Hogback skyline hang gliders?

[silverwings]

Re: High Top (NE site) I had my first mountain flight there in the late 70's with an Eipper Flexi II that I built! I launched off of the old flatbed trailer and seeing a motion picture of it later you could see me flying fast and through some good thermals all the way down to the LZ. Sort of a jet fighter type flight. Pretty exciting first mountain flight. Flew there quite a few times in the late 70's and early 80's. There were some problems with LZ's but the main thing that sort of closed down the site was that some developer was trying to sell home sites on the mountain and put up a locked gate to prevent access up the mountain except for the land owners. About 8 - 15 years ago I was able to get up to the top by taking the Daniels launch road a long way that went down through a valley and up the mountain from the northerly side. This access was pretty tough back then and may not be available anymore. It was really neat to get back up there and parts of the flatbed was still there but a lot of saplings had grown up in the launch area. Also the primary LZ that we used to use was over grown as well. Besides launching off of the flatbed, we were able to launch off of the road and slightly higher up the mountain. There was another launch for the other side of the mountain called Bacon Hollow if I remember correctly that was more of a cliff launch. I don't think I ever flew that. Anyway talking about this site brings back some fairly fond memories. I remember my dad went with me several times there.

[RichH]

Last time I flew there was in 1986 or so..with Skip Brown..Skip had secured a very tight temporary landing field for us to land in basically a small field in front of a newly built log cabin..Launch at that time had already grown in some with some small 4 ft pine trees at the end of the slot..It is a very shallow slope at the top but we launched using the old truck bed..It was coming in lightly and Skip and I soared for several hours in the evening glass off..IWe did see a van of 3 or so other pilots come up behind us and I remember one of the pilots got caught in the small sapelings at the end of the slot..I watched as they pulled him out of the small trees..The slope does drop off considerably at that spot and if the slot was cleared to the drop off it should be an easy launch in todays gliders..It was a great site and the views when you climbed up above the mtn was amazing..I always loved those high mtn sites..It would be a great site to get reopened if possible..John you probably remember it used to be pretty wide open but ..like you I went up there sometime in the late 90's or 2000 and it already had started to grow in..I dont think it would take much to recut the slot..Hopefully it isn't privately owned..and I think it faces more ENE...

[stevek]

The Skip LZ was directly below on the launch side of the road. It has grown up a lot. I don't think you could even get a PG in there now. The owner was friendly toward us -- retired military I think.

The big field across the road, the most obvious landing choice, is (or was) owed by the Dryer family. I believe husband, wife and daughter were all attorneys in DC. They owned a huge amount of land and were not HG PG friendly ostensibly because of liability concerns. I dealt with the daughter some trying to get permission. They wanted to see a copy of the USHGA insurance policy which I eventually got but they still said "no".

The main LZ now is the one by the pond. It is big enough but it is a long ways out. You need some lift to make it.
The bailouts are the Gary Smith LZ on the west side of the road (over the wires, around the tree and drag your feet to get it stpped before the fence) and the Tom McG LZ on the other side which is up a hill so steep that even if you land successfully you risk tumbling back down. Not for the fainthearted.

PGs have better landing choices but the launch has some power lines running right in back of it which is sort of nervous making. In fact, I believe somebody got their canopy in the wires once but didn't get hurt.

A "Sporty" site.

[RichH]

both of these sites Hogback and Hightop have huge potential but if I had to choose I'd say High top was the better of the two.. Hope we can find a decent landing field since this is truely on of the nicest sites I've flown on the east..Its a shame really that it has fallen off the radar..it maybe to far gone ..with public ownership or landing fields too few to try to acquire..Some of the discriptions in this thread for the most part are in its last days..In its hey day High top was truely a great site ..To fly it in light thermal conditions was flying high top at its best..Hope we can do so once again!!