St Helens Flight Report
Matthew Keegan
Sunday morning I got up early in the
hopes of finally flying St Helens. I'd hiked it 3 times in the past,
and each time wished I had my wing on me for the descent. The weather
was looking perfect- SSW, under 10 mph all the way to 10k feet. I
was heading up with a group of 9 friends, but no other pilots, so I
figured it would take perfect conditions to persuade me to fly.
On previous hikes I had scoped out some
potential landing sites. There is some relatively flat and open
terrain around Chocolate Falls on the Monitor Ridge route, and on the
way up I found 2 reasonable spots. They were unexpectedly bare and
rocky from all the beautiful weather we've been having, but I figured
they were landable.
The hike up was dead calm, with clouds at altitude showing SSW winds aloft. By the time we reached the summit, the winds had picked up to 10-12 due south, and I declared perfect conditions. I layed out the wing about 100ft below the summit . Views of Hood and Adams were fantastic. I launched and soared the crater rim, getting up over the summit, and had a mind-blowing view of the caldera. I only took about 3 passes, as the clouds were building down below, and after a last pass over my jealous hiking party, headed out over the valley.
I had a ton of altitude, and saw some
other landing prospects, but flew back to the mountain to meet
my hiking buddies. The lower level winds were definitely more
westerly, and I may have been getting a bit of turbulence over the
nearby ridge, but nothing too horrible. I packed up and had a good
long nap in the sunshine waiting for the rest of the group to plod
their way down.
Next time, I'll plan to fly earlier in the season when there's a bit more snow covering the trees and rocks and a bit less thermal activity. If anyone else has scouted other good landing sites, I'd love to know about them. And if anyone else wants to come hiking, give me a call. I'm gathering info about Adams.
Discover Paragliding!
Brad
See you
up there,
Brad and Maren
Your 'Couple' of Instructors
www.DiscoverParagliding.com
503-861-2772 (W) 503-440-0733 (c)
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