Strawberry Insanity 30 Mar 09 14m Mayhem
Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 9:46 pmPulled in at Strawberry river late today, and many others soon showed up. Jason's wind meter read 13-18 in the lot behind the snowbanks. He convinced me to fly my 14m Mayhem. I'm glad I did because I learned a ton, and I'm unharmed, but holy crap did I have to work to keep things under control a few times! Gusts of 25 to 30 mph were common at the UDOT wind meter, and I really couldn't say how hard it was blowing on the upper ridges, but needless to say my eyes were WIDE open a few times.
I started out at the long cornice past the second ridge. Floating into it a couple of times, and getting picked up by gusts while I was up there once or twice. Jason showed up and we started to rotate jumps from underneath the cornice. I learned quite a bit just watching him. He bolted to get his 15m kite and I went to the upper ridges. I saw someone with a 13m best kite on a snowboard in a green jacket (she?) was friggin ripping it up. Nice air, cool tricks. Most impressive were the glides on the steeper hills. I tried to stay out of the way while experimenting with moving the kite around more to produce loft instead of just a raw glide dominated by air speed in one direction. Got fully backwards once and crashed not too badly. Got sideways a few times and crashed and released from a ski.
Went back to the cornice and rallied with Jason taking turns launching and then going up hill in a "dead zone" with decent speed. Once the wind slowed down Jason saw it coming and we bailed right at Sunset.
Major excitement while launching off of the cornice was produced when my spreader bar came unhooked on the left side - while I was airborne. I landed ok but was hauling ass headed for very firm crusty snow. I figured that it was only going to get worse, so I held a chicken loop and realeased. It probably took 15 minutes to get everything back together again, but it was well worth the trouble.
Surface was windblown snow with pockets of nicely loaded snow. Less nasty than a few days ago, downright fun in most places!
I started out at the long cornice past the second ridge. Floating into it a couple of times, and getting picked up by gusts while I was up there once or twice. Jason showed up and we started to rotate jumps from underneath the cornice. I learned quite a bit just watching him. He bolted to get his 15m kite and I went to the upper ridges. I saw someone with a 13m best kite on a snowboard in a green jacket (she?) was friggin ripping it up. Nice air, cool tricks. Most impressive were the glides on the steeper hills. I tried to stay out of the way while experimenting with moving the kite around more to produce loft instead of just a raw glide dominated by air speed in one direction. Got fully backwards once and crashed not too badly. Got sideways a few times and crashed and released from a ski.
Went back to the cornice and rallied with Jason taking turns launching and then going up hill in a "dead zone" with decent speed. Once the wind slowed down Jason saw it coming and we bailed right at Sunset.
Major excitement while launching off of the cornice was produced when my spreader bar came unhooked on the left side - while I was airborne. I landed ok but was hauling ass headed for very firm crusty snow. I figured that it was only going to get worse, so I held a chicken loop and realeased. It probably took 15 minutes to get everything back together again, but it was well worth the trouble.
Surface was windblown snow with pockets of nicely loaded snow. Less nasty than a few days ago, downright fun in most places!
