Chelan US Open of Paragliding with Lindsay, Grace and CLee

Lindsay and Chris in goal three out of four tasks at the 2018 Chelan US Open of Paragliding.

Initial pilot's meeting.  130 pilots registered.

The queue to launch

Lindsay after Task 2: Thanks for watching from afar and the good vibes. Do you click the Xc demon link you can see a doarama of all pilots. Yesterday i flew a deep mountain line and you can see on the log it went farther to the West than all the fast guys who flew straight down course line - prob cost me 30 min, which would have had me at first girl in goal if I’d flown straight. It’s fun to see how different people flew the same route. Check Lester’s track too - he flew way out to the east and still made goal a bit after me on a b wing.
One of he big decisions yesterday early in the task was when to cross the river - early from high terrain and ride the flats up, or later from low terrain (harder to get high). After that you for high again, crossed again, and then had to decide which route to take up to goal. Prentice took deeper terrain after crossing and boomed out - I went with a group farther to the east over some shallow terrain and got stuck - had to scrape treetops for 20 -30 min until a few of us got lucky. I was ahead of Prentice by a good margin until then. After that you can see the decision I mentioned above - and the fastest pilots flew straight there. I went left mostly to follow other markers - I keep getting caught between groups. And we hit this mini- convergence - picked a thermal up from an obvious west facing slope that was baking and took it to convergence zone - flew straight for a long time in 500fpm up without turning. Then turned east to take a cloud to 12k (only cloud of the day) in 1000 Fpm lift and had a 25 k glide to goal with no turning. Will send my track in a minute.

Lindsay after Task 3 - Tough day! Super fun across the first part of the flats- several climbs to 1200fpm meant we could fly fast - full bar most of transitions just to keep up. Then the headwind over irrigated fields was a death blow. Paraglider graveyard. Some wondered if we had followed the high terrain north of the fields off course Line - maybe it would have wrapped around tongoal. Also had some SIV ​

Top women: 1st - Patricia Garcia De Letona, 2nd - Bianca Heinrich, 3rd - Lindsay Matush

Open class winners: 1st - Donizete Lemos, 2nd - Nick Greece, 3rd - Brad Gunnuscio

​Doarama from Task 1

Doarama from Task 2

Doarama from Task 3

Doarama from Task 4