Summer Road Trip

[Chris G]

It's been a while since I've been able to post because I've been on the road, and hadn't finished taking photos. I've finally settled in Georgia, somewhat unexpectedly and a little early, but glad to be out of the car nonetheless. After the Rat Race Christian and I headed to the NorthEast corner of Oregon, stopping at a peak named Dixie Butte somewhere in the middle. Dixie is a beautiful peak out in the middle of nowhere with a smooth bowl that looks spectacular. Unfortunately there is no landing zone and the canyon below is full of tall pointy trees. I'm guessing it can blow pretty hard up there because all the trees are permanently bent over at 90 degrees. Christian flew for about 3.5 minutes before side hilling it in weak conditions. From there we continued on to Joseph and the Wallowas where the weather didn't really cooperate with us. The first day was unusually windy and BL Top only hit 9k. A far cry from its usual 17k. The Tram ride up to launch is nice though and the scenery is unreal. Anyway, in the 2 weeks we were there we flew twice, topping at about 9k both days. I did manage to fly back to the house one day which was only about 6 miles into the wind. I think there's huge potential out over the relatively unexplored flats. Imagine Chelan without the river crossing or dust devils. From Joseph I rolled to Point of the Mountain where I spent 2 days not doing much flying other than a few tandems in the afternoon. Fun though and got to meet some folks whose names I recognized. Rolled to Boulder on Monday morning and spent a day with a cousin, then Kansas City for a night, and Athens Georgia the day after that....which was yesterday. Gearing up for the Tater Hill comp in Boone, NC coming up this next week.

I snapped some photos of Dixie, the Wallowas, and just for kicks, some random shots of the drive across the country. I was hoping random shots from each state would be interesting from a climate/landscape perspective but once you leave Boulder it's all kinda ugly and not very interesting.

http://picasaweb.google.com/OleManKoyot ... cJlXd90Khw