Exploring new sites is always fun, and Chelan was no exception. Site located in cental Washington, just 80 miles from Canadian border. It was quite a few pilots from SoCal who attended, inluding Dean, Ty, Marty, Arnie and Aaron. After some debate I end up driving with Aaron, which is about 20 hours from LA. Most of the pilots camped at Beebe Bridge Park Campground ($28 per day).
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| Beebe Bridge Camping |
Its quite convenient place, main LZ located on the other side of river, and just 5 minutes drive from the camp. Here is view from launch:
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| Chelan PG launch |
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| PG pilots waiting in the queue |
Main arena for competition is flatland to the east from launch, but getting there especially with low cloud base was very difficult, in fact I bombed out first 3 days (4 with traning day). When you arrive low on other side of the river there are 2 options: try to ridge soar and catch thermal or push toward power lines low with hope to get something on the way. Another problem was that thermals tend to lean a lot from ridge, if you don't drift enough you lose a thermal, if you drift too much you may not come back to ridge line if you lost thermal. On the third day (second task) I was so upset to land again in canyon that I hiked back and relaunched, but was drifting back to the same canyon, I pushed out toward the river, but could not clear another ridge, so I landed, hiked again, relaunched and plan just to glider to main LZ. Instead I got a nice fat thermal and went straight to clould base, tag Simms waypoint and make 2/3 of way back. I probably can make it all the way, but was concerned that reterive will be gone if I don't make it, time was past 7:00 pm. Here is how river crossing looks like from the start:
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| Flying over Chelan |
Last 3 days I was super careful about river crossing, basically you have to cross with main gaggle and need to start about 5 minutes after them and higher in order to get into the best thermal. This strategy worked great, so 3 last tasks was fun racing. Here is view to the launch.
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| Chelan launch from the air |
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| Landed on the flats |
Overall I came in 39th out of 49 pilots, not what I was expecting, but very good learning for me for sure. Swimming in Chelan lake and jumping from the bridge each day also contribute a lot to positive impression from the place.
