USFS / CHGPA Edith's Gap Project

[kcarra]

It was an amazing site to see so many pilots out and how much was done. Warning - I found a deer tick crawling on me. Everyone might want to do a good check to see that they are free of ticks.

Karen

[FlyingFelix]

Whoa, Matthew glad to hear you're unharmed - even got a sweet flight in after a meet with the trees

Great to hear all had a great time and most importantly a site has been restored! YAY for free flight !!!
Is this a site for HG as well or the LZ's are too tight for that?

Again, many thanks to all that participated, wish I could of been there.

[rlweber]

Beautiful site, great group of people working hard. Special thanks to the people who worked hard and did not get to enjoy the magic air. Now the challenge is to maintain the site so that it is not reclaimed by nature!
Randy

[PTerry]

Great 2nd Day at Edith's Gap. 12 people came out and polished off the stumps, rocks, and clean up. Nice work by all.
Then came the flying before the skies over developed. Some good takeoffs and flights. Even nicer!
Thanks so to the US Forest Service for their support.

[George]

It was great to meet everyone for the work party. The flying was even better. Over two hours soaring and I counted 12 gliders up in the air with me at one point. I believe this will be a great site for us for years to come.

George

[George]

Oh, and while I can't speak to the LZ's I am told that the little bit of pruning we did at the bottom of the slot might make things easier for Hang Glider launching.

George

[mingram]

Another good one today. Krista is still in the air over fort valley. She might make it to Strasbourg! Flight of the day!

No glass off tonight. No clouds and weak cycles but otherwise no wind.

I had a run-in with a power line and had the electric co. come rescue me in 30 mins! There are no good landing fields to the north.

Matt

[Matthew]

RE-- HG LZs

There is a field by the bridge that used to be the HG LZ. This formerly long narrow field now looks to be bisected by a line of low tress-- cutting the field in half. However, there are some other nice big fileds to the south of launch near the river. The ones I saw had rolled hay bales in them. Once the hay bales are out, they would be OK. You would either need to soar or have, at least, a U2 glider to make these fields.

Matthew

[XCanytime]

Or a crosswind from the left that improves your glide dramatically enough to reach these fields. Bacil

[pink_albatross]

The haybale field may belong to the page county sportsmens club....
(I test landed it)

[pink_albatross]

Some pix at https://picasaweb.google.com/m/viewer#a ... KXyuJXt9AE

[jmcclave]

Great weekend for the club. It was fantastic to see so many folks come out and help to get Edith Gap back into a flyable state. I enjoyed the two days of "hard labor." It reminded me of some of my childhood jobs in the construction industry!

I had two great flights on Saturday (40 minutes and close to 2 hours). I has less luck on Sunday and just had one short flight. As Tom said, the glass off did not happen as we were sitting in the lee. Congratulations to Krista on her great flight.

I'm looking forward to more south east days!
Jim

[krista]

What an amazing weekend and thanks to everyone for making it happen. As with the prior posts, Saturday was a great day of cleaning up and flying in a perfect glassoff with everyone.

I was also quite grateful for the assistance in having reachign some new personal bests. Overall, I had four flights and just over seven hours of air time (!).

Saturday: Clean up, clean up. First flying was only about 20 minutes, thanks to a wonderful house thermal giving me a low save. Then there was the most wonderful glass off for 3 hr 10 mins with all of the other pilots in the air. Max height (if I recall correctly - since I'm typing this sans vario) was about 1250 msl over. Took a ton of altitude coming back from behind the ridge where I had thermaled to 1250 - reaching the front of the ridge at 900 msl. Ended the evening camping with the group and enjoying the rhythms of Ben and Kyle (great music).

Sunday: A little more clean up and then a surprising change in conditions. The cummies never over developed. First flight was a sledder up until the landing. Thanks to an extremely turbulent LZ, I was able to hook a thermal over the trees in the middle of the field for yet an even lower low save. Took it up to 1200 msl and nearly cloud base, then headed out to the valley along the river. Caught some thermals off of yellow roofed buildings (no trespassing per the road signs!), thermalling at 0.1-0.6 m/s for about 20 minutes. Landed in a field that is used by small planes (across from yellow roofed buildings) and houses a camping site.

THEN---the EPIC flight (at least by my standards). Launched in a very low cycle after a failed launch (not enough wind, not enough running -- very thankful to my bones and joints for keeping together); it wasn't pretty, and I shoudl have forward launched given the conditions. After scrounging around and not finding lift, I found a thermal near the finger (but closer to launch) on my way to the LZ thanks to some birds circling. Hooked it and went to cloud base. I was all alone... But having fun finally feeling at one with my glider (thanks to the recent SIV in Annecy, I suspect). Every time I got near to cloud base, I would hit big sink at 3-4 m/s. Then I would go out to the valley, find another thermal, and do it again. Waiting for folks to join. Must have done it at least 4 times. After about an hour of this or so, Tom told me to go XC. I hesitated. Fell out of a thermal, then found another. Went to 1400 msl. Okay. I will head over the back - I have my desired LZ that I can reach, which may have a thermal. So I went. I got to to the field at 800 msl and struggled to get back to 900 msl. Thanks again to more birds, I cored back into a stronger thermal (at a whopping 1 m/s) and headed up towards Edinburg's Gap crossing it on the northern side. I jumped the gap around 1200 msl (again, if I recall correctly) and headed for an LZ. Then I caught a thermal there and continued circling. The wind had shifted south while I was preparing to jump the gap, which allowed me to thermal from Woodstock (the entire town was a thermal) to Tom's Brook and beyond. I essentially help hooking weak thermals all the way down the valley as I headed NE along Route 11. I nearly missed passing Woodstock launch. I kept looking for it, but had given up having too much fun talking on the radio about this crazy lucky flight. Oh snap - there it is (got some photos of it). Kept going along identifying one LZ at a time. Made it to the outer-outskirts of Strasbourg (though perhaps should have pushed on more - there were still thermals!), landing in a field just beyond a storage area. All in all, three hours of flying. My longest (and only second) real XC adventure.

