We decided to avoid another night in White-Trash Hell, and proceeded directly two hours north to Indian Valley, where we were to meet up the next day with Pete Koistantin, a pilot from Sacramento we had met a few weeks earlier in Dallas. Pete 2 (or RePete) is a flight engineer for Delta, who has been operating from DFW for a few months. Rick had loaned him his spare HP-AT (or ‘Heap’ as Pete calls his) one weekend back in June at Pilot Point, so he was going to return the favor by playing Native Guide for us. We drove 2 hours to Greenville, found the campground in the dark of tall ponderosa pines, and stumbled off to bed. In the morning, Pete 2 found us at the main cafˇ in town (there’s only two).
We piled his glider on top, and headed up Keddie ridge, south of
town. We found an immediate use for the 4WD, as the last mile was steep and narrow.
Irritating sounds of branches on paint punctuated the jolts. "It’s a
Rental!" we cried with glee. Then we discovered that we actually would have to hike
our gliders in a narrow, rocky path 200 yards to the launch. Oi! Good thing my new harness
includes backpack. Hike it in, fly it out.
‘The Rock’ is a lover’s leap of a launch, a single large rock jutting into space. The winds were southwest, cycling straight in. With only Kat for a wire person (and untested at that), Pete 2 volunteered to be last, to fly or not, depending on the winds. We all had good cycles though, and were soon cruising the ridge waiting for thermals. I managed to yank my Camelback nipple off, to watch it plummet. I quickly drank about a third of it, and just watched the rest piss away. Good thing I stuffed a Gatorade in my harness. It was buoyant enough to not have worries, and we all quickly ended up at least 2K over. Greg and I decided to go north with it, with a tempting valley and lake over the back, and cranked it all the way up to 5K over, hitting more than 11K. Cloudbase looked even higher, at least 13K. Yeah!
We spotted two gliders above a launch northwest along the ridge.
They had launched from The Burn, a clear slope launch right above town. Trees were
everywhere else, though, so our XC course was well defined. The only LZs in sight were the
valley in front, (too late for that), with a bit that wrapped around the end of the ridge
(rotor-city?), and the next valley north (with a large lake on the upwind side). We were
hoping to jump a few treed sections, and make it out northeast to Susanville, and back to
the desert flats. The lake in the next valley proved to be our undoing, though, as a
12-mile glide failed to produce any more lift. The lake and the soggy shores around
it shut everything down. We were low enough to not have many options to land beyond that
valley, although Greg and I stretched to the far north end, over a last line of 500 foot
hills (one even had a tiny ski-lift on it) and Hwy 36. The ranch hand that came out to
meet us even accused us of launching from that bump, as someone has used it as training
hill in the distant past. We assured him we had gotten there the hard way, and broke down.
Rick and Pete 2 had left behind us, and had worked the upwind side of those same little
hills, to no effect. They landed on the near side, also along Hwy 36, but a mile shorter.
It was only 14/13 miles, but a good scenic flight. Amazing what a few mountains and lakes
will add to even a modest XC. Kat had a much harder route to us, following the highway
around vs. over the hills, but found us quite easily. Steaks, ’taters, beer, and even
a salad topped the evening off, around a hot pine fire. The air was cool, the forest dark.
We slept like logs.
After breakfast, I spent a fruitless 20 minutes scouring the shops in downtown Greenville (one block in each direction) for a new Nipple. Although, sensitive to the odd-sounding nature of the request, and the smallness of the town, I referred to it as a Valve. No such luck.
The day looked similar, but with a hair less wind. This proved to
be my undoing, as the ridge lift was just not up to it. Thirteen minutes after launching,
I watched the other three dudes sky out from a backyard below. Two boys (10/12?) hustled
over on their bikes to check me out. "My dad used to hang glide," one said.
"He quit when someone he knew got killed in one," he added. I asked how.
"He broke the keel, and he welded it back together, but it broke." He added,
"but that was before I was born," and they got bored with me and rode off. Hot
and disgusted, I packed up and waited for Kat. Rick called down to suggest going back up,
but the thought of crawling out on that Rock with a single inexperienced wire person
wasn’t thrilling me.
Then I recalled the Burn launch, just a few miles away. But how to find it? I called Pete 2, but he had only been up there once, and couldn’t remember the route. But Rick had met the two guys flying there while using a phone the night before—Bob and Bruce. Bob had the distinction of tucking his new Laminar at Sandia a few weeks before. Pete2 knew their frequency, so I called for directions to drive up there. With their guidance, Kat and I found it, and Greg top-landed there just before we arrived. Rick and Pete 2 were over the back, repeating the flight of the day before. Greg relaunched, and Bruce and Bob both launched the smooth roll-off. This looked much more doable as a self-launch, so we sent Kat off to get Rick and Pete, and I set up. Bruce landed again (whack), so I even had a hand getting out, although it was turning into smooth glass-off conditions, and relatively painless. I was soon 500 over, and then 1,000. Smooth fat glassy thermals kept drifting in, and I got to watch Bob land (whack) from 2K over. Greg had cruised over while I was climbing, and then receded 5 miles away across the valley over Greenville, without losing much. When I got higher, I ventured out, to find the whole valley lifting. A nice reward, after the 13-minute bombout. I sailed high above the town, seeing the lakes and even Mt. Lassen in the distance. Greg was just a speck against the far hills across the valley, and then I too was across, sliding smoothly nearly a mile above town. Magic.
We landed in the high school baseball fields on the edge of town, with perfect box approaches, and a short turnaround to the cafˇ.
Text and photos © 1997, Phammer