: Cedar Breaks National Monument

This was my 3rd visit to this site and finally the conditions permitted a good flight

Flight 2100 -if my count is correct

Utah -Day 14 -Mt.Edna

After a lousy night (after having received the notice of my best friends accident and death in his beloved mountains), Stacy, Shuji and Junko (from Japan) and I headed up Mt.Edna.



Cloudbase was just above the antennas and the wind from SW. After quite a long time considering if I should fly at all, I finally took off and flew out Cottonwood Cyn and landed at the interstate.

Shortly after,

Shuji and Junku landed there as well.

While we were still packing up Terry arrived. He lives right next to the LZ in Marysvale and had seen us place a windsock there and then head up the mountains. Later he saw us fly out, but not towards the LZ. So he figured there might possibly something wrong, took his car and followed us to where we landed.
Hey Terry, that was awfully thoughtful and kind of you, and probably my quickest retrieve ever!
We had been back to our cars faster than Stacy could drive from Edna.

Riet

Go with love upon your journey,
Go with wonder in your heart,
May the light be there to guide you
trough the terrace of the dark.
You have always been a good friend
but I won't know when you have arrived -
and I wish that I could see you one more time!

(excerpt from 'the Journey' by Chris de Bourgh)

Riet

Riet, Esther und Ruth in Medergen, Juli 2004


Heute (SO, 1100LT) wurde ich in Richfield, UT nach dem Fliegen von der Nachricht vom tragischen Unfall Riet's überrascht.
Genaueres weiss ich nicht, ausser dass er am Samstag im Bergell auf einer Bergtour abgestürzt sei.
Ich sitze hier im Hotelzimmer und versuche das Ganze irgendwie zu (er)fassen.
Mein herzliches Beileid für diesen unermesslichen Verlust an Esther, Nina, Luzia, Flurin, Vera, Claudia, Jan, Ben und und...
Man sollte verbieten, dass die Kinder vor den Eltern sterben!

Als ich nach der 1.Sek in Arosa im Gymi in Chur in der 1.Klasse hospitierte, war Riet vom ersten Moment an einer meiner besten Freunde und ich wurde von ihm und seiner Familie stets mehr als freundlich und grosszügig empfangen und bewirtet!
Wir verbrachten die ganze Gymi-Zeit bis zur Matura in der gleichen Klasse (oft nebeneinander in der gleichen Bank - von jemandem musste ich ja schliesslich abschreiben...); verbrachten mehrere Sommer in der Boval-Hütte bei Hans Philipp als Träger und unternahmen schöne Bergtouren; reisten zusammen mit Heinz Raschein nach Schweden ins 'Survival camp' von Martin Epp; verbrachten tolle Stunden/ Tage im 'Hüttli' (sei es Pizol, Vilan oder Fanas) mit Gilbert, Jürg und Els; trafen uns immer wieder mal im Tenue 'grün', wenn gleich meine Karriere dort deutlich weniger spektakulär verlief.
Riet hat etwa gleichzeitig mit mir mit GS-fliegen begonnen, hörte dann aber auf, weil er das Risiko mit Familie und eigenem Geschäft für zu gross erachtete -welch eine Ironie des Schiksals!

Ich werde morgen (MO) versuchen, meinen Flug ex LAS umzubuchen, so dass ich am Freitag in der Schweiz sein kann - ich hoffe sehr, dass es möglich sein wird.

Utah - Day 13 -Cove

Unfortunately yat another day which OD'd in the afternoon...
There was a small window for some thermals, but I blew it as my right brake line got tangled with the C-risers and I had to fly away from the mountain (and the possible thermals) to untangle it... Reason: I had not thouroughly completed my pre-flight check, so I probably 'deserved' it.

Small flower on launch

Utah - Day 12 -finally...

...the long awaited
 

16oz prime rib

;-)

Utah - Day 12 -Capitol Reef NP in the afternoon

Just 1.5hrs from Richfield lies "Capitol Reef National Park".
As it looked not like we could fly 'Cove' in the evening, I drove over to this NP.
Though it's probably the least spectacular of Utah's NPs, it's still worth a visit.
And I'd been lucky, as there were some sunny spells.

Utah -Day 12 -(altn) LZ at Maryvale

I have to bring this up here: a while back Stacy had been told that it would be ok to land at

1810 Bullion Cyn.Road.

But already as we got to the intended LZ, the farmer arrived on his ATV and showed his displeasure of us being here. He also made us park further down the road. His remark: "we are trying to grow some grass here" was nothing but a joke in view that this field was nothing but dust and dry weeds!
When we actually landed there he showed up again and Stacy had to go and talk to him in order "to calm him down".
I simply cannot (and will not) understand how some one can be so egoistic. First he gives permisson and then he gets angry when someone lands there. A part from this: who many times a yaer paragliders show up and actually do land in his field: once, twice, ...?

So please do avoid landing in

this area

in the future.

Utah -Day 12 -Mt. Edna (in the morning)

At 0700 more than 20 pilots showed up at HQ, ready for a ride up Mt. Edna, Utah's highest drive-up launch. At the LZ in Maryvale everybody loaded his gear onto the roof of 3 cars and then squeezed in...
It was still overcast when we arrived on top of Edna at the radio station, but the visibility was excellent, as well as the conditions for launch.


looking SE - S - SW; pajute reservoir in the center


some delicate, small flowres growing at 3600m.

Utah -Day 11 -Day-6 of the RRN: Prize giving

As mentieoned in my last entry, the comp had been cut short by one day due to wx and the prizegiving ceremony moved to Friday evening.
We met at René's Restaurant,were all the pilots and volunteers were treaded to a steak-/ chicken dinner. Besides the DJ we were entertained by

"Miss Richfield 2011-2012".

