1/13 Strawbs River

[Jon Manwaring]

Another windy, powder day at Strabs. Arrived around 1 to find Billy, Jason K and Mike M all out on their BEST 10,11's, I thought the wind was picking up 15-20+ so I put up 8M Access, almost just right, rode for an hour or so watching the boys put on a show, spins and glides off the hill up the valley to the north. Sleders were AMAZED by the flying. Billy is a flyer and Mike gets most improved kiter award, nice spins and loops. Wind lightened up and we all came in and rigged bigger, I went to 10 Manta II, boys were out on 11, 15, 16's. Still going strong when I left. Great afternoon.
JonMzee

[Jason Klein]

My first trip to Strawberry. WOW! great location. a huge, wide open area with rolling hills and a few steep ones. you can kite for a long way and i'm sure i didn't see most of it. I'd say well worth a trip from the wasatch front.

I arrived around 1:00 to 15-18mph winds and rigged an 11 waroo. I was really surpised as none of the sensors had been showing anything all morning. I was really only planning to check out the area for future riding. riding was nice for 20 mins or so, but then winds lightened up a bit. after about an hour, we took a break and i rigged a 15 waroo. perfect kite for the afternoon. had another 1.5 hours of really nice kiting.

snow conditions were great. slightly wind-blown pow. best snow kite session of my short snow-kite career.

[btjsfca]

Garsh dang it!! I looked at the forecast, and I'm like, well it's the right direction for strawbs ... I should go ... no the wind's too weak.

Screwed again. Can I somehow get on the hotline so that I know when I should get off my lazy ass and go kiting?

Man! Another weekend shot to hell. Bunch of BS. Man.

-J

[bordy]

Great time at Strawbs! While Jake was off shotting TV I held the Fort down for the Best demo. Great to see the local riders Killing It! Evey one was really pushing there own limits it was SICK!!!!

[windzup]

Interesting... So the recap shows that Strawbs was the call on Sunday.

Marty reports light wind up north on his sledding foray at Monte. Skyline was in the soup, white out combined with light wind equals a bunk Sunday.

Might have been good farther south, but didn't check.

Very cool to hear that it happened at Strawbs on Sunday, helps us all realize a bit more about forecasting for Utah Snowkiting.

Saturday looked light everywhere, but actually was great at Skyline as it was not in the clouds/snowstorm.

Windzup and blue skies today (Monday).

[MikE mAy]

sunday was sick! glad i could get out for a sunny day out in the wind. seems most every other day i've been out has been very white and grey. jason was killing it. it was great to see jon out there on his "throw and go." bill had some awesome glides off the side hill in the notch on his 11m. it was a gutsy move to glide in the conditions we were riding in, but he made it look good. the snow was the best i've skied all season. about 8 inches of fluff on top of packed powder. made those botched landings all that softer. after a short break we rigged 16's and 15's and rode for a bit longer. the 16 still spooks me on snow. for some reason i just don't feel confidant that i can pull safety mechanisms with my gloves on, even though i have had to in the past and did so with no problem. once you get those spiders in your brain i guess it's hard to get them out.

all those drives halfway to a kiting spot only to turn around beucase of weather or no-wind reports paid off and finally had a great day on snow. sometimes you gotta have faith...

any words of wisdom on the subject of wind faith, Bishop?