Wind Junkies in the Gorge, June/July 2008
by Spennie
Maybe I should call this the "Wind Avoidance Tour", since that's what we seemed to be doing. Debi & I took a 2-week trip this year, in order to go to the Delta & the Gorge, since we had never visited the Gorge before. We timed it so we could help out in the Sailworks booth at Windfest June 28-29th, which is where gear companies show up to do demos & clinics, etc. for a weekend at the Event Site in Hood River.
We started out by towing our 24-foot travel trailer to Rio Viento Resort in the Delta on Friday June 21st, where we had pretty decent wind for a few days. Unfortunately, as soon as we arrived the smoke did, too, threatening to force us to move. It never got too thick, though, so we stayed as long as we had planned, which was through Tuesday, leaving Wednesday morning in the van in order to stop at our friend's new house in Bend, OR, and spend one night on our way up to the Gorge. We had to drive through smoke much of the way, and it never let up until we got all the way up to Lake Shasta, but then was clear & beautiful the rest of the way.
We had a nice visit with our friends, then left Bend Thursday morning and headed up to The Dalles, where we had made reservations at the Super 8 motel. Don't laugh, it was very clean & quiet, although farther from Hood River than I had anticipated & would have liked. The Dalles is also, well, it's The Dalles (as Bruce Peterson had warned me), but it wasn't dangerous or anything, just kinda funky. We checked in, then went straight to the Sailworks loft in Hood River to say hi to everyone, pass out some new tee-shirts & see what the plan was for sailing that day, and to see about Windfest.
So I finally met Bruce Peterson & Dale Cook, as well as Tracy (receptionist) and Jim, back in the loft. Everyone was very nice, and pretended to be happy to meet us. ;-) The loft was interesting - they have something like 600 square feet of TABLE there, with sails, tools & materials filling every square inch of space. Bruce & Dale said they would be sailing at the Event Site later, around 3:30, so off we went to look around.
Debi & I got to the Event Site early, around 2:30 or so, and the wind was pretty light, so I rigged my 7.2 NX race sail and went out on my Exocet Cross 94. Casey Hauser joined me, and we went ripping around for a while, until a big gust lifted me clear out of the water and I decided it was time to down-rig or pack up. I got back to the beach to find Bruce & Dale rigging on the grass there, so I set down my 7.2 and went over to Dale and said "Hey man, whatcha riggin'?" "6.2" he replies. "Pussy!" I said to the gnarliest windsurfer in the world -- Luckily for me, he got the joke, and laughed, whew! The wind had let up a bit, so I went back out and sailed around, then Debi & I left and went back to The Dalles to get some much needed sleep.
The next day dawned hot & windless. Temperatures soared to over 100 degrees, no wind anywhere, so we just drove around and checked out the different launches in the comfort of our air-conditioned van, at 13 mpg and $4.50/gallon. We stopped back at the Sailworks loft to see what time Bruce wanted us to be at Windfest the next day (Saturday), but he said "No wind, don't bother".
In the morning Dan Cole called us from Home Valley, near Stevenson, WA and said it was 6.0 out of the EAST (backwards) and that we should haul ass out there, about a 30 minute drive. We did, and Dan and I sailed for about 45 minutes or so, pretty fun! Debi had decided to sit this session out and take pictures. Nothing to do after that -- Oh, sure, everyone says there's tons of stuff to do in the Gorge, but when it's 103 and calm I'm not going mountain biking or hiking! I guess we could have gone up to Mount Hood for some cooler temps, but we didn't think of it and no one told us, oh well. Debi did some laundry at the hotel, and we just chilled out there.
Sunday we decided that we had to do some time at Windfest, so we arrived about 11-ish and wandered around looking at all the stuff. I finally got to meet Josh Sampiero, editor of Wind Surfing magazine, after years of e-mailing back & forth. Josh is really cool, and pretty good with the tricks in light wind on a Kona! Probably a good high-wind sailor as well, although we didn't actually get to sail together this trip. Towards the end of the day the wind finally came back, and Debi & I got to demo some new Exocets, until the clouds built in and the lightning started striking the hills all around us! Almost everyone came in then, except some fools who didn't realize that carbon fiber is an excellent conductor. The joke was on them, though, as the wind shut OFF, and about 8 people had to swim their gear back to shore.
The Exocets we demoed were so good we went into town the next day and bought two, an X-Wave 73 for Debi and a Cross 84 for both of us. Of course, now we're driving around with NINE boards in the van! (You may recall that when I got back home I sold 3 of them, and may have sold a fourth one, too)
Monday started looking normal for wind, so we thought we'd go to the world famous Hatchery and check out the scene there. And what a scene it was! "The Hatch" is actually the Spring Creek Fish Hatchery, on the Washington side just west of Hood River.
It has a large parking lot, so it's super popular with the locals. Visitors like us go there due to it's reputation as THE hot spot, and pros go there to show off -- Bruce Peterson calls it "Dig Me Beach", and he won't sail there except to blast through at 40 mph and blow everyone's mind. We were there kinda early, so we got a good parking spot, and Casey came over to show us the launch & exit, which are 2 different things, there. The launch consists of clambering down large boulders into the water while being buffeted by high winds. The exit is sheltered from the wind, so you have to make sure it's clear, then sail in fast and glide to a stop in just the right spot, drop down into waist-deep water, then climb up some more boulders with your board, then bend down and pluck your sail out of the water, and climb up the rest of the way. FUN! There's a billion people sailing there whenever there's wind, so if you try any jumping or anything you have to be extra careful to check for others around you. While I was out, the Naish gang showed up, parked inches from the van and then surrounded it with sails they were rigging. Did I mention you have to rig in dirt & gravel? One of them picks up the sail he was rigging an inch away from the passenger door, and the wind catches it and it whacks the side of the van hard enough to fold the mirror flat. Little brat didn't even give me a "Sorry, dude", he just walked away. Basically, it's a f-ing ZOO, and I won't be rushing back there to sail.
