Hi Everyone! Just arrived back from Steamboat from another awesome airfest and fly-in event. Friday afternoon and evening really shined and Saturday turned out to be quite nice as well. We arrived in Steamboat Friday, late afternoon, just 10 minutes after the hang gliding and paragliding group left the LZ. Since there are a few permits allowed to use the road to launch, I settled into thinking I would watch the festivities from the LZ. Karen and I decided it was a good time to get our condo situation set up and drop off our bags and belongings. We then made it over to the the Whistler Park LZ which was the designated landing area for the weekend.
Dan, who is a local and has been flying Wolcott with us for the last month, called me and said he could come down and get me so I could fly. It's a half hour trip down and and another half hour up. I told him not to worry and go fly, but he insisted. Due to Dan and Ken 's kindness I was going to get a flight in. It was Kens truck that Dan drove down to get me. Karen came up with us and was a sweetheart to drive Kens truck down from launch. From the LZ I could see pilots taking off as soon as they arrived at launch at approximately 4:30 p.m. Conditions were excellent and many began to climb out. It looked to be an spectacular evening of flying.
Dan arrived at about 5:20 p.m. in the LZ, and we made a quick turn around and made it back to the top of Mt Werner at about 6:15 p.m. By this time most everyone had launched except for two hang glider pilots that were just finishing up their pre-flight. Dan and I got ready immediately as Mark Cahur was very encouranging over the radio to get our butts up there. Cycles were light and were now crossing from the north. The launch directions on top of Storm Peak is from Southwest to Northwest. But even a little cross wind is OK. Dan and I took off, and there was not much lift, but the air was smooth as silk as we made some turns near the gondola to try to gain some height. Lift had shut down a bit by this time and we made our way toward the valley with plenty of altitude. Making some lazy circles and taking pictures of the valley we had a nice extended sled ride for about 30 minutes of flight time.
Pilots that afternoon and evening got over 16,000 msl. A beautiful evening and an awesome flight. The Steamboat fly-in weekend had started.
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