Lakeview, Oregon

We just got back from a trip to Southeastern Oregon near Lakeview where we spent 3 days flying a few different sites in the area. (all pictures courtesy of Gary since my camera broke). We camped just below a site called Black Cap overlooking the town of Lakeview. One afternoon we launched and landed right at our campsite (you can see my glider on the ground near the tents).

Above and below is approach to the landing zone at Sugarhill looking out toward Goose Lake. The landing areas out there are everywhere and the winds in the LZ were smooth coming off the lake. We had great flights here with a couple in our group getting a few thousand over launch and staying up around 2 hours.

Here I'm flaring on final approach.

After flying Sugar a few times our local guide, Ralph, took us to Palisades (a lesser flown site North of Lakeview) The site was full of cliffs with excellent ridge lift but it was blowing pretty strong and had a long glide out to the LZ. It was about 4,000' over the valley and required a 4 mile glide into the wind to the landing. The clouds above show that there are high winds above us. (surveying the site and checking windspeed)

I got to be the wind dummy at this site because my glider had a slightly better glide ratio. The launch was fairly turbulent and I wouldn't have been able to approach the launch and balance for launch without wire support.

Getting off the hill... The lift was strong and I was immediately going up at 1,000' per minute until I got up to around 2,000' over launch.

This photo looks North up the Valley. After working the ridge back and forth awhile I took off from the mountain and landed at the very end of the valley in a fallow field next to the road. I used streamers for the first time on this flight to judge wind direction (dropped from around 1,000').

Below, "specking out" heading across the valley. The view was incredible... I've got to get a new onboard camera going before my next trip.

Special thanks to Harold Johnson for taking us from students to pilots and showing us this amazing place!