Day 3 of our trip had auspicious beginnings. After a late start from Hood River (breakfast at Bette’s, parts at Hood River Hobbies and gassing up), it was noon before we hit the first slope. We had decided on Bald Butte, which turned out to be a poor choice. Andrew and Ben’s Durango was not 4WD or AWD. They tried but could not get more than 1/3 of the way up. Then to make matters worse the rain arrived with a vengeance. We aborted to our second slope choice, Diamond Ridge. The hope was, that it was across the river and out of the rain area. Plus, we hadn’t been to it since 2008.
After about a 40 min drive we finally reached Diamond Ridge. We had a few minutes of good flying before the rain reached us. Within a ˝ hour the sky cleared and we proceeded to fly our brains out. The wind was a solid 20 mph with gusts over 30. The land area was small and the LZ had a good splattering of rocks. I think everyone put a “ding” in their foamies. I know that Ben stuck his plane in a tree. Amadeo and I both clobbered tress on our landings (the planes survived, not so sure about the trees). Surprisingly, we all left with smiles on our wind burned faces at about 5:30 pm. And then headed to our favorite Thai place in Hood River.
Mike
PS thinking about Klickitat and GrayBack for tomorrow (Tuesday).

No space for landings

Plenty of room for crashes!��

Plenty of glider killing trees.

DJ

Looked like there was SOME space for landing.

Great pics..............beautiful! Looks like you guys had a great time on your trip.

Also, looks like some of you had the same plane, but w/ different schemes.

If you would mind, could you pls list the plane's schemes and their info, or at least their name?

Thank you in advance.

Mike Williams (0 min 53 sec)

NICE bump to the left !