Second Minden Flight of 2009

I paid my second visit of the soaring season to Minden, NV on Friday, June 19, 2009. I flew with Gabe Bourbeau of SoaringNV in the Shempp-Hirth Duo Discus X. Gabe is a retired employee of the state of Missouri were he served as a pilot for the Governor.

Gabe and I had an interesting and unique task. We were to go out and have a cross-country flight to the South which would end with a landing at Barron Hilton's ranch (Barron is the son of hotel magnate Conrad Hilton and the paternal grandfather of Paris Hilton). The reason for this was that the glider we were flying was being rented by the Hilton Ranch for the final Barron Hilton Cup Invitational beginning the next day.

The Barron Hilton Cup Invitational recognizes glider pilots from around the world who have submitted the best glider flights in the previous two years. The winners of the Barron Hilton Cup are afforded an all expense paid week of flying at Barron Hilton's Flying M ranch. There, they have their choice of flying all types of aircraft, from modern state-of-the-art gliders to conventional modern and historic power planes, helicopters, and even balloons. In addition to the winners of the Barron Hilton Cup, in years past the elite of the elite have been invited to participate. Including the likes of astronauts Alan Shepard and Gene Cernan, entertainer John Denver, and avitation great Chuck Yeager. As I mentioned in my first post below, this is also where adventurer Steve Fossett took off from on his ill-fated flight.

We got a bit of a late start, but we worked our way onto the the Pineneut Range and made our way to the South of the Smith Valley. There, we found a booming thermal (for the soaring audience, the averager showed above 11 knots for quite some time and even reached a peak of 11.9 knots!) which enabled us to get onto the Mount Grant range. Here we are looking at the North end of Walker Lake, just North of Hawthorne, NV.

This is the South end of the Walker Lake and the town of Hawthorne. Hawthorne was the largest munitions storage area in the country during World War II.

Since we had the Hilton Ranch easily made, we decided to head to the Southwest towards Mono Lake. We progressed to the dark cloud in the distance and then decided to return to the ranch.

Here is the Hilton Ranch from the vicinity of Mount Grant as we decided to go in and land.

Shortly after we landed and secured the glider, one of the visiting pilots began inspecting and preparing the glider for a late afternoon flight. He was the guest of the Austrian winner of the Hilton Cup.

Here is the Austrian winner preparing to join his guest. The "Hospitality Tent" is behind him. There, the pilots were afforded an unlimited supply of drinks and food from water and soda, to sandwiches, fruit, and pastries.

Next to the Hospitality Tent there are four custom glider hangers. At the end of the hangers you can see the famous antique Flying M fire truck which is used to fill the gliders with water ballast. Unfortunately, I did not notice this until I downloaded the photos several days later. Otherwise, I would have made sure to get some close-up photos of it. Definitely a case of not seeing the trees for the forest! Exactly the opposite of the old saying!

This is looking up to Mount Grant from the Flying M airstrip.

And this is the Hilton Ranch with many motorhomes parked onsite. Unfortunately, this is as close as I got to the ranch.

Here, the Austrian pilots are making their final preparations before taking off in the glider that Gabe and I delivered.

Another Duo Discus arrived at the ranch. This is a Duo Discus XL, the latest version of the Duo Discus.

Much too soon, it was time for us to go. Dennis Ivans, a Hilton Ranch pilot, would be flying us back to Minden in a Cessna 185 Skywagon. Here, we are about to take off.

This is the Pine Grove mountain range. The dirt roads below lead to the ghost town of Pine Grove which was a gold and silver mining town in the mid-to-late 1800's and early 1900's.

This is the East Fork of the Walker River as it exits the Smith Valley and makes its way towards Yerrington and eventually, Walker Lake.

This is the Rosaschi Dusters airstrip in the Smith Valley. It is a good land-out site for glider pilots who find that they don't have enough altitude to get back over the Pinenuts to return to Minden.

I noticed that the Pilot's Operating Handbook for the Cesnna 185 was in the seatback pocket in front of me. Gabe held it for me to take a photo, but the flight was quite turbulent and thus the photo is out of focus.

Here, we are on final appraoach for Runway 30 at Minden.