Many thanks to the entire crew that made it possible! Edith's gap is definitely my new favorite site...

krista

[markc]

I'd like to add to the kudos to Patrick, for organizing a great and effective work party!

While looking at the slot on Sat, it seemed to me that we might want to protect our hard work, by making it more difficult for vehicles to pull up close to the edge to dump garbage and the like. Perhaps some traffic bollards? Perhaps extend the guardrail, but with a cutout wide enough to walk through?

MarkC

PS: Awesome flights Krista and Tom!

[PTerry]

After seeing this site in use this weekend and having a number of conversations with land owners about using their property for LZs. It is clear that this site could be a real gem for PG & HG.

So I will be planning on a site proposal for the USFS and perhaps grant funding (Transportation Department of the State of Virginia, DoD, and other Open Space programs) for Edith's Gap Upgrade. Because of the proximity to the road and easy public observation I think this site will lend itself for good public relations and promotion for area free flight. Also I think this could be good win-win for USFS as well if we do this properly.
I would also like to provide the barrier suggested by a number of you to prevent easy trash dumping. My plan will include barriers, erosion control, slope retaining structure, resurfacing, soil, seeding, access steps, and some safety improvements beyond the low rock step at launch, as well as set-up & easy access for hang gliders.
I think I will also propose provisions to allow accessibility issues to permit the possibility of tandem flights for disabled passengers.

Pat

[deveil]

Yep, that was a bang-up job by Pat, putting it together the way he did. I think I thanked him at least four times through the day for making it so accommodating for the volunteers. He was there and set up - and quite a set up - before anyone else had arrived, then proceeded to work throughout the day.

It is such a beautiful and necessary site. I was joyed to see it be so immediately useful for, and relished by, the paragliding pilots and am enthused by his plans to make it more hang glider friendly.

Maintenance schmaintenance - sign me up. <wink>
Damn, I just put myself on the hook again, didn't I? $#!+

[jmcclave]

Patrick,

Great suggestions on the next steps for the site. I would be very happy to help with the proposal research or with any of the follow on grunt work.

Thanks again.
Jim

[dbodner]

In case someone is writing an article about the site cleanup, I have a some photos taken a couple of years ago.

Also, if anyone has a few extra dollars, the 33 acre property next-door is up for sale for $249k. http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhom ... source=web

[markc]

25 people with a 10k investment apiece doesn't seem all that far-fetched to me....

MarkC

[markc]

Oh, I should also mention for those who are relatively new to Edith's Gap.... The trash dumping issue is a very real one, we saw an incredible impact to the site in the late 90's due to dumping. Very discouraging because we knew that mere site maintenance would not be enough to keep the site flyable. If there is something that can be done to help prevent that sort of thing, and keep the site open and enjoyable to hikers/bikers/locals/etc, it would be a win-win.

MarkC

[George]

Excellent report Krista! Inspirational.

And Pat is *The Man* for putting this all together and leading throughout.

I'm hiking tomorrow and then I'm looking to fly!


George

[thermalup]

Just a quick thought on LZs and land purchasing: Virginia has a tax-friendly 'land use' program. Are there any hay fields for sale within a reasonable glide ratio from the Edith's Gap launch? Yearly taxes on such a parcel might be almost nothing. Our club here in NW Michigan purchased our 10 acre ridge top launch 30 years ago. 25+ pilot/owners joined together to make the purchase and it has worked out very well over the years.
ps: I would have liked to have helped out with the work party (I have a healthy chain saw and other tree tools) but I am back in Michigan for the next few months. ..::JG

[deveil]

A thought about the property to the right of the launch - maybe see if the landowner would break off a chunk, just enough to protect the right flank. maybe pay a bonus of sorts as an incentive. It never hurts to ask.

[deveil]

uhmm, I just now looked at Dave's link and see that this is lz land that's being talked about. The "next-door" description threw me. oops.

[PTerry]

Status Update: July 16 2013

The US Forest Service will be going out to Edith's Gap to poison the remaining tree stumps once again since our clearing effort.

They are also figuring on planting grass seed and hay cover on the cleared slope for erosion control.

We are talking with them for a longer term free flight fix as well as some other site renovations to allow for a better setup for both PG and HGs.

Pat