This should be interesting.

Newest posts start after this post.

You will be able to find results here:
2009 US PG Nats Inspo

Some other bloggers from the comp:

Tim O'Neil
Brett Hardin
Nicole's blog

Day 7. Task 7.

Wow, who can believe we had 7 days and 7 tasks. Unprecedented.

Today's task was short and sweet. 57 km run up and down the ridge. A TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction) was put in place of the original task which would have us land at the base of Mt. Olympus.

I made a mistake late in the game by pushing out ahead and getting low before the last turnpoint. For a few kms, I was in the lead heading for the only place that had sun on it. I guess it worked better in the shade. I got stuck, my race over, it was all about getting in.

I came over the landing field with no extra space and saw the whites of the eyes of people in their houses above the field.

Not much video taken in the air the last few days due to the pace. Today was no exception. If you were on half bar, you were left behind. Ryan was 8th today and said he was pushing full bar on each transition! I believe him as the pace was fierce.

I want to thank Vincene at Muller Windsports for always supporting me. I want to thank Keith for lending me his glider. I would have been left behind without it. I want to thanks SuperFly for the support.

I have to send a shout out to the task committee and especially Bill Belcourt as he provided a task strategy talk everyday. What an awesome comp!

We have a long drive back tomorrow. I will update with more pictures and videos in the coming week.

Another great task

We went up north to the University again.

It was a fast task. I don't think I have ever been on the bar for so long during a task. The average rate on glide was at least half bar. The last 10 kms on final glide was full bar. hahaha, pretty scary actually. Due to the fear of "blowing up" I ended up a few minutes behind as any bit of turbulence caused me to let up on the bar while the other just held it steady.

Dunno if we will fly today. Wind forecast might not be good (although I can't find it anywhere).

Results here.

Overall scores aren't posted that include task 6 for some reason. The top 3 Americans are really close.



Josh up behind Lone Peak.

Day 5. Even longer!

Tired after a 5.5 hour flight.

Missed the last turnpoint (end of speed section) by 50 meters. The last turnpoint was launch and I blew it by pushing a little too much bar on the final glide. Frustrating.

The scenery was awesome and it was cool flying with my friends the whole way. More tomorrow. I am beat. Ugh. Such a rookie mistake.

Then again, not bad for the 7th flight of the year.

Results here.

Day 4 video

long and no music. haha, enjoy.

Day 4. Long ass task.

Made goal today. About 8-10 in. Mads probably won the day.

More blogging in the morning.

Edit:

86 km task called yesterday. Basically south to a town called Levan. A couple of turn points were added in order to avoid the 1 nautical mile no fly zone from the fires the day before. This essentially pushed us out over the flats while making the crossing to Spanish fork.

Timed the start perfectly and exited the start cylinder seconds after 2:30 pm. After tagging the second turnpoint out in the flats, I watched Mads go straight back to the mountains. The rest of us continued across the flats for the more direct route. It should have worked. It didn't. We got stuck for a good 40 minutes next to the wind generators and watched Mads fly over our heads deep into the terrain.

Bill was saying the terrain works, it just looks intimidating. He took the flats route too. After scratching for a long time, we finally got some height to move on. After 2.5 hours, we had only completed 50% of the route. We were gliding at about 25-30 km/h with plenty of bar in to the wind. The last half of the course was much faster as it was getting close to the end of the day and things were getting more buoyant. Final glide was from 17km out at 12:1.

There was a fork in the flight. Brad, Eric, Bill, Andy, Brett and I were all together about 25 kms out. Eric and Brad got a piece of a thermal that the rest of us couldn't get. Bill peeled back toward the mountains while Brett and Andy followed Brad and Eric down the valley. I decided the safer, albeit slower route would be to go to the mountains with Bill. Bill had to go deep while I went half way before hitting a screamer that took me to 3600m. I headed to goal in hopes that the expected tail wind would push me in. It was a headwind all the way to goal! Lucky for me, there was a lot of lift all the way in.

Results are here

Day 3. Task 3

Not much to say about today.

Wasn't willing to take a risk today that was required to make goal. Maybe I am getting old.

