Big Sur

[mcelrah]

I pulled up to the Pacific Valley ranger station (next to Plaskett Creek campground) and saw a hang-glider being broken down in the LZ across the road. Asked the pilot if he thought it was PG-able and he said yes. When his partner landed, he said they needed to go back up to retrieve the other vehicle and I sniveled for a ride. The is "The Knob", different from the "Wild Cattle" launch I had seen before. The Knob is reached by a 4 wheel drive road just south of the campground - it's a 4 mile drive; for Wild Cattle you go 4 miles north of the LZ, turn on Nascimiento Road for 8 miles, then right on a dirt road for yet another 4 miles - but it's reachable with 2-wheel drive. I launched into a lull and headed down the canyon. Should have driven straight for the ridge out front rather than lingering in the sink behind it. Was worried about going in the trees if I didn't make it out of the canyon; finally hit the ridge lift with 1000 feet left (it's 2500 vertical launch to LZ) then gradually climbed 500 feet in a combination of ridge and thermal. There was a wispy that seemed to be working; once it dissipated, I sank back to 1200. By this time (40 minutes), the hangies had driven back down so I went out to land into the north cross. Spectacular site - but I was too busy to do photography in flight. Will send shots of launch and LZ separately. Cross one off the bucket list. - Hugh

[mcelrah]

http://treykropp.blogspot.com

Trey is one of the HG pilots who gave me a ride up and showed me the launch. He posted a video of his flight at Big Sur and graciously included my launch (near the beginning) also.

Flew the Cayucos site near Morro Bay yesterday. Three of us had extendos on the first cycle. By the time we packed up and hiked back up the 700 foot hill, the wind had increased dramatically. One guy launched from lower down, but then had a bit of an adventure getting back down. Half hour from sink out to blown out. Just shows these smooth coastal sites can still bite you...

Gonna hike Bishop Mt. this AM. It's a flying site also, but I will probably stay on the ground and hang out with friends for the rest of the trip. There's a lot of wine to taste...

- Hugh

[stevek]

Love Cayucos. Patrick Eaves was my unofficial site guide there (did you meet him?) and showed me in that hte whole concept of "boring coastal air" is pretty much wrong. I thought that the most interesting phenomenom was the what they call "thermal block". In a typical thermal block you can see that 1/4 mile out it is blowing in at 20. Lots of white caps. But there is a bubble of air over the land that deflects the ocean air up and over. Little or no wind on the beach and at launch. You can, of course, soar the block -- usually hang gliders. Sometimes the air that is deflected up and over the thermal block comes back down between the launch and the beach. That makes for serious down air and can cause problems for PGs (parachutal stall). I really don't understand the mechanics of the thermal block. It seems to me that the heavy dense cold ocean air would just shovel underneath the warm air land bubble. Whatever. I just add it to my rapidly growing list of stuff I don't get. Anyway, cool site. Glad you got to fly it.