Strawberry 3/10 & 3/11

[Dave Birkbeck]

3/10: Even though Tremper mentioned the word "doldrums" in the morning avy forcast I decided to head out to Strawberry at around 3:00pm for a possible evening session. The Daniels sensor was reading NW 9-12 for a good part of the day so I figured that I would at least get a little ride. When I arrived it was blowin a whooping 3-6...bummer.

I hung out for a while and it's a good thing that I did, the wind decided to switch to the East ahead of a storm moving in from the Uintah Basin. I rode powered up for two hours until darkness set in. The wind was 14-18 from the East.


3/11: Well...I might as well roll the dice again and go back to Strawberry even though the Daniels sensor is only showing SSE 10ish. I got to CC East and it was blowin 12-17 from the East. A few kites were already in the air, Mike, Jenny and two unknown. Howie launched a little later for his first day on snow.

The snow was a soft 2-6" on most of the Easterly facing slopes. The flats away from the pullout were actually the best. N-SW facing slopes and ridge tops were scoured from all of our recent wind. I was able to go downwind from CCE to the Strawberry Bay turnoff...up the hills on the West side of the river...halfway to the marina and back to CCE in a matter of minutes. I love Strawberry...!

I finished the day with a trip way up Co-op Creek. More of the same snow and a nice way to end the day.

Birkbeck

[whit]

Dave,

Sounds like a couple of good days on our huge snowkiting playground. The terrain there is so vast. Glad you found some soft snow.

I had obligations, so only got a short session in at the UDOT field by Home Depot. About 7 cars and 7 kites there with people learning and riding. Spenser, Steve, and various others. I got there at 3PM, it was blowing 7 to 11 from the south, flew the 14M foil. Rode till 4:45 when it basically died. Whit