Among the winners of the different categories (open, serial, sport, master (55+), women I knew only

No1: Nicole and No3: Kari. Arnie made 3rd place in the serial class.

I'd like to take the opportunity here to say a very big "thank you" to the organizers of this meet, among them Stacy, Ken (meet director), Jeff (retrieve director), Zac, Jochen, Judy, Janet, Shary and all those not mentioned here, because I either forgot their names or because they just had been working unseen/ unnoticed in the background!

Utah -Day 10 -Day-5 of the RRN: task #2 (Monroe Peak)

Flower at 3400m

After 3 days without a task due to the wx, Task #2 was set today: race to goal: 68.5km.


Task #2


Looking SW-W-NW

At first, when launch opened, it looked kind of weak in front of launch, so I delayed my TO by about 30mins. By then the thermals in front and right of launch had nicely develloped and pilots were getting high. So I figured it might by time to give it a try...


Circling over launch, looking South


The gaggle waiting for start (looking North towards Cove)

It was rather easy getting high, though top of climb was about 1000m lower than on Sunday.
By sheer luck I was only about 200m from the edge of the start cylinder by the time the race started. I took a line above the foothills and arrived on Cove not much after the first pilots (which had taken a line further in), but much lower. So it took a while for me to get high again. I moved rather slowly northwards.


Sevier Valley, looking North

Looking backwards, I didn't much like what I saw, so I decided to land near a village with a nice road, in order to avoid any hiking.


Glenwood, where I landed

Unfortunately (or luckily), the clouds didn't OD (overdevellop), so I could have tried to continue for some more kms. But better safe than sorry...
I was picked up rather quickly and driven back to HQ. Thx Jeff! By looking at the SPOT-tracks of Nicole and Arnie, they seem to have made goal - congrats!

Utah -Day 9 -Day-4 of the RRN:RA, xxRA at times

Still no luck with the wx: RA, xxRA at times.
For a short while it looked as there might be a task, but then on Monroe the clouds just got darker...


...while we were still hoping...(Ken)

And the road down from the mountain also got worse by the minute!

Utah -Day 8 -Day-3 of the RRN:-update

CB N of Richfield, after the rain had passed


Chicken dinner at Monroe City
Many thanks for having us for dinner!

Utah -Day 8 -Day-3 of the RRN: 50% chance of TS

"50% chance of TS" - that's all there is to say.
Tonight chicken-dinner and free beer, offered by the town of Monroe; many thanks!

Utah -Day 7 -Day-2 of the RRN: 30% chance of TS

Today's forcast gave a "30% change of tunderstorm" in the afternoon, so no task was set.

After a rather long (and repetitive) talk about the pros and cons of serial class vs open class gliders: we were finally given 5 options of how to spend the day:
1) Bryce Canyon NP with a hike of 4-5hrs; 2) Capitol Reef NP; 3) a mining tour;
4) fly of Monroe Peak; 5) do whatever you like.
With about 14 other pilots I went for option 4).
Good conditions on launch; but it could be clearly seen that something was brewing...
So when I got a nice altitude above Cove I started gliding towards Monroe.


on glide towards Richfield

For a very long time it looked rather good, but abeam the airport the headwind got stronger and I had to land at the south edge of town. 300m more height gain on Cove would have been probably sufficient to make it.


looking back towards Cove with CB's brewing above

But as I write this entry, there is a thunderstorm with rain outside...

Utah -Day 6 - Harness

I had mentioned that I've had a problem with my harness: when I tried to get into it, I ripped apart the Velcro shown in the picture, so the 'foot plate' got detatched from the pod... In the evening I sewed everything together!

Utah -Day 6 -Day-1 of the RRN

Task #1

Sunday - first day of the RRN: a 121km race to goal.


Windtecs taking off


looking North towards Cove

As luck would have it, I had again problems with my pod. I had thought, that all the problems would have been ironed out by now, but...
I first thought about landing at the bail-out LZ below launch, but decided against it, as this would not have solved the problem - I wouldn't have been able to fix the pod at launch.



So I just hung in there, flew over to Cove, where I got just above 5000m and then glided to Richfield in order to land at the HQ-LZ.


Sevier Valley Center & High School

>> At the time of writing this entry, I don't have any information about the comp.

Utah -Day 5 -Monroe / registration / Cove

Again a beautiful day with good conditions. We could launch off Mobroe Peak around noon. I scratched down the whole 6000+ft -taking 45 minutes before landing at Monroe...


Kari, Taggi


Monroe



In the afternoon, first the registration for the RedRockNartionals 2011 (RRN) and the first pilots briefing took place.


Briefing at the 'Sevier Valley Center'

At 1800 we left for Cove: excellent conditions (though on TO a bit switchy). I got about 500m over launch.


Cove

I saw a pilot descending on his reserve right behind Cove Mtn. I flew over him to get his GPS coordinates and then toplanded to give this information to Zac, the safety director. Luckily nothing had happend to him; he was able to pack up and hike out; shortly after midnight he was picked up...

Utah -Day 4 -Cove

At 1900 we were supposed to leave for 'Cove' for an evening soarimg flight; but, as was almost to be expectet, we didn't leave before 1925...
I parked my car at the LZ, in order to have some flexibility after flying.
We finally arrived at launch at 2015 an I got off at 2045. The winds were a little cross, but nothing too bad.


Cove -West launch

The sun was already setting, but still it was great soaring in to the dusk; I was able to get about 200m over; landing after 39 minutes.





After I had laid down my glider, I've heard that there has been an accident: apparently a girl crashed halfway up the mountain.
As the rescue was already been organised and I couldn't be of any help, I left for the hotel in order to be out of the way.
At the time of writing this blog entry, I don't have any more informtion - I just hope it's nothing too serious.