Opening day at Pine

[robinc]

About ten of us went up to Pine this afternoon for glass-off, the road to which was opened up by the Forest Service just today. You cannot imagine a more beautifully smooth paved road (see photo). We left Nordhoff High School at 3:30p, got up to Pine launch 75 minutes later. The cycles were light, and the hang-glider pilots already there were keeping an eye on things. Folks got themselves organized pretty quickly, and Brendan and Chris P launched soon after. NIne of us ended up flying, and much as we hoped we'd end up doing the 14-mile glide back to Nordhoff High School from 12,000' (5000' above launch), we were very happy with the gentle light lift, and all were up from 30-90 minutes. Chris G was up the longest, hitting cloudbase with Matt H, and landing at sunset, and Brendan got the closest to heading back to Ojai, but thought he lacked about 500' from a point on the south side of the valley in order to continue on, so he chose to land beside the highway not too far from the rest of us. Several people had to really work to get down. Max altitudes were about 8500', max climb rates were around 500 fpm. We're planning on more runs to Pine for glass-off on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

[DeVietti_Marty]

Thanks for the nice report!

Anybody wanna meet earlier for Pine on Sat?

I'm game.

Marty

[Paul_Chris]

I forgot my radio, and my vario batteries died, but I did make sure that the GoPro was fully charged. Have to have your priorities straight. Here is some video ...

http://youtu.be/O9_1rC7tuGM

[Chris G]

Matt snapped some really nice photos of the opening day as well! http://matthill.smugmug.com/Other/Pinr-Mt-Paragliding-8-30/31565267_DSLvng#!i=2734855426&k=vhV4gLL

[BobA]

Great Pics! Nice video!