We are at the Mother Load Sky Riders Oktoberfest Fly-in about four
miles west of Coulterville, California in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada
mountains. We're about fifty miles east of Modesto (central valley) and less
than a mile east of the west end of the Lake McClure reservoir. We are camping
at Horseshoe Bend Recreation area which is maintained by the Lake McClure
Irrigation District.


The flying site, a west facing hill just to our east, has been flown since the
seventies and is reputed to be soarable 300 days a year. The launch is at 2,500'
MSL and the LZ, which is provided to the club for $2,500/year by the irrigation
district, is at 1,500' MSL. In addition, the club pays $2,400 a year to
the owners of the launch, hence the reason for the fly in.


I hook a ride up with Mike Wilson, one of the old timers, and load up the Wills
Wing Falcon 3 - 170. No need for the ATOS as we are in an area where cross
country, while possible, is not ideal. Over the back it's 30 miles straight east
to Yosemite Village. It's another 30 miles east to highway 395. If you get up on
the west side of highway 49 and land on the east side of highway 395, you've
crossed the Sierra's from west to east. No one has every done it.


Most cross country flights from here are off to the south or east. The longest
southern flight is a little over 70 miles. The pilots who've gone east in an
attempt to cross the Sierras have sometimes landed in Yosemite valley. They just
couldn't get high enough to get over the top.


Judy Layden and Ken Brown have flown sixty plus miles to the south from here,
according to Tim Morley, the site founder. The problem is the California central
valley inversion, which is very much with us on this day. The air is thick with
haze (smog?) early in the morning.


The LZ and the launch have keyed gates and except during the Fly-in you need to
belong to the MLSR club to gain access to the site. The road to launch is off to
the left off highway 132 as you go up from the Horseshoe Bend Recreation area
east toward Coulterville. It's a well maintained road that is four wheel drive
near the top end where it is steeper and you cross shale.


The launch is well cleared with a gravel ramp. When we got there it was blowing
up smooth at 15-20 mph. The setup area is restricted, or it seemed that way with
all the pilots here for the Fly-in. There must be fifty or sixty.


Getting up to launch was a bit of a challenge because pilots were sitting on
launch. This made no sense. The wind was straight in and perfect. Just pick up
your glider, level your wings, and run off the hill. I hadn't been faced with a
bunch of launch potatoes in years. There were plenty of folks soaring out in
front, of course. A Millennium had been up for a couple of hours.


While there was a good 15 mph wind hitting the hill side, you still had to find
the thermals to get up and stay up. After climbing out a couple of hundred feet
I got down to 400' below launch before I remembered that I had better work
whatever lift I could find and work it hard scraping next to the hillside. It
had been a while.


I climbed right up and soon was 1000' over and figured I could take more
chances. The thermals were small and a little rowdy, but not too bad as this was
the middle of October after all. I hear that this place is real rowdy in the
summer time.


I found 500 fpm to 4,500' MSL and went chasing the the miniscule cu's out in
front to the west. Now the lift seemed to be every where. It was easy to boat
around. I'd climbed up above the Millennium and all the topless and kingposted
gliders a couple of times, so it appeared that I was at no disadvantaged in my
single surface glider.


Over the back there were more foot hills and the Sierras were too far away to be
seen in this haze. The top of the inversion was about 4,500'and it was what I
normally see when I'm flying in California. There were a few possible landing
zones over the back, but I'd want to be at least 6,000' before making a real
effort to head in that direction.


After a reasonable soaring flight (I get bored if I don't go cross country) I
headed for the LZ which as you can imagine is not on the flats of the central
valley but high here in the foothills and therefore not so flat. Thankfully it
is quite large and unobstructed. Apparently this was not always the case and it
has grown over the years as the irrigation district has been talked into
improving the safety aspect of flying hang gliders here.


There are two runways perpendicular to each other with the main one running away
from the mountain. As I surveyed the LZ I noticed that the strong winds were
right down the other runway more from the north at the east end of the main
runway. I decided that taking the alternate runway into the wind was my best
shot, and it turned out to be a good move when I compared my landing into the
wind with the many landings that I witnessed later on the main runway.


Apparently the LZ can be gnarly, but it wasn't so bad today. Still we got to see
lots of pilots come in too slowly, which would have hurt them on tougher days.
Remember, pull in and fly it to just off the deck.


The main runway is down hill most of the way, then it ends in a gentle rise. You
get to keep it just off the ground for a long final, and flare just as the
ground rises up.


The sheriff came later to the LZ to tell us that a lady in a house up on the
ridge a mile or so north of launch had declared a "No-Fly" zone over her house
and she didn't want any pilots flying close by and getting her dogs to barking.
He said that of course he had no authority to ask us to do anything like avoid
the dear crack pot, but perhaps we could avoid her just now.


We had music and food and a good time at the Flyin. Lots of pilots, but they are
getting older. I hope that they have schools nearby to bring in new members.
They've got a big nut to pay each year and need pilots to keep the irrigation
district happy.