Burke Mountain

The only thing that keep me sane this week was the consistently good looking forecast for today. Northwest at 10mph meant a fine weekend day at Mount Ascutney. Amy, back from Scandinavia, wanted to come along, hang around launch, socialize, do some reading, and even pick me up. Yep, things were looking good. However, a quick check of the weather this morning showed that the winds were forecasted to increase throughout the day. The direction was still NW, so Ascutney was still the place to launch and with the increasing wind it might be a day to fly to the ocean.

Greg called just as I was leaving home and said the clouds at his place in New Hampshire were already zooming by from the NE. Uh? NE? Greg was starting a campaign for Burke Mountain. Burke has a north facing launch and is located at a good place to start an epic XC flight to the south along the Connecticut River valley. The problem with Burke is its landing areas, or more precisely, the lack of landing areas. The choices are a down hill sloping field on the the mountain or a soccer field surround by trees on two sides, and a drop-off on the other sides. Burke is also another 2.5 hour drive beyond the 2 hour drive we were already planning to make to Mount Ascutney. However, Ascutney is no fun in a strong NE wind, so it was either towing at Morningside or a day of driving to Burke.

We caught up with Rodger at the Route 5 interchange with interstate 93. Rodger's first words were "I hate this sport!". Once Amy stopped laughing we discussed our options. Rodger was not interested in adding another 2.5 hours to his long drive. We decided to head north on the highway to get a better view of the early clouds from some high terrain. Yep, it was NE alright. Amy and I decided to give Burke a shot. If the day was blown out, at least we could stop and do some hiking at Fraconia Notch on the way home. Rodger was not interested and got off the highway at Springfield VT heading to Morningside. Meanwhile, Dave C, Greg C, Gary, Jeremy, Dave V, Greg H, and Dan were meeting at Greg H's place before heading north. Amy and I arrived at the general store at the base of the mountain just minutes before the rest of the gang arrived.

It was blowing in nicely when we arrived at launch so we all scrambled back up the ski slope to get our gliders. The clouds looked nice as the clouds quickly drifted by, but I didn't notice any birds soaring. About the time I finished rigging the glider, the wind started increasing and crossing from the left of launch. Soon the wind was 90 degrees plus to our launch run. At least the grass and weeds were tall, the wind was gusty, the tree line was close to our left, and the ski lift close to our right. We posed for Julie as she took group picture and then started contemplating our next move. No one wanted to land out front in these conditions. In fact most of the pilots didn't want to launch in these conditions either!

Finally, I spotted a hawk beaming up in front of us. It was climbing too fast for me to even make an educated guess at its rate. Dave C thought maybe 1500 fpm. That was enough be me; time to launch. I suited up, but was trapped behind Greg and Dan. Dan decided to launch first. He waited a long time before launching and still got tossed around and thrown towards a particularly nasty looking tree. I think several pilots decided not to fly at that point. I moved into position right after Dan launched but also had to wait for something reasonable to launch into. I got out of the slot straight and level but hit a wall of rising air as I cleared the trees. I floated up in the strong wind blowing over the mountain while Greg launched. The three of us managed to find a broken climb to cloudbase as we quickly drifted behind the mountain into the great northern forest at 21 mph. I radioed to Dan and Greg that we should leave immediately when the lift drops or we might not back it back out front. About that time Dave V launched and started soaring the mountain far below. The wind was now blowing from the NW, not the NE. Dang, the original forecast was right but just a late. It would be hard flying down the river valley since we would have to cross the cloud streets all the way south. We also couldn't fly downwind since there was nothing but mountains, rocks, and trees in that direction.

We should have flown directly upwind, taken another climb, and then cut across the blue part of the street at a 90 degree angle. However, the cloud immediately upwind of us was dying and the LZs in that direction were ugly anyway. So Dan led the way as we made a long 40 degree cut across the blue part of the street. As you might expect, we didn't find much lift and were soon picking out LZs in the strong wind. Since I did more exploring than the others, I was the lowest when we arrived over a reasonable landing area. It was obviously windy but so far the air had been mellow. However, I could see the grass swirling and trees getting bashed about as I made a quick pass over the field. I am sure I would have seen a dust devil if the ground had been dry. I got tossed this way and that as I tried to keep the glider going where I wanted it to go. I finally got it on the ground but it was too gusty to even move. In the time it takes to slowly count to 5, the wind smoothed out and dropped to a pleasant 10 mph. I guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Dan landed a few minutes later followed by Greg who managed a small climb before coming back to the field.

We moved our gliders over to a church yard and just stood looking at the sky. What a beautiful sky. What kind of a moron lands 6 miles from launch on a day that looks like this? Oh well, we flew and landed safely. Sue and Amy showed up just as we finished packing the gliders. Most of us later stopped at the Lyndon Freighthouse for ice cream. Dave V landed safely in a large field a couple miles from the mountain and everyone else broke down and hiked out. The flying wasn't spectacular, but the scenery and company was great. Oh, Amy and I did get to see waterfalls at the Basin on our evening hike along the Fraconia Notch.