Short final for RWY 30.

Back home again! This is Gabe exiting the plane.

What a wonderful, once in a lifetime experience this was! A special thank you to Gabe, and SoaringNV for making it possible for me!

First Minden Flight of 2009

I paid my first visit of the soaring season to Minden, NV on Saturday, May 30, 2009. I flew with Devin Bargainnier of SoaringNV in the Shempp-Hirth Duo Discus X. Devin is a 21 year old gliding phenom! He has an incredible wealth of soaring experience and knowledge. Heck, at 21 I hadn't even seen a glider and he already has four times as much glider flying time as I have now (and at least 18 times the knowledge)! He is scheduled to fly in the World competitions to be held in Finland in a few weeks as a member of the U.S. Junior team! Good luck to you Devin!

What a great day it was, and it started early. A low pressure system was bringing moisture up from the South and thunderstorms were forecast for later in the day. We had a great flight, my longest in duration (4.25 hours) and distance (300 statute miles) to date.

Here is the ship as we prepare to tow it to the flight line and you can see that the CUs are already well developed on the Sierras at 11:30 PDT.

We towed to the Kingsbury Grade of the Sierras and climbed to 11,000 MSL after release. Then we headed South to the area of Freel Peak and Job's Peaks where we experienced some near-terrain flying, a.k.a. "rock polishing".

We decided that the route to the South was already overdeveloping and chose to head North instead. Here, we are passing the Freel Peak (left wingtip) to Job's Sister saddle.

This is the South end of Lake Tahoe.

This tiny Alpine lake is named Star Lake and is about 5 miles South of the Heavenly Valley ski resort. It is only accessible by hiking in.

Here we are approaching the North end of Lake Tahoe. The lighting conditions made the deep blue hues of the lake really prominent.

The thunderstorm in the distance had already developed the classic anvil head and was dumping rain. Devin asked me how high I thought the top of the cloud went. My guess was 30,000 MSL. His guess was 40,000 MSL. He was probably right. Who am I to second guess a 21 year old with tons more experience than I?

This is the North shore of Lake Tahoe and again the deep blue is breathtaking!

We continued North to the West of Reno (the farthest North I had been). You can even see the Reno-Tahoe International airport.

We went a little farther North and then turned around and returned to Mt Rose. From there we crossed over Washoe Lake and onto the Virginia mountain range North of Carson City.

After that, we tip-toed our way onto the Pinenut range and headed South to the South end of the Carson Valley and departed to the Antelope Valley. Conditions were rapidly over developing to the West. Devin noted the interesting cloud on the mountain top that was below the cloud line. The whole scene appeared as though it was underwater (which it kind of was!).

This is the same shot taken a few seconds later. The lighting conditions had changed and made for a different perspective. I couldn't decide which I liked better, so I posted them both.

Mt. Patterson was already obscured by rain, so we decided to go East to Mt. Grant instead. Looking East you can see that once past the gray cloud we were under, it had not yet overdeveloped.

This is looking to the South end of the Antelope Valley. You can see the Walker River entering the valley and meandering along the base of the Sierras to the West. The small towns of Coleville and Walker are also visible.

As we progressed to Mt Grant, we went past Barron Hilton's ranch and airfield. It is where Steve Fossett departed from on his ill-fated flight.

After turning Mt. Grant, we headed back to Minden. By now there were thunderstorms and lightning along the entire length of the Pinenuts. So we entered the Carson the Valley on the West. This is Heenan Lake. It is a brood stock lake for the endangered Lahontan Cutthroat trout. It is only open to fishing four or five weekends a year beginning in September. And even then, it is a catch and release lake only.

We passed through some pretty heavy rain as we entered the Carson Valley. Here we are entering the valley at about 7,700 MSL and the airport is still seven miles to the North. It is the lowest I had ever been over this area.

This is the Carson river as it enters the valley. The rain can be seen over the Pinenuts to the East.

We were considering our landing options when we found the last thermal we needed to get back. When we arrived back at the Minden-Tahoe airport, the winds were 270 at 20 knots gusting to 26! It made for an "interesting" landing.

All in all, this was a fantastic experience and I look forward to flying with Devin again this season!