Grant Hoag () writes:

The Eighth Annual Winds of a Hurricane trip is over, the boys are back home, and the gliders put away.

A good time was had by (almost) all, with some terrific and high altitude cross country flying from both Hurricane and Cedar, glass offs from Hurricane ridge for Hungary Joe’s goofballs, and an unexpected parachute ride for Markus. I had three good flights from Cedar Mountain (including one that was stinking high), lots of good BBQ prepared by the Kanarraville campground owner, and a Fourth of July reunion with my flying friends from Vegas.

The real stories are told by others, see: http://www.shga.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=720

See below:

Greg Angsten writes:

Wednesday we got up to Hurricane ridge rather late, and I didn't launch until around 4:30. I quickly caught a good thermal just down the ridge and took it to about 12k, drifting back over the long mesa southeast of launch. I headed to Colorado City and got there with 10 grand in the buoyant late-day air. Mike and Cathy picked me up and we made it to the fireworks show in time to watch everything north of Springdale burn down from the fire it started!

On Saturday, we got up there a little earlier but it was still after 3 when I got off the ridge. The conditions there were great for cross country with a west wind strong enough to stay up on the ridge but light enough to keep the thermals big and smooth. Picked up another thermal in the same place as before and took it on up, drifting back down the valley. After milking a little lift at the end of the mesa, I headed off down Rt. 59 crossing the next valley to Overlook Point on the range that goes up to Colorado City. Here is where I realized I had blown it with my radio by forgetting to charge the battery that now would not transmit!

I took a big thermal here to over 17k. I could have taken several more that high but I hadn't expected that kind of altitude and had only receiver gloves on and my hands were icing up (temperatures at launch were 110!). By the time I took my third climb like that, I had a full body shiver going strong. The lift was smooth enough though to let me tuck one hand in my harness to keep warm while I held on with the other. The red mountains in this area are so spectacular, and you also get a good view into Zion Canyon. Getting high here is such a treat and it's why Mike Moacanin and I were obstinate about flying here instead of Cedar.

Since I had driven that road down to the Grand Canyon the day before, I knew that there was cell phone reception only in the towns, and there were not many of them. Fredonia is quite a ways down the road from there, but after getting back to 15 or 16k under a cloud south of Colorado City, I figured I wouldn't need too much more lift to get there. With that big dogleg to Fredonia I left the lift and after swinging back north, I landed in a nice stiff breeze at the Kanab airport, 43 miles from launch -- I'm sure it was a hundred mile day though, if you knew where you were going. Download the attached Google Earth log of the flight. Not all that long, not very smart, but it sure was high!

Dennis Johnson recalls Markus’ parachute ride:

I was with the rest of Hungary Joe's group on Cedar Mountain when Marcus called with news of his parachute deployment. Unfortunately for him and us, the west wind had shifted and was blowing down from the super cell to the east at least 40 mph; we were all hanging on to our hang gliders, and could do little else!

Later the group learned that Markus had been trying to get down on the ground before the wind shear reached him, and was spiraling down at very high speed from 12k in strong lift. When he pulled out of the spiral by letting out on the base tube, the base tube heavily loaded, the right corner junction of the control bar failed. He waited to deploy until the last minute to insure that he had gotten out of the lift. Landing very hard in a bushy hillside, Markus broke his leg and received a deep puncture wound to his thigh. Fortunately, Markus was able to call Cedar Mountain Rescue on his GPS activated cell phone, provide his coordinates from his GPS flight logger. Within 45 minutes the rescue services were stabilizing him for transport. In the meantime, the rest of Hungary Joe’s cross country clinic was learning how to break down in very high winds on the top of Cedar Mountain. That completed, the raft of disappointed pilots hustled down the mountain and started looking for Marcus.

Dennis continues:

We found him on the side of a mountain (near the I-15) maybe 400 feet up as he was being moved to the ambulance, so we didn't get to talk to him. We hiked up the mountain to find his glider in very good condition. A broken base tube, right down tube, and a damaged keel. Everything else was in good shape. We packed up his glider and parachute. About this time Grant calls on the radio and asks if we need any help. Hungary Joe directed him to bring lots of beer, and to meet us at the base of the mountain. So we hiked the glider and the rest of the equipment down the mountain to the beer, where we hung out for a while and discussed the whole ordeal.

Scott Smith recalls:

My friends from Aspen, Jim Shaw and family, and my wife Julia and I got to the wingding late on Thursday because of work conflicts. We finally got a flight off of Graff Point on Saturday. It started with not much in the way of solid lift, and we both searched around out in front and got lower until the day suddenly turned on like a switch. We both climbed in solid lift to over 17k drifting to the north. By the time we topped out, our decision to cross the gap to Cedar City was not much of a decision - we were almost across just climbing.

Cloud base was high, and lift was plentiful, so we pressed on hoping that Jim’s wife Gina would get back from her little shopping excursion to Cedar City in time to get on the radio and know how far out we were. Looking down from 17k into Cedar Breaks and parts of Zion was just incredible! Just as we got to Parawan, Gina came on the radio and we knew we had retrieval! We both headed up I-15 stinkin’ high and headed toward Beaver.

I got low toward the intersection with Hwy 20, and noticed that traffic on the freeway was at a dead stop. The smoke we saw earlier to the north had just exploded and it was obvious that there was a major fire (at the time we didn’t know how major) and flying further north was out of the question. I landed with another glider in the I-15/ Hwy 20 intersection. The traffic jam was really a mess, and I radioed to Jim not to land with me if he could help it. Since he was at 16k, that wasn’t a problem - he turned back to the south and flew almost back to Parawan before his aching arms demanded that he land; he hadn’t had a long hang gliding flight in six years, due to the demands of his work - as a pilot!). The chase crew for the pilot I landed next to kindly offered to take me back to where Jim was, so our retrieval day was made quite a bit easier. Thanks folks!

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