Chihuly in Seattle

 Here we are in Seattle at the Chihuly Glass exhibit.

 Heidi was eager to visit. I'm glad since I thoroughly enjoyed it. Especially with her perspective.

The glass-work is impressive, not just in creativity but actually physical size, this one is about the size of a school bus.

Out side there is a sculpture garden that the creations sit in. Thinking about about why what was placed were in terms of architecture fascinates me.

And pondering where art meets engineering, and the team negotiations that created the exhibit. 

Having the vision is a gift.

We had dinner at Pikes Place Brewery, after a short tour of the city. Seattle is a fun town to visit.

Whidbey Island

Next up on our tour was a visit to Heidi's friend Jen, out on one of the San Juan Islands.

Island life is pleasantly disconnected from the mainland hustle and bustle. The 3 days we thought we visit somehow turned into a week or so... Jen showed us around all the sites.

And Kayaking in Penn cove.

 The Washington coast is pretty unspoiled, and has a good amount of wildlife.

My hopes of seeing Orca though were perhaps a little ambitious.

 We paddled into Coupeville and had a pint.

 And paddled back.

Washing has a lot of trees and a lot of rain, and a lot of driftwood. A lot, everywhere !

Deception pass is a touristy spot, some interesting weather started there.  

This is what Heidi looked like when I caught up on the bridge. I encouraged them off that bridge quick smart as the storm was rapidly approaching.

Later on that evening we headed into Anacortes, at which point the storm was in full swing. Thunder storms are a rare occurance on the coast there, and every time there was a strike, the entire bar would cheer and clap. That is, until there was a very close strike that exploded nearby by and the power went off. The ensuing chaos was quite entertaining :)

Some nature spots you may want to stay in the car for !

 That is way to many pesky flys, Mayflys I think.

I'm glad they weren't mosquitoes though ! At dusk there were plenty of them.

 Swimming in the clear fresh water lakes is refreshing and popular. This was Whistle lake.

A fabulous week, thanks Jen !

North Cascades

Here is the next leg of our adventure, around the north end of the Cascades. It exceeded my expectations by quite a margin and left feeling like we should have planned a week for this, rather than a day and a half. 

Tryg gave us a hot tip to stop in Winthrop, hot being right it was 104'F ! Neat town though, clearly on the tourist track.

The old school house brewery was our destination of choice for lunch, and refreshment. The beer was excellent ! I am sure the water quality has as much to do with it, as the talented brewer. Heidi even got to ring the old school bell, she has some interesting connections :)

On up the road, and quickly the mountains open up with fantastic views.

Here's a textbook glacial valley view from Liberty Bell pass. I wish we'd had time to do a longer hike.

On the other side of the pass is a back packers paradise. Miles of unspoiled isolated terrain.

George Lake was a poplar place to stop.

At Marble mount a turn off takes you into the back side of the glaciated peaks. Well worth the trek through the woods.

With the sudden warm up the previous few days the unusually late snowfall was melting rapidly. The swollen creeks were raging with ice water carrying the occasional tree down with it.

On our way to the coast, the marine moisture was really evident. The Park staff had pointed us in the direction of Sauk mountain, so we ran up that hill just to see the view. I had hopes of seeing Mt Baker from there, but time didn't allow for what looks like a tremendous hike up the spire. Interestingly there appeared to be something familiar up top. A launch ramp ?

Out of time and with the wind on our backs there was no consideration, but that would be a quite a view from up there. Next time !

More to Chelan than Hang Gliding

Heidi and I decided to stay an extra day. Rent bicycles and explore some trails, Aaron had recommended Echo Ridge, flattish and good views, with some single track.

That's just the kind of riding I like to do :)

Though we both would have preferred temperatures well under the 104'F that it was !

Echo Ridge is a pretty small park, enough trails for a day ride, for a serious workout you might ride it twice.

 I bet in late spring the wildflowers are spectacular, there were still quite a few in the shade. I bet its fun X-country skiing in winter too.

 The lake and upper plateaus are covered with cherry trees absolutely laden with fruit.

And a quiz for you all... what kind of horse are these ? I've not seen anything like them before.

