Spring in the Fraser Valley

It's finally spring time in Canada! Armed with a venerable Ozone M1 while waiting for my new M4 to get here, I've been weekend warrior'ing in the Fraser Valley in beautiful British Columbia, Canada.

After 6 months in Australia my internal heating system appears to have failed from disuse and it has taken a chilly couple weeks for it to sputter and start up again. Paragliding above the freezing level wondering at untouched snow on sharp peak mountains is sublime and the sharp prickles of cold add to the experience as a harsh reminder of the realities of wilderness and Nature's independent will.

The west coast soaring club has two major sites in the Fraser Valley: Bridal Falls on the south side of the valley and Woodside on the north side of the valley. Both face the predominantly westerly inflow winds. Did I mention it took me awhile to reverse my internal compass so east was inland again? Switching coasts while paragliding, not to mention hemispheres, caused quite a few moments of feeling that everything was backwards. Well, that and driving on the right hand side of the road again. The Fraser Valley is wide and so we rarely suffer from strong valley winds, reducing one worry of flying in the mountains. The sharp peaks on both sides of the valley make staying up some days just a matter of tucking in close to ride the anabatic flow up. The only challenge is focusing on thermaling while confronted with stunning scenery.

Along with the scenery are the friendly feathered companions that often join us in the air. Unlike the mean tempered wedge tailed eagles of Australia, our local eagles are happy to join us in a thermal and rarely spend more than a moment in puzzlement before happily parking themselves on our wingtips where I think they enjoy the contrast of their compact and sleek feathered structure with our billowed and brightly colored mad constructions of nylon and string.

Last weekend my first flight back in Canada was with a bunch of air-starved desperadoes. We stood on launch for about an hour letting the snow settle around us as Nature attemped to absorb us into the still life that was Woodside Mt. Finally a break in the snow let us hurl ourselves off launch into the frigid air. About half an hour of soaring the south knob and my fingers were frozen so I headed in to land. The light snow we had been soaring in had become rain down low which pattered down on me after landing. Not so easily deterred, we headed over to Bridal Falls where at least it wasn't raining. After a bouncy ride up and a short hike through the snow to the top we were greeted with thick snow and visibility of a few meters. Luckily we are all well versed in the art of parawaiting and clever conversation with only a couple of thrown snowballs filled the next while. A desperate and mistimed attempt by a tandem to get off the hill ended up in the trees below launch before the sun finally broke through and we were rewarded with clearing and wind beginning to cycle up launch. I was on stand-by to help land students, but there were several others around too so I ventured off with several other people for the standard Elk Mt. to Ludwig Mt. route.

This was my first real flight on a DHV 2-3 wing, and while the M1 and my modern DHV 2 wing (U-Turn Airwolf) have the same aspect ratio (6) and similar still air glide performance, the M1 is still a sporty wing to fly.  The wing tips are more independent than the Airwolf and it took more focus to keep the wing from exploding (it never did anything crazy, but it kept hinting at possibilities). The behaviour on bar was what convinced me that I made a good change moving up to a 2-3 wing. Pushing speedbar puts the wing into lock-down --- it stops moving and cuts through minor turbulence as if it wasn't there. I was in awe that I could actually use speedbar to get places. The Airwolf, while an excellent performer in still air, is very hard to fly efficiently through turbulence.  On bar it pitches around a lot requiring a lot of active bar usage and maybe I never figured out how to properly fly it, but I always felt inefficient on transitions. The M1 behaves like it is on autopilot. I can't wait to see what its modern descendant is like. The attention required to fly the M1 did not counteract the cold though, and eventually after passing Mt. Cheam on the way to Ludwig I transitioned from paraglider pilot to frozen chicken and turned back to land but too late to prevent the screaming barfies.  Not for the first time, that evening I shared my apartment with an expansive damp paragliding wing roommate.

Mt. Cheam seen from Woodside on an
inverted day that followed the good
flying described here.

Next weekend was warmer and even those for whom the cold outweighs the glory of free flight crawled out of their winter dens and a panoply of paragliders ended up strewn across Woodside launch waiting for the first cycles of the day. The timing was right and Friday April 22nd 2011 delivered. Probably the best spring day this year and those of us lucky to be in the air enjoyed epic conditions. Personal bests fell like pins in a bowling alley. I did my first and second valley crossing to complete a small triangle from Woodside to Bridal and back. From Woodside to Bridal I used the Green Hill route because there are always easy landing zones en route. Probably the best part of the flight was scratching my way up from near ground level to mid-way up Mt. Cheam (see photo). Tucking in close to the snow covered pine trees was all absorbing but the concentration was rewarded with height and finally I was high enough to float a bit towards Ludwig and then back towards Bridal launch.  I attempted mid-flight to top land at Bridal for a bio-break, but conditions were not friendly and I wasn't familiar enough with my wing to force the issue. I found a nice thermal near Alan's Ridge and decided to head back across the valley. On the way back I stopped at Hopyard Hill and then Cemetary Hill before finally heading toward Riverside. I could barely think straight on the last leg of the flight for want of a pee but the desire to complete the triangle won and I finally forced my wing down through the buoyant air at the Riverside landing field and all was well.  My track log is on leonardo. Woo-hoo!