Saturday, December 19, 2009

The Ludicrous Crew...

It's been a week since our last flyable day at NAN and I decided I was doing nothing else today but getting in the air...or at least chase it all day...so the chase was on. I got reports that MPU was too strong, and KNA was socked in, so I called One-eye and decided to meet up at Bobo's for some lunch, with anticipation of KNA clearing up...wasnt gonna happen! It just kept raining and the idea of flyin was beginning to float away. Before ya know it, the call was made to head out to the west side for some NAN action.

I met up with One-eye, Maddog, Sidehill and AZ Chandler and we sat there by the beach, eyes to the sky watching the clouds making their way over the back, slowly, but we had a great onshore 5-7...so there we were, contemplating the hike or just throwin in the towel. One-eye threw it in and took off, while the rest of us sat there staring longingly at the prize.

After about an hour of bs'n, ole Sidehill put the pressure on us, so we all grabbed out gear and away we went. Conditions really were lookin pretty good, but our only concern was how late it was, and that the wind was splittin the spine. As we eagerly made our way up I threw the idea out there that we could reevaluate at the top by the power lines...that didn't go over so well. Chandler's response was "Joey, if we're hikin we're flyin!"

A few minutes later we made it up to low launch, and noted some decent cycles cming up from the school side, but it just wasn't strong enough...so we forged ahead to mid launch. I've been doing a lot of hiking lately, but not with my gear, and an Ozone easy bag is not meant for long, hill climbing hikes in the heat...I was dyin! I fell to the back of the pack and Maddog was literally running up, and by the time we made it to mid I was spent.

I stopped with Chandler to guzzle some water and convince my legs to keep movin...and we forged ahead to high launch. All the while I keep reminding everyone "another cycle, it's school side," thinking to myself, "I don't know of a school side spot at high launch," so as I'm about to pass out, I holler up ahead to the gang..."it's school side, this is ludicrous!" I'm pretty sure that comment stuck...

Well, we finally made it to the top, high launch, and the cycles felt sweet. This was all of our first times at high so we had no idea where to even lay out - it was time to phone a friend. Sidehill had Don on the line and I was on with Reaper. After about 10 mins of lookin around we eyed the perfect spot and made our way to it.

Maddog and Chandler sat their packs down, when, no kidding, a huge gale of wind, probably about 15-20, came blowin out of back of the valley: trades, and rotor... They looked at us, we looked at them, and 2 seconds later we all grabbed our gear and started heading down. That fast, the tables turned on us and Maddog looked at us and said "we're done here, nice hiking with ya"...lol...

We found a few big rocks to chill out on and talk about the conditions and share a few laughs about my rantin and ravin all the way up, and how lucky we were to not be up when the rotor hit us. By now we were really thirsty for some of HPA's favorite beverage and started our trek back to the beach.

We all made it back down thankfully and in one piece - Maddog and Chandler pretty much ran down, and picked up some frosties, while Sidehill and myself took our time slippin and slidin all the way. We all rondezvoused back at the beach side parking and ole One-eye showed back up just in time to pop a cold one with us, share some hilarious discussions about our adventure and watch a gorgeous Hawaiian sunset.

Overall, it was a great day shared with great friends even if the ludicrous crew didn't score a great flight!! Aloha ~ Joey

6 comments:

Bon Bon said...

Good story, Joey. Sucks you guys didn't get to fly. I'm sorta glad it wasn't flyable today because I was so sick all day and could not move. I was in bed til 5. Awesome sunset photo. Hopefully tomorrow is on!! :)

sandy said...

Wow, great story Joey! Wish I were there. Yeah, Nanakuli extracts a high price sometimes in effort, but gives it up big when she does. Some of my most memorable flights were there: XCs to Waipio and Kaala. But of course you can't beat the sunset on the beach with friends. :-)

Mad Dog said...

It's school side,this is ludacrous!!!

Great write up Joey, we had a bunch of good laughs on that hill, we were delerious.

Brazilian Ray said...

hahaha! great story! glad to hear we got some nanakuli chasers!
trust me, it is worth it! like Sandy said, it is very likely that your most memorable oahu flight will come from that site, as long as you keep trying ;)

Alex said...

Love that story. I've lived it a bunch of times too, as many of us have. I have more hikes down and bomb outs from there than I can remember, but only a handful of memorable flights - but they very memorable. I guess that's why I keep going back. I've had a few landings when the wind was blowing offshore, both at the beach and in the ball field, and they definitely weren't fun - I strive to avoid days where there's any chance of the trades breaking through and ruining my day.

Anonymous said...

Great story Joey, I am still 3 for 3 at NAN, but now have 1 hike down, why did have to be from HIGH launch it was simply "Ludicrous" Luckily we got to laugh about it. Thanks to Jim for anchoring us at beach side long enough to not be in the air when it happened