3-21, Hyndman Basin ID, 12m

[matt dadam]

I got to kite a really spectacular area last weekend that I thought I'd share. It is in the Pioneer mountains of Idaho near Ketchum and at about 10,500 ft. We were there on a multiday skiing/speedflying trip but local Karel and I were smart enough to have brought our kites... good thing.

Pretty much a big awesome peak on both sides of the site that you can climb on.

The landscape shot is of Hyndman basin from a distance looking east. The area we kited is the big moraine/bowl on the horizon right of the pyramid shaped Hyndman Peak. Old Hyndman is right of the kite area just barely visible. We kited pretty much the whole open area top to bottom and it's BIG.

The wind was solid 12m from the SW and the snow ranged from supportable crust on the flanks of the mountains to good powder in the leeward of all the little ridges.

All the sled tracks you see are our own as we had about 5 sleds shuttling skiers up to the moraine in the days prior. The picture makes it look like there are more tracks than there really were. I think we saw one group of two sleds that were not with us over the long weekend. But they were riding in other areas.

They say this was a very lean snow year for this area but there was plenty there for kiting and coverage wasn't an issue. Karel figures we were the first to kite this area as it's difficult to access without a snowmobile. I will definitely go back someday to kite there again.

[Marty Lowe]

I wanna go.....

[David Kyle]

Looks like one radical glide.