Warm-up Climb

Last Friday Jeff and I left Missoula for the Columbian Ice Field. It's an area about 1.5 hours North of Lake Louise that is surrounded by glaciated peaks. A kind of "roadside" alpine playground.

We had our eyes fixed on a route call Andromeda Strain. It's a classic Canada "5.9, A2" route which generally means its going to be difficult. Jeff grabbed the spotting scope and glassed the route. It appeared to be in great shape. With an excitement like little school kids, we started racking up.

We planned on staying in the cirque for about three days. A day to approach, a day to climb, and a day to hike out. Packs would be heavy, but we had plenty of time for a relatively short approach.

We drove up the snow coach road and bivied in the parking lot before our hike in. We spent the night with anticipation, drinking scotch and watching the Northern lights.

The hike turned out to be mellow. We took our time and enjoyed the scenery. Around 12:00 we reached a nice place to camp and called it quits there. The day wasn't over yet. We planned to scope out the approach and drop gear at the base of the route in order to make life easier the next morning. I was starting to feel the effects of the altitude and sun about this time and was beginning to hate life. I was nauseous and had a pounding headache, but we need to do this one last task. The walk was simple yet exhausting for me. We stashed the gear then started making our way back. As I was stepping over a crevasse, the snow bridge gave out and I punched through to my wast. My forward momentum caused me to tumble out of the hole where the rope came tight. Back to camp and to sleep.

The alarm started buzzing at 4:00am. I was feeling better, but was still slow to wake. We quickly ate and then started the approach. The glacier was almost frozen making travel safer and quicker. By 5:30am, Jeff and I were ascending the lower couloir by headlamp. We were traveling fast and making good time. By 10am we had topped out in the couloir and began the traversing pitches. We worked ourselves through one short rock band and began traversing back towards the crux pitched. The gear was sparse, but the climbing was easy. By noon I had reached the base of the upper couloir and the crux pitches. They didn't look good. I tried not to think about it and belayed Jeff over.

Jeff climbed past me and took a look up the gash. It was sparsely filled with rotten snow, ice, and rock. To make matters worse, what was there, was actively melting out. Our position wasn't good. Going up looked dangerous, but rappelling was going to be equally as bad. Jeff and I himmed and hawed about what to do. Eventually I grabbed the rack and gave it a go. I climbed up about 15 feet hooking loose rock and ice. The closer I looked at the pitch, the worse it appeared. It was too dangerous and that effort was good enough for me. I popped my gear and gently reversed my moves. Time to bail.

We spent about 40 minutes trying to build and anchor suitable for rappelling off. The ice was rotten and the rock horrible. Eventually we were able to equalize some rock and ice and rap off. We found ourselves building one more anchor before being able to link existing anchors from previous parties. The descent went smooth and we lucked out with no rockfall. It wasn't long before we were back at camp relaxing in the sun.

Hank Butzel

Thursday, the tightly woven community of Missoula hang glider pilots suffered a huge loss. Our close friend Hank Butzel died while flying his sail plane in Idaho. Hank was a wonderful person whom I was lucky enough to know and form many great memories with. He will be greatly missed.

Hank up front at the controls

Boudoir Photo Shoot

A few weeks ago a gal I work with asked if I would take some pics of her for her boyfriend. I had never tried anything like it, but was excited to try. She came over with an assortment of outfits and some friends who did her make-up. We shot for a few hours an I had a blast doing so. She was extremely bold and comfortable posing which made my job so much easier. It was a great experience trying to create an image by controlling the light rather than capture an image using ambient light. I'm looking forward to my next opportunity to shoot this style.

Stuck in the Sky

For the last week I've been trying my best to get some work done with Jeff, but I haven't been successful. I'm just too much of a fun whore. Each day off from the hospital I've planned on starting a new batch of harnesses, but between Jeff taking people tandem and the sky looking good, I can't help myself. I just go flying. I guess it is just like Leonardo Da Vinci said, "Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."

I can't be bummed though, I am flying and it has been good. I feel like I've been flying better and I have been redefining what is possible for me.

Some random pics from the season:

Jeff tuning his glider before Europe

Josh enjoying a beer after flying Leadore

Jesse out for a morning flight

Paul and Josh flying a Zaggy waiting to launch

Setting up my new glider

Posse on Sentinel

Hang Gliding at Tarkio

Sunday was a high pressure day, but several of us were itching to flying so we made plans to fly Tarkio. As expected, conditions looked good. The winds were blowing straight up launch with good cycles and good lulls. We set up quickly and I punched off first. The air was a bit turbulent right off launch, but the mass lift made it easy to climb out. Once I had ample clearance from the hill, I started trying to core lift. I quickly climbed out to 9,000ft and thought maybe this would be a cross country day. I couldn't break 9 grand and didn't know the character of the day yet, so I decided I would try to stair-step my way up.

Again I found my self climbing to 9,000ft and unable to break through. It appeared I barely had the ridge-line of Stark Mtn. on glide, but the thought of landing in the 9 mile valley seemed like a total was of time and inconvenience to the group. If I was to go for it, I needed to get high so I would have a good chance of making the jump over Squaw Peak. It just didn't seem like the right day for it.

