CaucaViejo (Jericó-2)

Feb 8th, 2015

The morning was beginning to take on a rhythm and flow; beginning with yoga, then breakfast, then up the hill. 

Today, we arrived with the cloud base at launch, around 1800m. The house where we are staying is close enough to glide to in air with no sink. It's on the river at 500m, about 7 miles away. 

Once the clouds parted and the sun had a chance to heat the valley below, we launched. Lucho went first, and I was seconds behind, followed by Julie Williams - from Seattle. I chased him on his Enzo with my Delta 2. He promised not to use his bar, so I could actually keep up, but was unable to match his glide. Eventually, we turned away from the ridge and found lift on the flats. We worked our way up to 2000m and with that, Lucho went north and I followed. Julie wasn't thrilled with the lumpy air and headed back to CaucaViejo to land at the soccer field near the house.

Lucho's line didn't seem to be working, so I connected back to the ridge where 10 or 12 of our other pilots were making it work. I connected to a finger a bit low (1300m) and had to work very weak lift to join the gaggle, but eventually did. I saw Ike there. We were mixed up with bunch of French pilots, and figuring out who was who this early in the trip proved a challenge. We spent 30 minutes enjoying sustaining, disorganized lift until we heard Lucho report that the surface winds had turned south in the valley and were 12-14 km/hr and increasing.

I was the first to take a line away from the gaggle to land. Some others who were not with the gaggle had landed already. Pavlo and Julie landed safely in the soccer field near the house we were renting, followed by Linda and then Sofia, who didn't quite make the field, but landed safely. Then I very nearly kicked the top of a tree on the perimeter of the field, but was spared after pushing on half bar in the sink (while out of the harness) and then getting a pop just prior. I landed at mid field, relieved. 

Some landed in farmers' fields. Some landed along the river. Ike was way high out over the river - 2000m. He could have made some distance, but with everyone landing due to increasing winds, he spiraled down to a long, open field along the river where Kari & Kent landed. 

Everyone had very steep glides with the head wind. One of the pilots misjudged the glide and got too far behind the farmer's field he was trying to land in. The area short was a steep ravine. He appeared to cut and run too low to make it to the next suitable field down wind. He may have found some rotor as he descended into the upslope on the other side of the ravine. 

He had multiple fractures, but luckily there was no head or back injury. It took about four hours to extract him and get him to a local ambulance and clinic. From there, he was transported to a hospital in Medellin. He's pretty broken up, but expected to recover. Paul & Sofia went with him and should return the next day. Our stay at CaucaViejo will be extended one day.