Announce and track hang gliding events
#268378
Pacific Northwest American HangGliding.org Hang Gliding (& PG) XC Camp - Fly-In, supported by XC World XContest

Dates: July 23'd to Aug 4th 2012
Location: Ashcroft British Columbia


Website and Online GPS Download Registration via: http://www.xcontest.org/xcamp/rules/

HangGliding.org Cross Country XC Camp participants registration website coming soon. For now, use contact info below please.

Maximum Number of Registered Participants: 150 total Hang Gliding and 150 total Paragliding. First Paid = First Confirmed.

Headquarters: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ashcroft- ... 16?sk=info
More information see: http://www.flyok.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=639

Location:
Based in Ashcroft, using Cornwall plus other sites in the Kamloops Valley Region

Alternate Region #2 and for Paragliding, in Pemberton British Columbia during the Second half of the Second Week - leading up to the 2012 Canadian National Paragliding Championships

Alternate region #3, in case of bad Weather:
The North Okanagan based out of Mara and it's Skyline Launch. For more information see: http://www.flyok.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=639&start=10

A "Cross County Flying" Coaching Camp Fly In leading up to
a) The FAI / CIVL Category 2 (Pending) Canadian National Paragliding Championships Competition August 5 to 12th 2012
b) The Willie Muller XC Classic Competition at Golden BC's Famous Mt 7 Flying Site. July to Aug. 2012
a) The FAI / CIVL Category 2 (Pending) Canadian National Hang Gliding Championships Competition August 12 to 18th 2012

GPS is not mandatory. HAGAR and a recent reserve parachute is strongly recommended. (Repacks available throughout the Event.)

Re: Coaching seminars during the XCamp and Cdn Nats.
See: Cross Country XCamp Course Clinic Outline

- The course will focus on your weaker areas, with groups broken down by experience levels.

Please read in Advance: Cross Country Coaching Manuals:

And: Weather Forecasts That Hang Gliders and Paragliders Use and at:

Basic rules:

Briefing with weather report will be held every morning in the office close to the camp.
After arrival at the take-off each pilot choose their own route and launch time.
Turnpoints will not need to be declared before flight and pilots can make decisions about route during their flight, according to the actual conditions.
After return from the flight the track will be scored.
The scoring system is simple and is based on the idea of many XC contests (OLC, PGweb XContest...).

Director of competition has right to stop the day at any time in case of worsening weather / under safe level in flying conditions or in case of an objective reason.
In this case tracklogs will be optimized and scored until the time of stopping.

Scoring rules:

Distance over maximum 3 turnpoints: 1 km = 1,0 point

Distance over a circuit (out and back and triangles): 1 km = 1,2 points

FAI triangles: 1 km = 1,6 points

Flight will be scored as a closed circuit if the distance between starting point and finish point is less than 5% of the total distance of the circuit.

For the final ranking each pilot will be scored on the three best flights.

Minimum distance: 5 km

Event Organizers:

Fred Wilson (HG) Email: ftlwilson@REMOVE_THISshaw.ca -- Skype ID: kalama1ka
Jim Orava. (PG) - Email: jimorava@REMOVE_THISgmail.com Skype ID: oravanous
Last edited by Fred Wilson on Tue Jan 31, 2012 3:18 am, edited 8 times in total.
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#268379
ACCOMMODATION AND FACILITIES

Location:
Based in Ashcroft, using Cornwall plus other sites in the Kamloops Valley Region
Ashcroft / Cache Creek, British Columbia Canada Camping etc Accommodation and Facilities

Alternate Region #2 and for Paragliding, in Pemberton BC during the Second half of the Second Week - leading up to the 2012 Canadian National Paragliding Championships
Pemberton British Columbia. Camping etc Accommodation and Facilities

Alternate region #3, in case of bad Weather:
The North Okanagan based out of Mara and it's Skyline Launch. For more information see: http://www.flyok.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=639&start=10
Mara Camping etc Accommodation and Facilities
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#268380
Lead off Story: :mosh: Savona, Kamloops Valley Racers Region, British Columbia Canada.
Savona is, along with Sun Peaks Ski Hill our west launches. Cornwall for East.
Basils Bump and Pemberton for South Winds, Savona Microwave Tower for North Winds.

