Day 1 & 2 at Woodrat mountain

Hey everybody,
Well, we've got the usual campsite HQ set-up again with Motorhead Paul, Forest & Raven, Tom Chestnut, and myself. 1st practice poker was won by Tom, Paul 2nd, and the usual 3d place victim Reaper. Although I was kicking their butts early and texting at the same time. Duh!

Day 1 Paul & arrived and after setting up camp we raced up to mid-launch for our 1st glass-off. It was one of the best glass-offs I have ever flown. Mid-launch had about 40 or 50 pilots on it with most being local instructor Kevin Lee's students. I launched the Magic into magic air and flew straight out to 3,200 ft over Longsword winery without making a single turn, then turned back and flew back to mid-launch about 1 1/2 and I only lost 50' ft... Sweet no hands, picture taking flying. I then joined Motorhead Paul over the high launch with a bunch of other expert pilots. We had an awesome sunset flight and then flew out to Longsword Winery again. Funny thing happened at 300' agl, we hit a wall of wind and turbulance that actually parked us and some even were going backwards until about 50' where we had no wind landings??? Strange mechanical turbulance, and strong venturi...? I guess thats just the nature of the valley?

Yesterday we launched at 12:00 into some small bullet thermals with the wind out of the north from Medford coming over Burnt ridge. Most everyone hit a few small 200 to 400 fpm climbs, and some lucky basterds actually found a core or two at 1,000 fpm. I only found two. if you didn't death spiral in the them, you stay in them, ugh!

Forrest got a good one with some other pilots and managed to into some good convergance over Burnt ridge on the north side that punched him thru the inversion. Matt from Seattle got a good one over Rabies ridge that allowed him to get to Rabies peak and over the inversion. Although he said that it was very, VERY strong, and turbulent over there and flew out to Longsword and landed. I guess he didn't like what he was feeling?

I got stuck over mid-launch at about 3,200 and barely escaped a huge flush cycle only to find a great little smooth thermal at about 400 to 800 fpm right over the LZ. I followed Paul over to Rabies ridge only to watch Paul get his butt kicked down low and finally land in the LZ. I was a little higher over the ridge, but the turbulance was pretty bad, and the thermals were blown out due to the venturi from jacksonville. I too had to make a run for it back out over the main LZ, where I found the same little smooth bubbles. After maintaining at about 1,000' agl over the LZ, I gave into beer suck, and spiraled down to join the growing ground suck gaggle.

We finished the day with another fairly good, but bouncy glass-off. Lift was Ok over mid-launch and was pretty crowded so I decided to clear it out by scare tactics. I yanked hard on my A risers and induced a massive asymeteric collapse in front of launch, and hell ya it worked. All the other pilots scrambled to get away from whatever I had just flown into. HEHE... One guy even got a tip collapse after that, and he said that was rowdy air up there, huh? I didn't tell him I did it on purpose!

Back at camp it was still so hot, we jumped into Applegate river to cooool off. Cool it was.

Alright, I gotta go jump in the river now. it's 96 today with a strong inversion, (it's supposed to cool off on Sunday) so the plan today is not fight the inversion layer, and go tubing instead. Marc & "Dogfood" Ray are arriving today with a good supply of Micro beer and some floaty toys.

See ya all tomorrow...

Reaper

Rat Race Rescue number 4 and counting...

Aloha all,
Another year at the Rat Race competition begins...

I'm off tomorrow to see what kind of debauchery awaits me at the Rat Race in Ruch, Oregon.

See www.mphsports.com for more info

Again I will be flying into Seattle and meeting up with Motorhead Paul. We'll leave from his house on the 25th and head down to Oregon. I will be driving my newer '85 ford Bronco that Paul loves to tinker on all winter. Right Paul?

I will be doing my usual job of Para-rescue service and I'm hoping for lots of action again this year. Last year I did 13 rescues with 'O' injuries. Perfect. Lets all pray, that this year will just as safe and fun.

Ok, I have to pack, so I'm off for now.

More Later.

Reaper