This last weekend, I got to fly off of the Chelan Butte in my paraglider for the first time….and it was AWESOME!!! I only flew once on Sat, and once again on Sun, but the flights lasted about 20min, and took a drop of about 3000ft (around 3900′ to 800′ from launch to LZ).
My first flight, I was a little nervous, but mostly excited. Both flights were from the “Ants” East launch, then landing at the Chelan Falls park. I took a tandem last year with one of my instructors Doug, and it was awesome (he gave me a little taste of “vitamin G” with his spirals) but I’ve never liked being a passenger. I was pleased to see how well I handled it, and wasn’t scared hardly at all while in the air. I handled pitch control well—site note: one of the people with us (name escapes me now) took a 60% asymmetric deflation because of poor pitch control—. The roll the glider kept taking in the bumpy (or Boody sp?) air wasn’t to much fun, but I got used to it quickly.
The next day, I wasn’t nervous at all, and enjoyed it more I think because of that. The conditions became more thermic than the previous day, and made for an exciting ride! At the Ranch (Aerial Paragliding) we have been flying in smooth adiabatic air, but this was my first taste of thermic conditions (although we did not use them for lift at our skill level yet). My other instructor, Denise, said I shot up way past anyone else when I hit what she guessed was a 800ft/min thermal off of one of the ridges I passed. It was pretty nuts, because I felt hammered into the harness, and then like an elevator I got used to it, but apparently I just kept on going (that’s why it’s nice to have a variometer to tell you these things).
I have a Suunto X6-HR, and meant to record the altimeter off of it’s barometer for my flights, but didn’t remember until over half way into my second flight. I started recording a little after I got shot into the air on that last thermal, but the graph below (taken from my watch) should be pretty close to my max altitude (I went down quite aways from the launch before I was shot back up to 3000ft).
.
.
.
.
I was so high, I got to try some new things. At first I took about 5+ 360′s to try and loose altitude. Then the next descent technique: big ears. Big ears are used to decrease your glide ratio by folding in the wing tips with the leading risers. It was really fun! Because you can’t do that, and control your break toggles, you need to rely on weight shifting to turn. Doug had me weight shift back and fourth, and it made me rock a little which was super fun.
My Dad came the first day and took some pictures and a video (thanks Dad). You can see them in the album, and video links below.
.
.
.
CLICK HERE FOR THE GALLERY
.
.
.
What an incredible sport!
This Saturday my Dad and I went to Aerial Paragliding, and had another awesome day with instructors Doug, and Denise. It was my Dad’s first time flying, and we both got a LOT of flights in. He had about 4 off of the lower hill, and 3 off of the top (I believe) and I had 7 off of the top. In the middle of the day, we hiked to the top of Tibets (sp?) the tallest hill in the area. From there, the more experienced pilots took off, and thermaled around a bit. I got to fly my new wing, and it was an incredible day. You’ll find the album of pictures below, and I will add descriptions of them within a few days.
cheers,
Justin
Went skiing this weekend with pop’s, and took along the Suunto X6-HR. Starting from Spokane, skiing at Mt. Spokane, and then returning again to the city is shown in the below altitude graph….pretty cool! Click on the picture to enlarge it.
Day skiing at Mt. Spokane
I sure am getting bad at staying up to date on this…and getting worse. Of course since I’m in my second semester of the year now, maybe I’ll tend to do more in the spirit of procrastination 
Back on November 4th, 09, I went to a presentation on the Gonzaga campus. The presentation was titled “An Evening With Dawes Eddy” and was his slide show on his successful summit of Everest. You’re probably thinking that must have been pretty cool…oh there’s more…on May 20th, 2009, Dawes became the oldest American to summit Everest! Turns out he’s just the average Joe, working at a cement factory in Spokane WA!…well sort of…
After the presentation, the doctor who studied him both before, and after the expedition gave a summary of his findings, and it turns out Dawes was built for the task. I believe the first thing he said in beginning his presentation was that he wanted to “Thank his parents for giving him good genes”…and rightly so! Not everyone is built to function like Dawes at altitude…he is able to absorb oxygen into his blood stream more efficiently than normal, and has the physical stamina to do it (also because he has been fit nearly his entire life). One of his main messages was to stay fit, so you will live long, and be able to happily take on any adventure that might come across your path.
