Antoine: Pictures and videos from this weekend in Hat Creek...

This weekend was just great. I managed to escape from the office early with the promise that there would be WLAN in the campgound. That was a hard bet, considering that there is no cellular network coverage in that area. I wrap up my stuff, rush home where I pack in 2" before Craig arrives to pick me up. I don't recall I left a place so fast :-)

Normally, in order to catch the glass off in Hat Creek, one need to leave SF at 12h30 latest. We left at 2.30pm. But call it luck (light traffic) and also not pit-stop, we arrived on site at 7.30pm. Just in time to capture that video of a BAPA member taking off...

This is Hat Creek ! We got a good 30 minutes flight in the evening warm air until the sun goes down. The weekend starts well.

Saturday was another story. Even though the weather forecast had predicted good air, what we saw was a strong south west wind carrying T-Storm after T-Storm. It was OK for Craig and me in the campground, but ask Monica, Richard and Erik who went to climb the Mount Shasta that morning (more than 4000m) and slept outside without a tent ! They did the summit in a strong wind and joined us for the dinner at the camp. That was a super evening.

You can see, Starting from the left: Erik, Monica, Richard, nice stranger and Craig at Potatoe Hill where we drove to this morning for a great thermal flight. Big blue thermals that took Craig and me way above the launch. Erik was less lucky, but hada great time.

Way better time than this dude from another group of pilot that probably got surprised by the thermal activity.

I promised to post those pictures so that the pilot could get a souvenir. As we say, you can only be considered as a true pilot if ou have landed in a tree. With this cateegory of tree we have a future champion :-) I am still a beginner, I only managed to go through a tree few years ago.