A quick video from today. Sorry for the lack of music. Some of the dialogue is funny anyway.

Updated video. iMovie uploaded a previous version. Might take sometime to process.

Gambled and lost.

Haha, funny how it is always tougher for me to blog when I have had a not so good day. I guess I run out of energy.

I gambled and lost today. Took the short cut and got to the other side when things got soft. Just couldn't get out of the hole I was in. As Jeff O'Brien said on his blog, there is a lesson to be learned in all of this. I just fail to know what it is. Maybe it is to be more patient. I don't know.

Had an interesting take off today. I decided to take a wrap on the brakes and when I stabbed to slow the glider down, I ended up stalling the glider. haha, I was running full tilt at the time. Managed to get it going again about 3/4 of the way down. Moon got it all on video. I will try to post it.

It was a slow climb out today. The start gate was delayed 30 minutes but I believe it shouldn't have been. Goal was at the Nephi Airport. Word is that a lot of people made goal today. I wasn't one of them. Got really high before crossing the flats. Crossed with Andy and Ryan. Went for a long ass glide, but just couldn't get up on the other side.

Ryan as we left the mountains and started to cross.

Video will be up soon.

Day 1. Task 1.

Cool. I can still Paraglide. Or, maybe there was a lot of luck involved today. Probably a little bit of both.

Inspo is a pretty cool site. It is up on a bench that doesn't seem very high, but is quite high. There is a big mountain behind it that must have peaks in the 12-13,000 ft range. We never reached the peaks due to the inversion that was at 3,300 m or so.

Getting organized to go to the top.

When I first heard the that the task was 56 kms, I questioned why it was so short. Turned out that it was the perfect length as the wind started to pick up just as the first competitors reached goal.

The task was an out and back to Stoffers (or something), back to launch and then south to the PSKLZ turnpoint. I decided to not make the same mistake I made last year in Chelan and went early. Two reasons for that. 1. New site. 2. New glider.

Mads Syndergaard from Denmark (UP Rep) was the first competitor to launch. This was after watching some discouraging wind technicians sink out. I took off 5th or 6th with almost 1 hour and 10 minutes before the start gate was to open at 2:30 pm. After bouncing around for a while, Nate started to push back out toward the start to make it in time for the 3km exit start. We were just outside, hit the cylinder at a tangent and then hit a thermal right outside on our way to Stouffers. It was a 10 km run down there and was easy as we were all quite high. People kept pushing lower and lower and I followed as Bill Belcourt told me to stay with people today. Sure enough, we hit the turnpoint lower than I would have like and had to run back to the mountain.

Ryan with his rice paddy worker hat.

On the way back, I got stuck. It felt leeside no matter which side of the ridges you were on. Maybe I am a wuss, but it was a pretty rough day. Others in the landing field agreed. I pushed back toward launch (tp 2) and ended up all alone over launch with some free fliers. I though about heading toward goal, but decided to past launch (North and the wrong way) as I had a good climb there before the start gate. There was a nice thermal there that took me back to 3300 m. After which it was a nice long glide to the end of the ridge.

On the way to goal just after leaving launch again (tp2)

The course called for a risky decision to be made. You could follow the terrain, which was longer and also had the possibility of being pinned in the wind at the Spanish fork, or you could go out on the flats that typically don't work very well. I saw people headed the terrain way and some out of the flats. I opted for the flats as it was shorter.

After being 8 kms behind the leaders (on the way to tp2 I met them coming the other way at 4km), I managed to catch them out over the flats. Luck, not really skill. From there it was hard slogging toward goal with a quartering head wind. As we got lower, it go more buoyant. All day, All I saw was 4:1 and 2:1 glides every time I went on glide. We made it in from a 12:1 glide due to the buoyancy, even with the head wind.

Nate, Mads, Eric and me in the first group. Nick was in next. Two guys were high as I was leaving. Some guys were just short.

I took some video today, but it sucked... lol might post it later.

Results are up here.

Later

We have arrived.

More details tomorrow. It was a long drive and the comp starts tomorrow. Time for sleep.

The North Side: