Big Air

Utah is known for it's big air. Usually this refers to kick ass thermals that can take you  like a rocket up to heights sublime. While we did get to experience some of Utah's big air, unfortunately it was the other kind... the kind that blows at 40MPH out of the South all day long for 2 days straight!! :( When we arrived at the South Side Saturday Morning it was looking decent. We all got set up and most of us flew. The air was rowdy though and I was feeling tired... a combination of jet lag, lack of sleep, and 3 hours of flying the day before. As I was putting the final touches on my glider and getting psyched up to fly a local pilot blew his approach and landed nearly on top of me!!! His right wingtip came down on my left wing tip. WTF DUDE!!!!! That's my glider!!!!!!

This incident combined with everything else kind of put me off of flying the South Side on this day. On the bright side no less than three local pilots gave my wing a thorough inspection afterwards further affirming the fact that these Utah people are generous beyond the scope of normalcy. In the end I decided to save my energy for the epic flight I had planned for the evening.

We headed out to Commodore in the afternoon. Commodore is another high mountain site. It's a bit more rugged being out in the desert. It has the feeling of being the kind of place you wouldn't want to have a bad landing out because it could be years before anyone came across your dried, bleached bones.

Commodore Launch As Seen From The LZ

Another thrilling ride up a mountain track brought us to launch. A large rocky meadow looking out over the vast expanse of desert!

The View of the LZ From Launch at Commodore

The scene on launch was not encouraging. The wind was blowing in quite briskly. When I say brisk I'm talking about 31 MPH!!! What's worse it was gusting. Lulls would die down to 0MPH and in an instant you would get slammed in the face with another 30MPH gust. We waited...

... and waited...

... but the wind never slacked off. We had some great conversations and told some stories. Ryan and Shad shared a ton of thermal lore and mountain flying tips and we threw stones at an old tin can.

I should have taken that morning flight at the South Side...

Moonrise over the Oquirrh Mountains