McKenzie Mountain Magic!

Well, my overall 'blog title is Matt's Basic Life and Occasional Adventure - so Cody & I decided that Saturday was a good day for an Adventure - with a Capital "A"!

Cody has been eyeing Mckenzie Mountain from his backyard for many years, and today we finally hatched a plan to make it happen. So we loaded up gliders, gear, and two four-wheelers and made the short drive to the small LZ. Along the way we stopped and talked to a couple of landowner farming friends of Cody, to make sure it was OK. One of them said, "...yer welcome to it, but I doubt you can make it up that road!" The other one said, "...that's fine, but why would you want to jump off a perfectly good mountain? Yer just *#%&*'n crazy, that's all!" So, with their "blessing," we loaded both gliders and gear onto one of the 4-wheelers on a well padded high-tech 2x4 rack, and started up a narrow canyon leading to the top.

The "road" was actually more of a "route" or jeep trail, which was quite overgrown with scrub oak. Cody seemed to know the way, so I just held on to gliders and gear and mostly ducked behind him to avoid the constant branch whip-lashing.

Our rack set-up actually did quite well, and within 10 or 15 minutes we were through the brush and up on the dugway switchbacks.

At the top of the draw we could see all the way down to the LZ at our starting point below. We made it to the top in about 20 minutes from the LZ 1,300' below, and soon identified a nice, wide-open launch for the light NW breeze. On launch it was near 80 degrees, sunny, with light cycles building up to 8 or 10 mph.

We set up and were ready to launch before 5 pm.

Cody had the "honors," as the pioneer of this launch. He waited 3-4 minutes for a good cycle, and then executed a healthy light-wind launch! He immediately hooked a nice thermal, and soon was climbing above launch. I hooked in, hang checked, and walked out to launch. I ended up having to wait about 15 minutes for the next decent cycle. I made sure to earn my launch, having to run a few more steps than usual due to the light conditions. The cycle I launched into didn't materialize, and soon I was contemplating a sled ride. I hung tight to the main spine leading to the summit, and soon found a nice elevator tracking right up the ridgeline! I spent a half hour scratching close and working some very mild, soft-edged thermals, eventually getting 200' over the top.

The view was spectacular, with the backdrop of snow-capped mountains, and green fields blanketing the valley below. I finally allowed some distance from the mountain to take a few pictures. This caused me to lose focus on the lift, and eventually have to go out and land. The RLF (restricted landing field) is quite tight, but does not produce much of a pucker factor because the consequence of overshooting it is just an increasingly uphill landing. Both Cody and I had great landings, providing cheap entertainment for the farmer spectators taking a break from their spring planting to watch.

We broke down our gliders, and then used the other 4-wheeler to quickly cruise back up to the top to retrieve the other one.

Although the flight was most enjoyable, the "bomb" down the overgrown road was a kick too! We made it back well before dark, and committed to return another day with some pruning shears and work our way up. We will look for a southerly, XC kind of day, as this site has the potential for some serious miles! Thanks for the awesome adventure, Cody!

Airtime: 31 Minutes!