Pine Weekend

Pine Mountain is in the high desert, east of Bend, and it offers the possibility of long flights - the current and several previous Oregon state records have been set from it. Strong (or outrageous) conditions are not just possible but likely - flying there at midday can be pretty intense. It's a long way to go for a Portland pilot and you never know what you will get when you arrive; a four hour drive could be followed by a six-minute sink out or a five hour flight.

Dan, Mary-Beth and I met Mike Steed and some local pilots early on Saturday. The forecast wasn't great but was in the ballpark - it looked better for Sunday than Saturday. We launched from Antelope (normally a SE launch, but it was SW when we got there) and seemed to be always flying into a headwind. The highest we got was around 8,500 ft (low for Pine), we didn't go very far but the three of us got away for a short XC. In the evening we flew glass-off with some local pilots. Glass-off at Pine is a complete contrast to midday flying - smooth, powerful lift and super relaxing flying. We retired to Mike's condo in Sunriver, where Paula cooked us a wonderful meal.

Sunday found Dan, Mary-Beth and me back at Pine; the forecasts seemed to show a late start would be best. The cycles were strong and very cross when we arrived; they seemed to calm down and straighten out after a while; then they picked up again. Timing your launch at Pine isn't easy; most of the launches have a sea of trees just behind them. You don't want to commit to a strong thermal right off launch and fall out of it over the trees (imagine the
embarrassment - landing in a tree in the middle of the desert!). Ideally you want to fly out a little bit, then get your strong thermal so you have some altitude before crossing the trees.

I took off and found nice lift straight away. I was able to work up in a thermal, push forward and find another thermal before letting myself drift back in lift. Dan didn't get off right behind me (two minutes into our flight and we are already on plan B!). He launched a few minutes later, but the lift seemed to have passed and after a few minutes looking around he headed out over the training hill, then a few minutes later he said he was going to land at the Y.

I climbed up to 8,500 ft and lost the thermal; I looked for it carefully, but that seemed like the top of lift for now. I headed E and a nice surprise - Dan had got back up from the Y. It looked like I could glide across the first power lines to him and we could fly together. I tried this but ran into mega-sink; on full bar my glide was 4:1. Dan was climbing and by the time I reached him he was at least 2,000 ft above me and I needed to find some lift quick!

There was some disorganized lift, I lost some more precious altitude before I got it sorted out and I very slowly climbed out as I crossed the second power lines. Dan was well on his way at this point; I could only catch occasional glimpses of his wing in the distance.

As I neared Brothers I decided to divert S to a promising looking cloud street. This turned out to be a big mistake; there was lift, but it was slow and disorganized. Worse, the glides weren't buoyant. I wanted a sip from my Camelbak but couldn't find it; I reached behind me and realized the back of my harness was open and presumably my water was gone. I really didn't want to land with no water and a 6 mile hike back to the highway, so I concentrated on making the best of the lift.

After some slow progress - max altitude was 10,700ft - I got back to the highway at the end of the cloud street just before the alfalfa fields near Hampton at 3,000ft AGL and felt pretty good. Pine is a big-air site, with big lift but big sink cycles, and the air around the alfalfa fields can be sinky so I wanted more altitude before pressing on. I found some super weak lift (less that 50ft / min) and went looking for something better. I looked everywhere but I didn't find anything; 12 minutes later I was on the ground after a 26 mile flight.

Mary-Beth arrived and as we set off after Dan we got a message he had landed. We found him 39 miles from launch, delighted with his flight! Very happy with our weekend (3 good flights each from 3 different launches, almost certainly the best 2 flights in Oregon that weekend), we stopped for ice-cream in Bend before heading home.

Tracklog of my Sunday flight -> http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/196616