This isn’t to say it’s a healthy thing to climb Everest though…the doctor mentioned a few things (that escape me after such a gap in time) but one I remember was that his body had actually began to destroy his heart itself to get energy. His body-fat stores were so low, his body had began to literally eat itself in an act of survival. This isn’t due to his age either I should mention…it’s what happens to people in the “death zone.”
The pictures were absolutely incredible, and I have to say, it was a view on Everest I have never seen in any book or movie…dramatized or factual. One of his pictures showed the Khumbu icefall with a large cornice above it that Dawes himself had only been on a day beforehand (I believe). Then a few pictures just moments later that showed the entire mass cascading down over the icefall, “dusting” a few climbers, and killing a sherpa. I’m sure it was more to him than just another tragedy, but the way he mentioned it, made it seem like although extremely tragic, it was part of the gambling game…as if it were a battle or something. It was a sobering section of his show to say the least.
Another shocking portion was his last camp before the summit. I’ve seen pictures and movies of this camp, but never before like this. I had never fully grasped the placement of this camp until seeing his pictures. It appeared as though they were camped on a vertical snow slope…like the ledges they had cut in were only just barely keeping the tents there, and nothing more. I remember hearing a story of a woman (I believe) falling to her death in the night after leaving her tent with only booties on, and sliding uncontrollably thousands of feet…from this picture I now understand why.
The last picture that made a lasting impression was his slide of the Hillary Step. This is the crux of the climb…a ~40ft-nearly vertical climb of rock just before the summit. This is generally an aided climb with fixed ropes that the climbers can then Jumar up, but it was a sight to see. He told us about how he navigated it with a climb, then traverse, then climb…it made me nervous watching it…all at 28,840ft! Most would have trouble with this on the ground at sea level, but at 66years old, Dawes tackled this at more than 5 miles above sea level!!!
He told us he spent almost an hour (I believe…maybe 40mins?) at the summit watching the sun rise, and I can only imagine what he was feeling…must have been the most beautiful sight and feeling a human can experience…CONGRATULATIONS DAWES!!!
It turns out he only held the title two days before someone a year older (67) from America summited, and became the new oldest American to summit, but no bother…I am still rediculously impressed (it didn’t seem to hurt Dawes’ excitement over the achievement much either). One of the best pictures was of Dawes (the oldest American), and Johnny Collinson (the youngest American at 17 from Utah) standing together.
(Image was taken from this page LINK)
What an awesome thing to have seen Dawes in person…and that he lives in the same city is such a coincidence.
* I wrote this so long after the presentation that my facts may not be totally correct, but if anyone has any corrections please let me know.
Well…school’s running, I’m working full time, and the weather is getting colder so I’m getting very short on free time…which means I’m stuck at home doing “homework” most of the time. So I’m starting something new. Since I can’t get out there as much, I’ll spend more time here and do some product reviews and How-to’s to bring some (more) traffic to my page. So what do we have today you may be asking yourself…well…something that’s a little different, and might appeal to a smaller crowd, but still very cool.
It’s the Brasslite Turbo ll-D ultralight backpacking stove. I’ve made a number of alcohol stoves with soda cans, tuna cans, beer cans etc…I’ve used insulation, created pressure chambers with jet holes, and attempted priming setups and simmering functions. The results were sometimes impressive, but they were still flimsy and easily crushed. They worked fine, but I rely on my stove for water and cooking so I prefer to have something more trustworthy.
I actually made this video almost a year ago now and recently found it in my files, so thought I’d post it and see if people want more. It’s sort of long and drawn out, but at the time of making it, I didn’t see any other video reviews of the stove, so thought I’d do one for fun. Enjoy, and comment away.
*Note-It looks like their prices have dropped since I made the video too…so check out their website at www.brasslite.com
cheers,
Justin
