Elk Berm flight

[skf...@effectnet.com]

Fun flight at Elk berm. This old site has been overgrown with deciduous trees and the firs out front are much taller. Laying out in the snow with only a few light short cycles it looked a bit dubious. Fortunately an extremely large mountain beaver that has been seen here occasionally allowed me to launch, barely. I crashed through or kicked to the side every sapling/tree until I was three trees into the firs and finally reached clear air.

High clouds covered the sky and I tried for anything dry as I scratched down the valley. Without the sun (well very filtered sun) it was different than many past flights here with little upslope. I worked tiny bubbles and errant ridge lift and finally broke free of the ground at the Forest Learning Center. It was fun to makes some circles and the view of the mountains was beautiful ( sorry no camera). Lift seemed to fall apart at 5,400' though the cloudbase in the distance looked higher. At Elk Rock I was not finding much and even the clouds starting to form closer to St Helens were not enough to entice more flight. After a very long week of work the hour flight was plenty and I wound down to the berm landing in the snow. The sky started to open up and launching looked way more reasonable when I left.

Being higher and further up the valley Elk often has a better lapse rate but also has more wind. Being able to launch in light conditions makes the hike at Elk well worth it when the snow is firm or it's free of snow. The berm is a bit of a crap shot

Steve Forslund

[Michael Coppock]

Impressive Steve!  I am definitely watching for a good window there, to launch off of the Rock itself, as last fall recon showed that there is still a clean cliff launch up top.  

If a pilot bombs out in the valley, how does one walk back up to road? 

I have scoured GE, but can't see a clear road hike route out of river bed, except way west.  The, alternative of a vicious bushwhack straight up to roads that approach the valley directly below launch, is a bit daunting.

Thanks for the inspiring report!  M.

[skf...@effectnet.com]

Nothing impressive about that flight though I did work hard to escape the hill at the Forest Learning Center. There are three areas I use for launching Elk Rock and it is an OK hike if you are not post holing in snow. Over the years I've tried a few routes up to the road and it is an ugly task. I would hike down to Twin Bowls and up the road to the highway and thumb ( you could stash a bike there if alone)It is fairly easy to fly down to Twin Bowls and back. When flying Twin Bowls we often flew to Elk and back) so with more pilots you can always leave a car at twin Bowls hike up and one at the Elk viewpont which we land at. If there is too much west you land at the berm instead of the viewpoint. 
Picture taken after flying

----- Original Message -----

From:

"Michael Coppock" <mcopp...@gmail.com>

To:

"Cascade Paragliding Club" <cp...@googlegroups.com>

Cc:

Sent:

Mon, 5 Apr 2021 07:41:21 -0700 (PDT)

Subject:

CPC: Re: Elk Berm flight

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