Alaska

I'm in Denali National Park - W0w, wow, wow, wow and wow. My time up here is much too short and rushed and internet is sparse and expensive so I'll blog about it when I'm done. So much to see here, need a year not a week...

Catch up soon.

Portland...again.

I've ended up in and out of this town much more than I expected and here I am again. The flights out of Seattle to Alaska were much cheaper so I'm headed back up there. Found myself back in Portland to do a two day options trading seminar, something I've been dabbling with on and off (mostly off) for the last 5 years. Not exactly a holiday activity but the timing was perfect and it was a good kick in the pants to get some focus on my financial health (damn I must be getting old... ;-).

I stayed with Brett and Heike who very kindly shared their cosy little basement apartment with me Portland has it's attractions, not least is Mt Hood which can be seen from points all around the city. I took this shot on the way back tonight. Not a tough place to live with this view showing up all the time...


Brett took the ultimate revenge on his reserve parachute after the hard landing at the Rat Race by cutting all the lines off and using it as a picnic blanket! (It was due for retirement) Sitting down to dinner with Heike, Katje and Brett:

Northern Exposure

Getting to Vancouver I felt like I'd run out of momentum and while I had initially planned on hanging around BC and exploring some of the places I'd visited before, that just wasn't grabbing me. I needed to do something, I needed a little a motivator. So I decided I'd go to Alaska, as you do. I've always wanted to see the midnight sun and although it wont exactly be overhead, there is still twilight all night at this time of year. It's uncommon but still possible to see the Northern Lights at this time of year, anything even hinting at this would be a gift:


The bottom line is I'm much more likely to be coming back through Vancouver than I am to be any closer to Alaska than this so I'm happy to just poke around, see some mountains and glaciers and try not to get mauled by a polar bear. I'm heading back to Portland for a couple days then fly out of Seattle to Anchorage on the 14th.

Vancouver

Gavin and I drove back to Vancouver the day after the comp. I spent the next 2 days wandering around in some kind of daze, trying to recover from the week of sensory overload in Golden. I really did do about 5 days of completely spacing out which was just fine. Also caught up with Andy who some Oz and Kiwi readers will remember from many moons ago. It was fantastic to catch up, and we did the Grouse Grind - not some weird kinky dance, but a very popular hiking trail in North Vancouver. We hiked with John who I met earlier this year when he was traveling downunder. Grouse mountain has all sorts of tourist catches including a couple of re-homed grizzly bears called Coola and Grinder and some timber wolves at the base of the mountain. It's a relatively steep, short hike under a thick green canopy, beautiful but very busy.



I have to give you the quote of the month which comes from Andy. If you walk up Grouse Mountain you can take the gondola back down for $5, we did, and we were about half way down when Andy, standing in the middle of perhaps 80 people squashed into the gondola, says, in a very honest tone and to nobody in particular but loud enough for all to hear "So, I never thought about the cable breaking..."

Classic :-)

Goodbye to Golden

The week in Golden had some more meaning to it for me personally than just coming here to compete. In 1999 i was here in Canada and learnt to fly just outside of Calgary on a hill that was about 30m high. Then I had my first flight from a 'proper' hill which was the launch we used all week on Mt Seven. Those first flights were just glides off the hill at 7am but they were the ones that had me hooked. On the last morning, a group of us went up the hill early and I repeated my first flight.

Looking north. Launch is the bare patch on the ridge just right of centre

The morning also gave Gavin and Karl the chance to fly the speed wings. Some video footage is here. Those crazy kids...