Doug Nitchie wrote:C'mon Fred tell us what your flight was like! I know Savona is HANDS DOWN the best Cross Country Site in Canada, bar none.. but…
Sheesh, how come we have to beat this out of you? Savona to Spallmucheen is pretty good!
Updated with a few pics from the flight I just found. Savana's Oscar's Site Guide

Ok, I'll post my story, but in return:
==> A bunch of Kamloops PGers headed up to fly Wells Grey Park that weekend. Sure would like to hear the story. <==

Doug!
How in the heck did you hear about this? (Small world dept.)
I got picked up by my driver, headed straight back to Kamloops having been witnessed by Snafouver and Tiddlycove HGers only.
Next night I drove straight to the Kootenays, never having told another sole about my flight! You've got a good spy network, chum!


I did it my favorite way:
a) Taking "what god gives you" and;
b) Hitting a sequence of flying sites: going from one known house thermal to the next. Okanagan Site Guides

I took off last
(I was having a bugger of a time with the VG on my HGer… never did get it fixed, flew with it locked off) :evil: :twisted: :roll:
… into some of the trashiest air of my life. 1200 to 1800 up cannon balls surrounded by plummeting, pounding sink and slam dunk trash.

Image

I took off last

The flight had lots of real low saves. Got low below launch and took a she it kicking to get up. Nice view!
Glided to the Copper Creek valley on the north side of Kamloops Lake (a few Km's east of launch)
and got so low in the trees on the SW facing slope I doubted I could have made the bailout LZ by the lake.
(1 hr retrieve all around Split Rock … or by boat.)

View of the 747 LZ (So big you could land one there) ... with the training hill in the background

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Scratched to get above the ridge, then the thermal took a particular dislike to me, trying to spit me out every which way possible.
Worked it to about 8000' and made glide along the north face of Kamloops Lake for the "Pimple" launch NW of the Kamloops airport.

From this point I learned to live with sink alarm: to the point where my hearing was probably damaged.
800 fpm drilling allowed me to just slide past the Pimple LZ to a low hill north of the airport which has a beautiful NW facing bowl.
Again half way down in the bowl, seriously in doubt of making it back to the bailout, and not wishing to piss off the Airport folks by landing on the tarmac,
I scratched up to 6000 and made a B line for The Dome, just north of Mt Peter / Paul - NE side of Kamloops following the Yellowhead Hwy.
(Mt Peter / Paul is now closed due to airport approach, plus its part of the local Indian Reservation.)

Rule for Mt Peter / Paul is to arrive above the top. Nada. I was kissing power lines along the freeway (not a sole seemed to notice)
when it zapped off a smooth beauty scraping up the hillside. I worked the lift from 50 fpm right past a couple of hikers near the top,
(the guy nearly had a heart attack when my shadow went over him. I was maybe 100' above him when I heard the scream.)

Ah the joy it must have been to have been a Pterydactyl.
The Chickie with him was yummie stuff. (If only I had claws!) :wink:

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Last edited by Fred Wilson on Sat Jan 28, 2012 8:18 pm, edited 6 times in total.
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#268381
Continued…

So one of two nice, smooth, enjoyable thermals the whole day got me to 10,000' over the Golf course where Ian had just landed (north of Barnhartville, on the north side of the river east of Kamloops.)

Photo looking east from North of Barnhartvale, over the Golf Course Ian Landed at. Chase is way off in the distance to the east.
Speargrass launch is almost immediately below, Pritchard Launch is closer to the end of the ridge to the east.

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Slid down over Speargrass and Pemberton Hills Launches (near Pritchard)
(See Pritchard Site Guide info) before heading south down the highway 97c to escape over-development, scraping low
again till I got saved near the Weigh Scale station. That took me to 11,000. Then that cursed sink alarm yet again…

View from over the Weigh Scale Station, looking east towards Kamloops. Barnhartvale half way there, on the south side of the river.

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The place to aim for is "Tiger Country" (forest) NW of Monty Lake.
There is usually a boomer there, if not, the E-W facing ridge just east of Monty Lake will get you safely into the Faulkland valley.
The boomer was there in spades. Maybe the nicest thermal I've had in 35 years flying. 1000' up, a good Km in diameter, smooth as a baby's bum.
Took that to 11,000 again. History has taught us that for XC into Vernon from Faulkland, you want to fly over Tuktaktemum and hug the south ridge.

