Talked to Mike, owner of the land at the bottom on the hill. He said I could land on his property.
The pipeline is not an easy place to fly. One needs to be good at ground handling or at least good at untangling your wing. On the ground at the top, there are many things to get the wing caught on. It is a narrow runway with trees upwind that do not provide a very laminar flow, causing ground handling to be a challenge.
It was very cold, and ice started to form on my eyelashes. Winds were 8-10 and not strong enough to clear the treetops. I received one gust on the first flight and thought I might get up and away but quickly lowered back down after the gust. Upon landing I quickly lowered the wing into a low spot and out of eye shot of Mike’s horses (per David M’s insight that they do not like flapping wings). They were watching me and were not spooked but definitely wondered WTF was going on.
On the climb back up the hill, it helped to be 6’5” as I could step over the barbed wire fence.
The second flight was about 30 yds longer than the first. This put the wing tip in line with a branch that reached out from the left tree line. On the approach it looked like I may land while straddling an electric fence that runs parallel to the flight path. There is room on the right side of the fence but that is up hill and closer to the horses. If I land there, where do I put the wing down? Where the horses could see or lay the lines over the electric fence? Does paracord conduct electricity? I doubt it, but I stayed to the left side and took my chances with electrifying my nuts over scaring Mike’s horses. In the end, I watched my wing tip clear the branch and landed 5 feet from the fence, again dropping the wing in the low spot.
There is something special about landing in fresh snow and having only one-way tracks leading away from the area. After kiting and a couple climbs up the hill, I was completely sweated up. I was hoping there would be a better LZ to the south, but this was actually a low spot that would probably have a lot of rotor. I’m not sure if I will return.