Canadian Nationals Day 7

The Nationals ended with 1 final task, a 55Km race to the south. The sky was completely overcast in the morning and again the forecast was for afternoon thunderstorms but again they didn't arrive. Conditions were really light at the start (but apparently ballistic later on) and many people scratched around trying to survive after the start gate. Heike and Nicole were both low heading south from Mt Seven, Heike fought hard but wasn't able to get high, Nicole flew low all the way to goal and took out the womens class. One of Craig Collings comp flying tips is to get ahead early in the comp, then you only need to fly as well as but not better than your nearest competitors - Nicole employed this tactic with Heike from before the start gate and it was fun to watch! I saw her launch and fly into the thermal I was in, it was quite useable but she made only 2 turns and then flew straight for Heike who was further away from launch and proceeded to lock on. Gavin had the opposite situation and needed to go all out to beat Keith and pick up an extra 30 points. After getting low around launch, Gav climbed in his own thermal near launch and tracked the lead gaggle down just after the start. He ended up beating Keith into goal by 30 seconds, but it wasn't enough and he finished just 21 points behind Keith who became the new Canadian National Champion. The End results were:

Open Class:

1 - Jamie Messenger, UK 5215
2 - Matt Beechinor, USA 5014
3 - Keith Macullough, CAN 4725
4 - Gavin Zahner, AUS 4704
12 - James Thompson, AUS 3912
18 - Heike Hamann, AUS 3133

Womens:

1 - Nicole McLearn, CAN 3865
2 - Heike Hamann, AUS 3133
3 - Michelle Macullough, USA 2207

The winners with trophies, some of them animated...

It was great to do so much flying in such huge, inspiring terrain, but everyone was mentally broken by the end of it. I didn't meet anyone who had flown the nationals and was planning to hang around for the Willi Mueller XC comp - sleep was the only wish. In the end we had 6 tasks out of 7 days, average task distance was 66Km for a total of just under 400Km of task distance flown with some very good racing by the fast guys.

We were told by all the locals that the conditions here during the comp period were 'not the best Golden has' and if that is halfway true, I can't reccomend coming here for comp or free flying highly enough.

Canadian Nationals Day 6

Task 5 was another race up and down the valley, 55.5km with goal to the north. Today was the most unstable day we've had all week and the forecast said possible thunderstorms late in the day so the task was kept short with an early landing time. We had more wind today than any other day and some of the glides away from launch were very slow and very sinky. There are some reliable thermal triggers just in front of launch which are two round bumps on the ridge line below - affectionately known by the locals as something like the Two Individual Thermal Starters, or T.I.T.S. for short. If we are to be anatomically correct and you imagine Lady Seven lying on her back with her nose being the launch and feet out in the valley, I was thermalling high above her right ear and at one point had enough sink and headwind that my glide angle was aiming me somewhere around her shoulder blade.

The day didn't strike me as being very flying friendly. I grabbed the start and flew back towards the second turnpoint but landed without attempting it, after task 2 I was out of the contest so I see no point in pushing the envelope any further than necessary. A gust front moved through goal and most who made it flew back to the south to land in what was reported as very strong headwind and lift up to 12m/s. Days results:

1 - Will Gadd, CAN
5 - Gav Zahner
13 - Heike Hamann
31 - James Thompson
41 - Moi



Today has set up a very interesting day for tomorrow if we can get a task. Gav beat Keith Macullough into goal today and is still in 4th place only 30 points behind Keith. Heike is 15th overall and chasing Nicole McLearn but needs 300 points to catch her tomorrow. James is 14th overall. The points also compressed between Jamie and Matt in first and second place, should be a fun day!

Canadian Nationals Day 5

Task 4

Well, if you’re still reading after yesterdays post, you’re either a glutton for punishment or you’re my family and wondering why I haven’t called. I got back after midnight last night – the almost 1 to 1 flying/retrieve ratio is something I’ll try to avoid from now on ( 5 hours flying, 4.5 hours retrieving yesterday…) It was interesting enough though, I got a ride with a guy named Helmut (long time local originally Austrian) who spent the last 13 years coaching the Australian alpine ski team – he’s been around since the days of Zali Stegl, coached Alyssa Camplin and until 3 months ago was working with Australia’s next medal hope (Johnny someone?) who he says is an absolute natural on the snow but is a bit injury prone. A really friendly guy, he was the only one to stop, right on dark after I’d been walking down the highway for 2 hours waving a $20 bill at all but empty passing cars. I can safely say that petrol is still way, way too cheap. But walking along the road was a bit nostaligic – the Red Bull X-Alps is on again right now and I spared a thought for the guys out there suffering. Actually they’re having the time of their lives, they just don’t know it right now ;-) Have a look at the site and send a message to Lloyd who is competing for Australia this year, he’s doing great, currently in 18^th place and over halfway to Monaco. Go Lloyd you man machine!