I decided to bail and head for the town of Superior. I glided about a third of the way finding very little lift and made the decision to head back for launch. When I got back there, I found more good lift and climbed out to 10,200ft. This was the elevation I was hoping for. Unfortunately it was late in the day and my vario started to die. Shut down again.

With the intention of keeping the LZ within glide, I headed into the Bitterroots Mtns. The air was starting to get buoyant and my glide was great. I glided deeper and deeper into the mountains finding my self nearly at Quarts Peak a short distance from the Idaho boarder. I was alarmed to see how far I had let myself dive into the mountain through the confidence of having such a high performance glider. I turned around with hopes that I would make the valley and an appropriate place to land. As I glided out, it was obvious that not only would I make the valley, but I was going to make it back to the hill above launch.

Don and Bob launched for an evening glass-off flight and I chased them around the hill trying to take pictures. Eventually I was getting tired and decided to land. After about 3 hours of flying, I found myself back on the ground with a cold beer waiting for me.

Gliding into the Bitterroot Mountains

Looking back at the Tarkio valley and launch

Bob Garrety

Don Lang

Searching for Launch

Sunday morning without enough coffee on board, I packed up and headed South with a posse of hang glider pilots in search of excellent flying. Our plan was to fly Grant mtn then continue South to either King mtn or Big Southern Butte. After a 3 hour drive we were in sight of Grant and the sky was starting to look threatening. We continued up the steep road to launch and waited with hopes that the sky would open up. Cloud after cloud passed, occasionally raining down on us. It was time to move on and Peter had a place in mind.

Peter knew of a launch not too far from where we were and without any other options, we jumped in the rigs and sped away hoping to get a flight in that day. Before we knew it, we were 4 wheeling though alpine meadows at 8,000 ft. We were in search of a site that had probably only been flown once before, by Peter and Karl. I would call it more of a mountain that pointed in the correct direction than a site. After following barely distinguishable roads that most likely get traveled more by cattle, we reached the launch.

Josh waiting patiently at Grant

A classic Montana/Idaho road to launch

A perfect slope about 2,500 ft above the valley floor. We quickly set up, assessed the conditions, and began launching. A large shade cycle was moving across the valley making flying difficult. One after another, the guys launched and worked hard for every bit of lift.

I hung back helping the less experienced pilots with their launches. By the time I was ready, the valley was full of sun shine and thermals were rolling up the hill. I launched and quickly climbed out.
As soon as I had the necessary altitude, I headed North to a ridge-line I thought would be producing better lift. When I reached it, I found very punchy small thermals that were difficult to stay in. Eventually I managed to hang on long enough till the lift became more organized and easier to utilize.
I climbed out to 10,500 ft and tried touring around. The going was slow so I turned cross wind into the valley to look for other lift. Surprisingly not much was happening so I used the slightly buoyant air to glide across the valley as far as I could. Eventually I turned in the direction everyone else was, landed next to the guys, and was greeted with a nice cold beer.

We loaded up Karl's rig (9 people and 8 gliders) and headed back to launch with just enough time to find a suitable camping site. After plenty of beer and whiskey, we determined anywhere in the alpine meadow would do.

Camp

I woke early to watch the sun rise and see the sky filled with storm clouds. As the morning progressed, more clouds built to the point of raining. Eventually we accepted defeat and headed home. Every site along the drive back was plagued with dark storm clouds. By early afternoon we were back in Missoula and all pretty happy with previous days flights. We also learned that a tornado touch down in Dillon earlier that day confirming our smart decision not to fly.

Sunrise on the Lemhi mountains

Climbing and Flying

The last few days have been a blast, full of climbing and flying. Saturday Dan Hoffman and I headed to Blodgett Canyon for two days of climbing. We got on a route he established a few years prior which still needed some finishing touches. The plan was to climb the route, put chains on the last two anchors, and fix a line on the last pitch. The last pitch is a difficult one; 140ft of fingertip layback up a dihedral (5.12a/b). I was intimidated, but the pitch takes great gear, so I gave it a go. I was pleasantly surprised with my performance having hung on the rope only a couple of times. Dan and I installed the chains, fixed the rope, and rapped off.

Sunday, with the route all fixed, Dan and I headed back up to "mini-traction" the route. It was awesome. We barely had to carry any gear and were able to race up the route. It was a little spooky the first time because even though we knew the belay system would work, neither of us had ever tested it. On the last pitch I found out how well it worked when I blew the finishing moves of the route. The mini-traction locked up immediately. We rapped down and strolled out of the canyon stopping once for a dip in the creek.

Pitch 2

Pitch 1

Starting up the last two pitches

Monday I went to Sentinel with Ian for an afternoon flight which turned out to be uneventful. It was a blue sky with punchy thermals. I was able to low save over the LZ extending my flight, but eventually was forced to land.

Last night a crew of us headed to Alberton with hopes of an evening glass off. When we reached the launch, conditions looked great. I launched second and climbed out immediately. The lift wasn't incredible, but it was plenty to maintain above launch. As the evening came to an end, we glided out to the LZ where I had plenty of altitude to play with. I tried to get better acquainted with my new glider through a bunch of wing overs. It flies a bit different from my old wing so it will take a little getting used to before I'm really confident under it.

Alberton