From there we went to Doug's beach, also on the Washington side but about 20 minutes East of Hood River. What a difference! Only 5 guys out, nice rigging in the shade, excellent sand launch, good wind -- WTF was everyone doing at the Hatch??!!! Sailed for a couple hours there & had a great time, we both loved it. That night we took Bruce Peterson and his lovely wife Amy out to dinner and had an excellent time, they're really fun people and we're looking forward to hanging out with them some more next time.
We had to leave the next morning (Tuesday) early to do the 10-hour schlep back to the Delta, where we had a couple more fun days, including my Soon-To-Be-Legendary-Flag-Sailing-Session on the Fourth of July. I tied my American flag (full size, 2' x 3') onto the back of my 7.2 and sailed up & down the river with it for about 2 hours. Really fun, and pretty easy to sail that way if you don't mind your top end being erased by all the extra drag. No way to go faster than about 20, tops.
We left the Delta on Saturday the 5th since it appeared the wind was shutting off (it did), and came home to rest up, unpack, and wash the colossal mountain of laundy we had. Overall a very fun trip; The wind wasn't that great, but we got some good
sailing in, got to see the Gorge finally, and just generally had a blast! We both definitely want to go back, as soon as we can.
We started out by towing our 24-foot travel trailer to Rio Viento Resort in the Delta on Friday June 21st, where we had pretty decent wind for a few days. Unfortunately, as soon as we arrived the smoke did, too, threatening to force us to move. It never got too thick, though, so we stayed as long as we had planned, which was through Tuesday, leaving Wednesday morning in the van in order to stop at our friend's new house in Bend, OR, and spend one night on our way up to the Gorge. We had to drive through smoke much of the way, and it never let up until we got all the way up to Lake Shasta, but then was clear & beautiful the rest of the way.
Debi & I got to the Event Site early, around 2:30 or so, and the wind was pretty light, so I rigged my 7.2 NX race sail and went out on my Exocet Cross 94. Casey Hauser joined me, and we went ripping around for a while, until a big gust lifted me clear out of the water and I decided it was time to down-rig or pack up. I got back to the beach to find Bruce & Dale rigging on the grass there, so I set down my 7.2 and went over to Dale and said "Hey man, whatcha riggin'?" "6.2" he replies. "Pussy!" I said to the gnarliest windsurfer in the world -- Luckily for me, he got the joke, and laughed, whew! The wind had let up a bit, so I went back out and sailed around, then Debi & I left and went back to The Dalles to get some much needed sleep.
In the morning Dan Cole called us from Home Valley, near Stevenson, WA and said it was 6.0 out of the EAST (backwards) and that we should haul ass out there, about a 30 minute drive. We did, and Dan and I sailed for about 45 minutes or so, pretty fun! Debi had decided to sit this session out and take pictures. Nothing to do after that -- Oh, sure, everyone says there's tons of stuff to do in the Gorge, but when it's 103 and calm I'm not going mountain biking or hiking! I guess we could have gone up to Mount Hood for some cooler temps, but we didn't think of it and no one told us, oh well. Debi did some laundry at the hotel, and we just chilled out there.
Sunday we decided that we had to do some time at Windfest, so we arrived about 11-ish and wandered around looking at all the stuff. I finally got to meet Josh Sampiero, editor of Wind Surfing magazine, after years of e-mailing back & forth. Josh is really cool, and pretty good with the tricks in light wind on a Kona! Probably a good high-wind sailor as well, although we didn't actually get to sail together this trip. Towards the end of the day the wind finally came back, and Debi & I got to demo some new Exocets, until the clouds built in and the lightning started striking the hills all around us! Almost everyone came in then, except some fools who didn't realize that carbon fiber is an excellent conductor. The joke was on them, though, as the wind shut OFF, and about 8 people had to swim their gear back to shore.
It has a large parking lot, so it's super popular with the locals. Visitors like us go there due to it's reputation as THE hot spot, and pros go there to show off -- Bruce Peterson calls it "Dig Me Beach", and he won't sail there except to blast through at 40 mph and blow everyone's mind. We were there kinda early, so we got a good parking spot, and Casey came over to show us the launch & exit, which are 2 different things, there. The launch consists of clambering down large boulders into the water while being buffeted by high winds. The exit is sheltered from the wind, so you have to make sure it's clear, then sail in fast and glide to a stop in just the right spot, drop down into waist-deep water, then climb up some more boulders with your board, then bend down and pluck your sail out of the water, and climb up the rest of the way. FUN! There's a billion people sailing there whenever there's wind, so if you try any jumping or anything you have to be extra careful to check for others around you. While I was out, the Naish gang showed up, parked inches from the van and then surrounded it with sails they were rigging. Did I mention you have to rig in dirt & gravel? One of them picks up the sail he was rigging an inch away from the passenger door, and the wind catches it and it whacks the side of the van hard enough to fold the mirror flat. Little brat didn't even give me a "Sorry, dude", he just walked away. Basically, it's a f-ing ZOO, and I won't be rushing back there to sail.
We had to leave the next morning (Tuesday) early to do the 10-hour schlep back to the Delta, where we had a couple more fun days, including my Soon-To-Be-Legendary-Flag-Sailing-Session on the Fourth of July. I tied my American flag (full size, 2' x 3') onto the back of my 7.2 and sailed up & down the river with it for about 2 hours. Really fun, and pretty easy to sail that way if you don't mind your top end being erased by all the extra drag. No way to go faster than about 20, tops.