Today’s task was much shorter and kept us closer to Golden which everyone was thankful for. A 55km race first to the south, back north past launch and return south to a westerly waypoint and goal at the HQ. The day was on and we hit 3300m just before the start. Having monumentally screwed up the second task I was in no position to challenge anyone so I thought I would take the opportunity to practice some of the things that I don’t do so well in, one of which is flying fast. Gavin and I were first out of the start gate gliding right next to each other, it was on. We took a couple of turns in lift that wasn’t worth wasting time in (or so I thought) before gliding to the next mountain to the south. I took a line about 100m west of where Gavin was and that was the difference between him getting up on the main ridge and me scratching the cliffs out in front. The rest of the field had topped up before leaving Mount Seven and flew past quite soon after (nice and high) while I was low and now groveling. In short I was really happy with my flight at the end of the day – firstly I learnt not to be too greedy about speed and then I spent an hour and a half scratching around including a save from 100m off the valley floor, climbed back to 3000m, blasted along the ridge tops and landed just as the day was shutting down 1k short of the northerly turn-point.

Gav played follow the white rabbit (this alternates between Keith and Will who both fly white boomerangs – and take you places you normally wouldn’t go…) and came in 5^th. James and Heike were both in goal. Gav is 4^th overall, a few hundred points behind Keith, and flying incredibly well. You can all expect the boy to do very well back home this summer, no pressure Gav ;-) Heike is flying really consistently and working hard to try and catch Nicole McLearn of Canada. Days results:

1 – Matt Beechinoor – 1:54:36
5 – Gav Zahner – 2:09:39
16 – James Thompson
26 – Heike Hamann
Plumbing the depths - Me

Canadian Nationals Day 4

Task 3

An American person asked me a few weeks ago if anyone in Australia other than Steve Irwin actually used the word ‘crikey’. I said that I didn’t but there were definitely people who’d never been on TV that did. This occurred to me while I was puzzling over how to describe today’s flying conditions, and the only single word I could come up with that generally did the job was: Crikey! Read on if you dare…

Competition organisers always want to set a long task when they can, and today was that day. We had a 109km race to the south with goal at Invermere. All the Aussies were in goal and a total of 33 pilots flew the distance and another 5 went over 100km. In a field of 65 that’s fairly impressive. Results were:

1 – Marty Devietti, USA – 3:52:05
7 – James Thompson - 4:05:01
8 – Gav Zahner
28 – Heike Hamann
31 – Me

Looking south towards Invermere, about 50Km from goal.

What was more impressive about having 33 pilots in goal on a relatively slow, 109km task is that so many survived the psychological beating that the day handed out. My flight today was about 5.5hours, I’ve had several flights longer than this and all are tiring but today after 2 hours I was as mentally exhausted as I’ve ever been in flight. The ridges here are big, so big that you don’t need to be on top of them to fly a very long way, Will keeps telling us this – fly the front, it works – he knows better than anyone and he’s absolutely right. The drawback is that flying the front of the ridge seems to be the paragliding equivalent of going 10 rounds with Mike Tyson – except that you get your face smashed in the first round and then Mike spends the next 9 rounds shadow boxing you so you don’t know when or if that knockout blow is coming. Seriously, I wish I was exaggerating here. I’ve flown a lot of places now and absolutely none are even close to the commitment required to fly here. It’s not exactly difficult flying you understand, every single spur you fly over will have lift on it somewhere so you shouldn’t really sink out (most of the time) but the hard part is dealing with the mind-job you get handed every single time you fly into a thermal. It goes something like this:

