Pine Mountain Weekend

From: Ron Faoro
Activity_Date: 7/20/01
Remote Name: 207.71.212.250

Comments

"Bummer," I thought as I looked at the weather on Friday. Here it was, our weekend for camping and flying at Pine Mountain, and the conditions weren't the best. On paper, there was a high inversion, only a modest lapse rate at best, and strong winds out of the west/southwest that bode ill for launch and for making the glide to the easy LZ: Sandpile.

But there were the intrepid Topa pilots: Dan Keyser and Bob Hurlbett, along with Fast Eddie, already up there and the report was that they were planning to fly on Saturday. So I raced around late Friday night with my three-year old daughter in tow to get the food and camping gear together for the next morning. I was up at 5:30 AM Saturday and made the final preparations (put the gear box up on the rack of the Subaru, pack for the family and dog, leave food for the cats.... what a chore for a 24 hour trip!) and we left Santa Barbara at nine AM. We met Casey and Benson at Nordhoff and we got to Pine at 11. By noon we had joined John and Tom P. at launch and started a fantastic 24 hour whirlwind paragliding adventure.

I launched third or fourth in a great cycle and went straight up to 9,400 feet. Bob Hurlbett joined me and we rode the west wind to Reyes and Haddock, sharing dozens of thermals along the way. We got stuck seven miles east of launch above 3 Mile campground. We couldn't get above 7,200, so a jump over the back was not an option. Tom Pipkin had already gone farther east and sunk out, so we followed him out to CalTrans.

After a great lunch back at camp, we launched again at four pm and were rewarded with long flights either along the top ridge or down along highway 33 on either side of the Sandpile. Benson did a spot landing clinic and we all went back up to camp to drink beers and watch Sierra and Nolanda make a kids wonderland out of the dustbowl conditions. Never have two girls gotten filthier on Pine Mountain. Great dinner and sunset. A campfire and star show didn't keep anyone up late.

We had a fourstar breakfast on Sunday, packed up and headed back to launch. I got off first at 11:15 and rode one thermal to 9,300. I took the altitude to Reyes against an early east wind and scratched around at 8,200 before connecting on a strong thermal to 9,600 and raced my wife to CalTrans. I was doing a spiral dive above the LZ to lose the extra thousand feet I came in with when I saw her approaching through Sespe Gorge. Although I had a tailwind of 8-10 mph on the glide out, the south wind was howling and swirling in the gorge at 10-12. I touched down right next to the Subaru about 30 seconds after my wife reached CalTrans from her trip down from Pine. A fantastic hour long flight and we were home by 1:30 PM. It was beautiful weather and a fun time with good friends at the place I love best.

Kudos to Sarah on her epic first adventure at the local Mecca of paragliding!