First the moments of startling clarity, ie. when something bad
happens. Sam Crocker threw his reserve while out on the course. He was
apparently okay. Jim Macklow experienced a frontal collapse while slope soaring,
and hit hard. He walked out, but is in the hospital with a back injury (to the
T1 vertebrae). Len Szafaryn is taking him home tomorrow.


The exciting parts were the launches and flights. With a task committee full of
go for it locals they called for a 78 km task out to the northwest to Obsidian
and part way back to Smiley (actual place names used). The weather forecast
called for cloud base at 12,000' to later at 15,000' with ground temperatures at
6,000' at 79 degrees. There were supposed to be nice looking cu's and sure
enough they began to show up just before the launch opened.


The launch is at the top of the chair lifts at 9,000' on top of Mount Baldy.
When there isn't a competition around the pilots are launching right next to the
chairlifts, but there is a huge open area down the hill a bit and that proved to
be a much better launch location. I had heard that it was restricted with only
room for two pilots over the scree, but that was mistaken. No the scree was not
surrounded by unlaunchable (for a paraglider) sage brush, but a meadow of alpine
flowers. Pilots spread out their wings every where.


The task committee called for a 11:30 launch window opening with the start
window opening at 1 PM. They assigned a 5 km start circle so that pilots could
hang out at the peak to the north if they wanted to. That turned out to be a
good idea.


A bunch of non competitors were off before the launch window opened and as they
were going up that encouraged everyone. There were no problems getting pilots
going and the launch quickly cleared away, with lots of pilots being yanked this
way and that as they shot up off the hill.


In spite of the yanking to and fro the climb rates for most pilots were pretty
slow at first, which made for great visuals over the mountain, much to the
delight of all the tourists who had ridden the chair up to the top. Still almost
all were climbing out and only a few drifted down to the LZ.


Soon there was a gaggle at Big Momma, the peak to the north but still in the
start circle, and the lead gaggle was forming up. The cu's were getting thick
over Big Momma and the race was on.


The race passed over Galena Pass (at almost 9,000') and with lots of trees
coming up to the pass pilots were warned repeatedly by Hanza (one of the locals
on the task committee) to stay high, at least 11,000', while going over the
pass. Hanza gave a long talk and demonstration about where to fly during the
pilot meeting and pilots were encouraged to stay on the foothills of the White
Clouds to the east.


Well, most pilots, even Hanza, ignored his advice, when on the west side over
the Smokies and followed the cloud streets up the west side of the valley. Will
Gadd and Len Szafaryn were way to the west, thinking that they were on the west
side of the Sawtooths, at 16,000', and assuming that they were the lead gaggle
and winning the race.


Len and Will followed a cloud street all the way to due west of Obsidian (on the
east side of the valley and on the edge of the foothills), then headed east to
get the turnpoint before turning back and going south down the valley toward
goal. They thought that they were in the lead until they saw goal.


It turned out that Josh Cohn was one of the few to follow Hanza's advice (Hanza
flew on the west side of the valley) and flew up the Boulders on the west side
of the Whiteclouds and was first into goal, followed by Hanza.


Thirty plus pilots made goal at Smiley, which is about thirty percent, so there
should be a lot of happy pilots. The results will appear here:
http://www.flysunvalley.com/USNPC/results.html.