Photo looking East towards Monty Lake, taken right smack in the center of that monster sweet core.

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Aside: This is where I switched modes from "taking what God gives you" to "Know it All" mode… so of course, all went down hill from here on in.

Heading west to Monte Lake and Kamloops from Boleen the north bowl stretching up towards Chase is a good route. Boleen Site Guide.

Heading east from Boleen the west face of Mt Connaught (overlooking Faulkland )
has two sweet house thermals (one off the NW point, one smack in the middle of the west face.)

View from Boleen Launch looking at that ridge where those sweetie and ever so reliable House Thermals live.
One lives in the center, well in front of the ridge, the other lives NW of the ridge, way out. Image

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But it's a sucker punch cause heading east you are in Sink City till Round Lake
(where there is a house thermal in the middle of the forest on the east side of the lake.
Failing that, aim for good old reliable Grandview. From there, heading for Mara or Lumby, get up to 8000 and glide straight east across the valley
towards the "hook" in the Enderby Ridge
- where it juts out into the valley south of Armstrong.
There is a good house half way cross that will teach you how to look hard for 737's
and another house well out WNW from the point on the ridge.

Yes, you can slide south to Vernon Mt. if you have heaps of altitude.
There is usually very little sink out in the middle of the Valley, but it's one heck of a long glide to gamble on.

(End aside.)

But I screwed up…
Again, being famous for repeating myself… why stop now…
History has taught us that for XC from Faulkland into Vernon, you want to fly over Tuktaktemum and hug the south ridge." Yep.

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Nada. Bloody F#$%^&ing Sink Alarm. I chickened out. Whipped straight across the valley to Mt Connaught east of Faulkland and yep, that sweetie house was there again as always.
Took it to 8000' and then as it petered out, like a complete idiot I left it instead of milking it for the additional 2000' I stone cold knew I would need,
and headed back SE to the NW facing bowl of Moffat ridge to try to reconnect with the "sure way" into the OK valley.

Ya C's:
It was 6:30 PM and the glass off should have begun… or so I was a thinking.
But half way into landing I was just screaming, swearing at my Sink Alarm: ("Shut the "F" Up! Shut up! Shut Up!" over and over again.)
If I never hear that sound again… Hour after hour of sink alarm…

Not a hope in hell of enough height to work the ridge east (at the North end of Okanagan Lake) of the Spallamachine Golf course.
It's trees are so high now, not a hope of landing there. So I winged over into the O'Keef Ranch hay field directly across from the golf course entrance and their beer spiggots.

77 Mile 122 Km. 6.5 hours… not bad considering my VG was Misassembled and did NOT work at all… Gotta wonder how many inches I could have squeezed out with it!
4 others beat me, one by 5 K's. Three including John McClintoch made it to Lumby with altitude to spare. Silly buggers.
- A quick slide to Cherryville and they would have broken the magic 100 miles. Oy vay. Cold beer and a warm welcome are sure inviting.

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Lumby Air Force British Columbia's Freedom Flight Park - goal that day.

http://www.facebook.com/FreedomFlightPark

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Last edited by Fred Wilson on Sun Jan 29, 2012 2:08 am, edited 2 times in total.
User avatar
By knumbknuts
#268392
"honeeee, can I go flying?"
By darkcloud
#268464
Fred, you folks have some beautiful scenery up there.
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#268630
darkcloud wrote:Fred, you folks have some beautiful scenery up there.
We here in Beautiful British Columbia Canada's Thompson Okanagan Valleys live in a Hang Gliding and Paragliding Paradise. Period.
http://www.flyok.ca/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=10

We live in a Lake Country and Fishing Paradise. Period. Click on the map to see lists of Free or next to Free Primitive Campsites on our Lakes.
http://www.sitesandtrailsbc.ca/search/s ... -east.aspx

We live in an arid Summer Semi Desert Hill Country which is also a Winter Wonderland Paradise. Period.
http://www.hellobc.com/thompson-okanaga ... rding.aspx

We live in Wine Country Paradise. Period. Our Valley Cottage Wine Industry wines are all Sulphite Free!
http://www.hellobc.com/thompson-okanaga ... hwod1h8fZg

Come visit us some time. You will not believe how good we've got it. You gotta be here in 2012.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWq1CFL_ ... r_embedded[/youtube]
. :surrender: :crazy: :sleep: :roll: :cuss: :chair: :cuss: :shark:
User avatar
By aqua
#269153
It sounds like a good time! I flew that region so much last year, I've been considering moving there.
Mt Cornwall (Ashcroft) has about the safest launch and lz(s) you could find anywhere.
When I travel up from the coast, I often stop to fly pemberton; another great site with a new safer, higher upper launch.
cheers!
User avatar
By Fred Wilson
#269497
Smoking a Pipe Part 1: by Fred Wilson circa 1979
- Prologue: the rolling kind.

