Adventures at the Camas

Well, It's been a while...I'd bet that's the most common beginning to blogs. Well, nothing like being mediocre, oh well. Anyway, since the last post Josh and I have been out snowkiting a couple more times. Each time was different, but in some way rewarding. We made it out one saturday with Josh's family. That was the only way Hilary would let him go. Michelle tagged along too so she could help with the kids. Naturally, there was no wind.
(This is seriously one of the only pictures of me and my kite)

We did show up earlier than the wind normally does, so the wind was not to blame. We found a decent hill for the kids to sled on and they had a good time.

Meanwhile, the wind was slowly starting to build. I went and drove around a little to see if anyone else had made it out and was kiting. I saw a couple guys up in the hills, but that didn't look to friendly. We ended up catching a decent amount of wind near the Pine turnoff. Josh was on his new Flysurfer, so he was cruising around just fine. I was underpowered, but still managing to get out a little ways and make it back without losing any ground. It was okay, but not really. Just enough to be frustrating.

Two weeks later on the 18th and 19th of February, Josh and I headed back up to the Camas for Snowkite Soldier. The wind forecast was a little light, but we didn't mind. We went up planning on camping in the snow to save a trip back to Boise. We met up with a couple local guys that had a trailer and a motorhome. They also had some firewood. That was the nice part. If we hadn't have started a fire we would have gone to bed at around 7:00 p.m. As it turned out we sat around the fire and talked for a couple hours and then hit the hay. Josh and I both slept in our tents and were warm thanks to the clouds that had rolled in.
During the night it snowed a little bit. It was completely calm all night though.
The sunrise was kinda cool looking.

Once we made it up, tons of people started showing up for the event. Murphy's law of course mandated that it would be windless. It was. We met some guys from Flysurfer that helped Josh get a little better acquainted with his kite and how to tune it. They were some funny Canadians that kept say "eh". Classic.

Well, that brings me to today. The forecast and wind sensor for today indicated 20+ mph and gusty to possibly 45 mph. We were a little spooked and nervous about going out, but fortunately forecasts and sensors don't always tell the whole story. We hit up the snowmobile park and the wind was a steady 16-18 mph. Perfect. We set up and off we went. The snow was firm because it's been in the forties recently. Fortunately it had snowed overnight. The wind had kinda whipped it around so there was probably 1"-2" of soft stuff on top. It was again...perfect. We cruised upwind super easy and Josh finally got a day good enough to start jumping in. The main reason he decided to get into kite sports was for the hang time, so he was super pumped to be able to get in the air. I didn't see all his jumps, but the ones I saw were pretty decent for being his first real chance to do it. I'm not so brave, but was able to jump a couple times. It's violently awesome. To jump you basically have to turn the kite a different direction than you're moving and then pull the bar in. It totally yanks you off the ground. Freaky at first, but if you've got the moves (I don't) you can get pretty high up. There was a guy there boosting 15' in the air and just floating. It was cool.

About a half hour before we packed up, the wind kicked up another couple mph to around 20+. I was tired and was doing okay staying upwind and cruising around, but it was more work than I had the energy for. I kited for another 15 or 20 minutes before I decided to go chill by where we had launched. Josh kept going for about 15 minutes, but eventually came in and we helped land each others kites. On the way to the car the wind picked up even more. Three local guys happened to be heading back from a kite trip to Utah and decided to stop on the way home and see what the wind was doing. They showed up just as we got to Josh's car.

All in all, we both had an awesome time. Easily the best time ever. Hopefully the snow stays around long enough for us to get another session in. I'm ready for it...well, not today...I'm to tired.