You’re gliding along the face of a 2500m ridge and you approach a spur running up to a peak. You feel the usual turbulence associated with impending lift, then you almost instantly hit a peak of 5m/s. Your glider pitches behind you and you have that hands-up-and-wait moment, you catch the massive surge then just as quickly you are doing zero or less. You fly for a couple seconds, trying to gather your wits when your glider spontaneously shoots out to the horizon away from the ridge for no apparent reason. You mentally scan your underpants for fallout as you swing under the glider and somehow fly into a solid core where given all you’ve learnt in the last 15 seconds there should only be sink. The climb seems good, solid 4-5 up so you fly straight and consolidate in it for 3 or 4 seconds, the lift peaks so you turn a sharp180 degrees to the right, and you are in still air. No problem you think, it didn’t feel like it but the centre of lift must be to the left, so you continue the turn through 360, find the thermal again, consolidate in it, turn left, and you are doing 3m/s down. Your glider goes behind you to what feels like the horizon but the vario doesn’t make a sound. You check your undies again and prepare to be smacked out of the sky. Nothing happens. You keep turning, out of sheer terror now and repeat this pitching, rolling aerial rodeo ride and the end result is a series of eclectic 360 degree turns about as round as a kidney-dish that get you an average of 1-2m/s (most of the time averaging up, though occasionally it’s down and occasionally that’s better than the alternative). Every now and then you put the wingtip on the horizon, deliberately rather than by act of god and you turn the 5/ms sliver of lift into a 2m/s average. This is bliss when you can manage it. After 10 minutes of the above, you arrive somewhere near or just above ridge height and you head on a glide wondering what the hell just happened to you and exactly where your mummy is right now. With many sadistic variations on the above theme, you repeat this every time you hit lift for the next 5 hours.

The flying here is truly awesome – and I mean that in the oxford dictionary sense not the bastardized skateboarder sense. It took me almost 2 hours to fly the first 30km and my nerves were destroyed by that point. I somehow managed to get the shits (literally, sorry) a couple hours before the task started so I launched late and didn’t leave the start gate until half an hour after the start time. Combined with the first 2 hour struggle it was looking marginal that I would make goal by the 8pm close time but there just seemed to be no way to make up time while staying in the air AND not having a nervous breakdown. With 45 minutes until goal closed I was 25km out at 3400m, my GPS was telling me I needed a 9 to 1 glide and my time to goal was 43 minutes. Nothing left to do but glide – and pray. I made 2 turns in one strong climb and flew through what little else there was. I got to goal 6 minutes before close with about 50m of ‘spare’ altitude when I crossed the goal line. Very exciting. Gavin and James were both in fast, Gavin might have been much faster had he not broken his speed bar 30K from the start.

The positive I take out of the day is that I had a 109km flight that would never have happened if this wasn’t a comp day. At about 30km I would have said ‘This is pretty dumb’ and flown into the valley and landed, rather than saying ‘This is pretty dumb’ and continuing because it was a comp task. I like that comp flying encourages you to stretch your limits and today was a classic example of that….but if anyone or anything that has the power is listening out there, can we please have one, nice, consistent smooth thermal that goes up all the way around? Just one?? Thanks.

Heading on an optimistic final glide...

Canadian Nationals Day 3

The wind was looking strong early on so we waited until 4pm for another update, but it wasn’t looking good so the day was cancelled. Surprisingly few injuries were reported for a non-flying day (to all the non-flyers out there, the days we don’t fly during paragliding competitions are generally when people get hurt), just a few minor volleyball related strains.

Karl from Jackson Hole had his speed wings out for some ground-handling in the strong wind. They look almost like real gliders…only smaller. Much smaller.