OK. A bit of background. Flying at Sicamous BC on FlyOk land - The Okanagan Valley.

I wrote an article about my first encounter with a pipe in the Kingpost a number of years ago.
"Clouds" was republished as part of the US Women's team fundraiser by Jim Palmieria Email: skydog@roanoke.infi.net
SKY DOG PUBLICATIONS
6511 Deepwoods Drive Roanoke, VA 24018-7645

Clouds: Clouds by Fred Wilson

http://www.flyok.ca/phpBB2/index.php

http://www.flyok.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=136

http://www.flyok.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=135

Clouds are unpredictable: friends and foes. When I am coring quickly, I'm always sizing what's up,
wishing for a window in the sail above me; and a glimpse into the future... ("What the hay am I getting into?") Image

When small, comfortable and widely separated they're like a dream come true. When not they can become a living nightmare. (Montana Super Cell Photo below.)

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My first experience was a lasting lesson. We were flying Sicamous. Famous as a tough but educational place to learn to work cannon ball thermals.
It was '79, we were flying Olys and 10 meters and the like and nobody ever really soared Sicamous.
They just enjoyed the spectacular scenery and bragged it a little over time.
On this day there was a large cumi behind launch but from where we were sitting we couldn't assess it. We launched off in quick succession.
Especially as the first few quickly got ABOVE LAUNCH! [This was a big deal in those days.]

I was losing it when I noticed Dianna Birrell quite a bit above me on the other side of launch and sped over under her.
I kinda wondered where everyone else had gone, but I was into my own air time and didn't care if the cloud was swelling forward in front of launch.
Besides, it was white bottomed and didn't LOOK threatening and I was desperate for something to string out the flight before it shut off.
So when I flew into what felt like a cement wall I 360'd around, shook my head to rattle the cob webs out, and stuffed the bar in hard in to penetrate.
And boy did I ever. The bar slammed out of my hands and I found myself pressed against the rear keel and flying wires while the glider and I powered straight up.
It was incredibly powerful lift. I was way, way out of my league. I grabbed on to the flying wires and crawled up them towards the down tubes. Image
I remember slipping and grabbing on to my Vario, busting it off and watching in disgust as it spiraled down, plunging into the trees below.
Just as I got on the control bar again and began to level the glider out, everything whited out.

There was no way I was getting out of that core. Not that I wasn't afraid of the cloud, there was just no way on
God's little green planet that I was going to find out what going over the falls in this sucker was going to be like.
I had no idea how quickly I was climbing, but even without a vario I knew things were calming down.
Visibility was really pretty good, meaning I couldn't see d---, but I could see d--- a long way.

All of a sudden I saw a huge pipe of cloud, maybe 200+ feet in diameter and a quarter mile long plunge forward
like a horizontal spinning tornado - just spitting distance from my right wing, then stop as dead as it started.
Then a minute later another tube, only this one rotating even faster, cut 90° across my path.
These things were really moving out! They looked transparent and wispy and yet gave the impression of being as solid as steel all at the same time.
Time to get the hell out of here. No pissing around, this was really scary stuff. Image Image
I lucked out and popped out the topside and looked back to see Ron Martin and his cousin Larry Thompson
above the cloud and way, way back in the toolies behind launch. Nobody had ever been that far back before.

Quit while you are ahead. Leave the party before it's busted. Land while you can, so I did.
Pete Holden (living, married with Cory west of Enderby now) came in a little dense in the head and performed an amazing recovery
by planting his wing tip in the sand and spun around into a perfect 5 point landing.
Dianna came in to that beach completely worn out, standing up erect, arms hanging limp by her side.
Pete and John Huddart screamed at her to flare and at the last possible moment she grasped the bar and pushed it out
enough to land fairly respectably and sagged to the ground, like the rest of us, for once, really grateful to be down.

