Cliffside is a pretty important site for Portland pilots. It's our most reliable single site, especially in the winter + spring months; a couple of years ago I logged 30+ hours there. It faces East and offers pretty reliable ridge soaring. It has a very rounded top; easy for top-landing, scratching and strong-wind soaring.
But air-time doesn't always translate into air-miles! It seldom works in the summer (and when it does it can be unbearably hot). There are lots of days when you can fly all day without getting 200ft above launch. The cold, continental air-mass that makes it work in winter can lead to lots of top-landings to warm fingers.
All week it was clear that the only decent flying day would be Thursday at Cliffside. But more than that, the predicted top of lift was near 5,000ft with a pretty constant 10kts to the top of lift. For me, this immediately raised the possibility of flying XC to Hood River. Unlikely, of course, but if you're going to make flights like that you need to look out for suitable conditions.
I couldn't get away from work until the early afternoon. Things looked great driving through, but near Cliffside there was a thin, high cloud layer inhibiting solar warming. By the time I got to launch, a bunch of pilots were sinking out and Steve (Forsland) was launching in obviously weak conditions. He did a very neat job of staying in a thermal; thermals always track back quickly at Cliffside, and today was no exception. Despite the weak conditions, Steve went straight over the back and all we got were occasional radio reports ("I'm at 3,500ft ....").
Jim Baldo, Pete Reagan and Jacques de Villiers were all on launch, marooned in the calm after Steve's launch. I knew what they were thinking - it was an easy day to sink out. Steve + his unballasted comp wing can make a mockery of weak conditions and other pilots trying to fly them.
I knew that choosing a good launch cycle and staying with the lift would be critical to getting up and hopefully getting away. I took the first decent cycle after Steve, maybe 20 minutes later and got 500ft over launch before top-landing when the lift seemed to just go. Jim and Pete launched right after me (when the saw me good up) and top-landed just ahead of me.
I relaunched in the next decent cycle and got up to around 2,400ft, but then lost it. Lift was bubbly, high-pressure and hard to work, averaging less that 200ft per minute. I'd turn for 5 circles, the lift would vanish, I'd find it again, a few more circles etc etc. I flew back to launch, found more lift, got back to 2,500ft and lost it again. I just seemed to lose the lift both times at the same altitude, and I couldn't really understand it. Afterwards, I came to the conclusion I was not following the thermals back enough and falling out the front of them. Maybe I was subconsiously trying to sneak back to the safety of the ridge!
Anyway, I couldn't get away and never got really high again. Conditions weakened, Jim and Pete left, Jacques and I had a few short flights in very weak lift, where top-landing before getting flushed was the main objective. Steve came back drinking beer, after Doug Jackson retrieved him from Centerville, and we called it a day.
Paragliding is such a strange sport; the difference between a good and bad day's flying can be pretty extreme. Overall I had a great day, I seemed to by doing relatively well in the tricky conditions but I was a little disappointed I couldn't get high and get somewhere.
Some photos -> http://picasaweb.google.com/DMMullin/Cliffside26March2009#
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