Sunday was our last full day in the NorthWest. Basically it was a travel day from Joseph, OR to Hood River, OR. We did get in early enough to stop across the river in Klickitat for some final flights before packing. After a couple hours of flying we headed into Hood River and started our packing.

Mike

Final pics from Saturday.

Mike

Additional goodies.

More pics from Saturday.

On Saturday we attended the funfly/aero-tow at the Joseph golf course. We stayed around and watched until about 2pm, then Ben and I headed back up toward Memaloose for some slopeing (Larry and Dan elected to relax underneath some trees and watch the aero-tow). We had found a spot the day before, that was ~6.5miles out of Imnaha on the way to Memaloose/Hatpoint and flew there until almost 5pm. I unfortunately forgot my transmitters so I had to share Ben's Gulp. Ben and I came back and met up with Dan and Larry for supper. Then Ben, Dan and I headed to Lake Wallowa campgrounds for a cookout with all the other flyers (Larry wasn't feeling well). We ended the evening by watching some RC waterplane flying on Lake Wallowa as the sun set.

Mike

More Friday pics.

Friday, we made the long trek up to Memaloose. The air was not good. It was actually coming from the backside of the slope. We had to fly electric and about 4:30pm we decided to give up and head back to Joseph. We stopped at Granny View (about 4 miles down from Memaloose) and found it was quite flyable. So Dan and Ben flew over the abyss for a quick fix. I decided to look down on the slope where Mark lost his XR wing 6 years ago. And darned if i didn't find it. We're bringing it back for Mark to bronze....LOL.
We continued on down for about another 10 miles and found another slope with the alpine lift roaring through. We joined about 4 other flyers and were "rippin" for quite a bit of time. Finally we crawled back into Joseph about 9:00pm and headed to Embers for dinner.
Mike

Thursday was a day for Mt Howard. We did a little exploring around Joseph (airport, golf range and Wallowa lake). Spent all afternoon on top of Mt. Howard. Great views, had a nice lunch and some great photo ops with the chipmunks and squirrels. Ben had a chance to fly his Art Hobby Universal on the south side of the Mountain. There was decent slope lift (for once) and he only had to use the motor to land on the backside of the slope.

Mike

Wednesday was a travel day from Hood River to Joseph, OR. No flying and not much else.

Mike

More pics.

Tuesday could be summed up in one word....dead. There was no wind. We headed up to Lumber in hopes of getting at least some thermal or alpine lift. Amazingly, we talked Dan and Larry into the ½ mile walk up the back side of the slope. We soon found the little bit of wind was coming on the back side of lumber (~3mph). So for he rest of the day we flew electrics from our camp chairs. The only highlights were an Navy EA-6 flying up the valley and a full size glider working the ridge line.
In the afternoon we headed down to Hood River airport to visit the antique airplane and car museum.
By then, Larry and Dan were “plum tuckered out”. While they went back to the motel, we headed down to Rowena to check out the East wind there. The wind began to pick up up at Rowena, but the wind reversed to the West(??!!) and it was time to meet for dinner.
We met up with Dan and Larry at Dixie's in upper Hood River for dinner. Mike (GorgeFlyer) also met us and we had a great dinner with a few local beers to close out the day.

Mike

More goodies.

n Monday we decided to go for a change. With the winds still clocking at 30mph+ we went for a day of site seeing. We headed for McMinnville to check out the aviation museum and the Spruce Goose.
Along the way we stopped at Multnomah falls for some pics. By the time we reached McMinnville it was 1:30pm. After a whirlwind tour we packed up and headed toward Portland. In Portland we made a quick stop at the Brooklyn Locomotive shops (me being a closet rail buff). Took some pictures of the steam and diesel engines and then a few wrong turns in downtown Portland trying to get back on the interstate (I-5). After getting out of Portland rush hour traffic we headed to Mt St Helens in Washington. Unfortunately we missed some turns and ended up reaching a viewpoint for Mt St Helens at Sunset. Fantastic views. We finally we trundled through darkness for over an hour on curvy roads to reach Hood River for the night.

Mike

More picks from Sunday.

Sunday we decided to go to the Washington side of the Columbia Gorge. First stop was Klickitat. Winds were at 30-35MPH. It was almost too windy to have fun. The trees were roaring with the sound of wind.Ben flew his Gulp, Dan flew his Half-Pipe. Larry and I watched and took pictures. We stopped in Klickitat and found our favorite restuarant shut down (Huntington's).
At this point we decided to head up to Greyback Mtn, hoping the wind would be more to our liking (~15-20mph). With no maps or directions it took some time but we finally found it. Unfortunatley it was just as windy or worse. Only I flew my Gulp here, because no one would step within 50' of the cliff. Best (!!!) part was we had to stop to traverse a creek with the truck and Ben noticed something moving in in the weeds by the truck. It was a small rattler, first one I'd seen out in the NW.
We traveled back down to the Columbia, stopped at Klickitat falls to watch the Indians fish (the weren't). Headed East on the Washington side to the Stonehenge replica and crossed above the Dalles. We ended the day with dinner at Shari's.
Mike

Some more pics from our first two days.

Well time has come for our annual slope Safari to Oregon. This year it was Ben Carroll, Larry Squires, Dan Johns and I.
We've flown into Portland into rainy skies. But not to fret, by the time we reached our "slope headquarters" of Hood River the skies had cleared and the wind was up.
Saturday we drove up to Bald Butte. Spent all day at "Bald", winds 10-18mph and lift was "gynormus"! We were pulling huge half pipes and specking out with screaming speed runs. Ben and I really wringed out our Gulps while Dan and Larry played with their Half-pipes and 36" JWs.
We finally capped our day by an all you can eat dinner at the Mongolian Grill.

Flyin' and grinnin'
Mike

Dan sent me some of his pics from Saturday. Thanks Dan.

Enjoy folks.

More pics from last Saturday.

Saturday was a clear day, no rain, the wind was on the South side, lots of thermal lift. Hardly any wind, so slopeing was poor. Larry and were both tweaking out our Evo Weasel's when the wind did come out.

Mike