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We all accumulate memories over the years, moments in our flying life that feed our addiction. Usually they are our own stories.
But I have been lucky enough to witness some of my friends best flights and these, by far and away are some of my best flying memories.

1. Marshall Antonechuk working the first thermal I ever saw in '76 off Vernon Mt. Those of us on launch were bent over, almost chucking our lunch.
We had NO IDEA (not one) what was happening to him. We feared for his life! (NO ONE had even heard of thermals in those early days!)

2. Peter Luke flying a '79 10 Meter 25 miles to Tappen from Moffat Ridge on the worst, drizzliest non day you ever saw, while very one else flying scratched like hell just to get a sleigh ride.
3. Robin Peterson deliberately scratching for four hours at tree top level by the Gypsum Rd. LZ below Swansea Mt. (Invermere) on a day when it was easy,
really easy to get up... while every one else froze and burned out in an hour at 14000 ft and cloud base.
4. Pepe' Lopez at the American Cup in Invermere see (FAI America Continentals) on his task winning final from Radium, too exhausted to even hold on to the down tubes.
The glider pitching and yawing for the last 15 Km while he tried to limber up his legs.
- Read about a Pepe' Lopez Medal awarded by the FAI fpr a Moment of Heroism on the part of Philippe Broers (Belgium) I was present for, as 2nd Steward (in Training)
at the Kalvrita Greece European Continental Paragliding Championships in 2004. Image "This one is for me." Image

But the one flight I night and day dream about - the driving force that keeps me flying was a once in a lifetime flight of Miles Hopkins'.

I had just gotten into flying again in 1985 after a moment of excess stupidity and had worked up the nerve to go back to the scene of the crime.
Stoney Creek: in the Okanagan Valley. It can be a super thermal site.
Peter Elms (now the Vancouver Yacht Club President) discovered it by noticing the constant turbulence every time he flew his plane over it.
He eventually marked the spot with a bucket of paint and talked a few skeptics into logging the better part of the mountain and Voila! Magic.
Hard to get started up unless you like it tight into the trees but after a couple of hundred feet you are truly above and on your way.
When the Okanagan Valley stabilizes out you can almost always see clean cumies over launch.
The flying is rowdy but not crazy until 5ish in the evening when it starts to glass off and a series of
spectacular evening thermals develop some of the cleanest black bottomed beauties you will ever see.

I was satisfied with a really pleasant flight but had never been even close to the clouds that day.
I landed to stretch and laze out & watch the show with the boys and a brew in the LZ.
A few more of the crew bagged it, leaving Milo front stage center.
We watched while he caught a clean one and climbed out towards one breathtakingly lonely, black bottomed puff ball.
Perfect shape, perfect size and perfect density.

There is kind of a rule at Stoney. If you get 6000' above you are GONE on a XC slide to just about anywhere.
Drivers can figure it out you have a much better trip planned home than in some dusty truck.
For some strange reason Milo didn't split. He hung out at about 8 - 9000 ft for a quite a while in the glass off evening air.
Then a little after six he caught a cycle up and quickly screwed up as the cloud base rose with him to 9 to 10,000'.

What followed is something I’ll remember the rest of my life.
He worked his way up to the bottom edge of that lonely cloud and caught a slow smooth ride right up it's leading edge.
He'd 360'd in clean air and then instantly disappear into the wall of the cloud like a door closing shut behind him.
An instant later the glider would burst from the cloud, banked over tightly with a sheet of the cloud pulled out by the wing
- tracing the glider like a silhouette against the clear summer sky until he cored back in.
Then burst out and in and out and in again and again. The wisps of cloud hung motionless like a cork screw of mist tracking his progress up the face.
It was absolutely breathtaking. I have never, ever seen anything like it.
I would give anything for a video camera and an opportunity to go back in time to be able to film that moment.

You could tell that Milo knew that it was too special to disrupt because he slid out to the side and viewed his work
until it melted away and then threw it out into a celebration of wingovers into the turf.
One of the most memorable moments in my life, yes, but before I retire from the sport my goal is to experience this flight 1st hand!

... 20 YEARS (Almost to the Day!) LATER... (Sicamous Launch and its phenomenal Scenery... just to finish off below...)

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