In the extreme heat a dip in the lake was in order. The water was much more "refreshing" than I remembered. Turns out that in town the water is a good 15'F warmer than westward toward Stehekin. Which in hindsight makes a lot of sense being that end is glacier fed...

The heat ploughed on into the night, and at midnight the storm we'd been tracking on the radar finally arrived. One day I'll figure out how to get decent lightning shots, this is the best I could do after taking a hundred shots in different modes. It was quite a show.

   

Life, Liberty and fruits of the Butte

Chelan, one of my favorite places to fly. 2008 was the last time I flew here. Why has it been so long? Well choices I suppose 2009 I went to Big Spring, I'd heard about it and 2009 was the time.2010 I went to the PreWorlds in Italy, 2011 I went Rafting in Alaska and even flew King.  Here we are back in 2012 - Chelan beggining of July.

This year Kamron from Northwing asked me to fly his new glider, the Liberty. The Chelan XC Classic is a fairly low key competition, so why not ?

The meet kicked off with a welcome party up at Trygs place, fantastic scenery especially at sunset.

It was great to see so many familiar faces from all over, some I'd not seen from 4 years.

photo stolen from Aaron

The XC Classic is a different format from most other Hang gliding competitions. Rather than race to goal format (like a sailboat race around bouys). Chelan has a collection of points that the pilot can use to make up their own course. This allows the pilots to be relaxed or aggressive to their own taste, still be competitive and have a wonderful time. A course might be straight out distance, or a join the dots distance, out and return or even triangle. Lets face it who actually enjoys a 4 hour drive back to base and eating at 10pm, not to mention that bill at the gas pump :)

So here we go with the Liberty, easy setup, beautiful sail-work (especially around the tips), nice static balance everything my spoiled self has come to expect in a modern Hang glider.

On the way north up the Colombia river

I tried out a couple of different Liberty models (both 148sq ft) One had the standard configuration, a more responsive roll and lower stall speed (in the batten profile), safe edge down tubes + round base tube. Both models had VG. The race model has the fast foil down tubes and base tube and a flatter batten profile.

Of course I preferred the race model, the penetration in wind was better and I found I didn't have to work as much in thermals to keep the glider centered. That said, both gliders are exceptionally easy to turn, and I had to double check with my team mates to make sure they were comfortable with my proximity. One never knows if ones glider is flying well on a given day or if the conditions are just smoother than average...

Talking of Team mates, I had a blast flying along side Konrad, Wayne and Paulo. We had 3 really good days of team flying. The Kingposted Liberty had only minor glide performance disadvantage from the topless models, and then really only in windy conditions, I found this remarkable. I got to explore some very pretty terrain I'd not flow over before, a great bonus. In one flight we fly from snow crested Cascades to the desert and back - hopefully ;)

Here's a plot of the routes I flew, some of which don't make a whole lot of sense ;) But I will say that the climb rate or ability to climb in the lightest lift really helped me out of several spots. Down by the soccer field in what turned into my longest flight at Chelan ever. Also out of a couple of spots that were not easy retrieves. The glider seemed to out climb all but the rigid wing. The different colors represent the five different flights.

So a tonne of fun, through the course of the week. And how better to thank my driver++ by a few trips to the local wineries. There are so many to choose from on the Washington Wine Trail. Thanks Heidi :)

Meanwhile back on the butte, flying was still great and many pilots were having personal bests. A group from Brazil were loving the cool evenings and the scenic flying. At the end of the week the scores tallied up as below. You can see the Liberty won the King posted class but also placed very well against the topless and rigid classes. Best 4 of 6 days is used, we didn't fly on the 3rd due to windy conditions.

After the awards we swam in the Lake, visited another winery and were treated to a very nice BBQ at our hosts Tom & Laurie. The Brazilians showed us how they BBQ, it was a fantastic evening.

And no trip to Chelan is complete without fireworks, the town celebrates Independence day a few days after so everyone can see them. Seeing all the boats on the lake watching them is pretty interesting too.

The week went very smoothly but for one incident, which put a fellow pilot in Hospital. He could use some support and encoragement for which there is a website setup. link. Best of luck with the rehab Eric.