Blanchard Mountain by Day and by Night

It had been a long time since I had explored Blanchard Mountain and publicity about protests of DNR logging had faded away. What had happened? I went to see in late October and discovered for myself facelifts bad and good.

I took the logging road past the turnoff to Hanglider Road and past the head of the incline trail to Lizard and Lily Lakes. I drove miles more and turned left on to a very rough and narrow gravel road and through large puddles of standing water. I didn’t find any fresh logging but soon found evidence that logging was immanent. I passed a giant trailer house parked off the road, and then on to an equally giant logging truck parked nearby. The road had deteriorated and passage by a normal car without four-wheel drive was marginal at best. What would happen if I met a huge truck on the road? Who would take the ditch? Considering discretion better than valor, I turned around and headed for the hanglider jump off site.

Gone was the rickety board jumpoff platform; gone was the garbage. Instead I saw not one but two graveled clearings for launching paragliders, a parking area and port-a-potties. The renovations were financed and done by about 25 paraglide fliers. The last time I was there, I saw several hangliders and only one paraglider. This time there were no hangliders. Why the change? Perhaps because paragliding is cool, perhaps because the landing field is on Chuckanut Drive near the Japanese Garden and paragliders are carried up the bluff in backpacks. You couldn’t do that with a hanglider.

A paraglider, warm windproof jacket, and backpack weights 40 to 60 pounds. The fliers I saw are fearless macho men with physiques that women notice. I didn’t see any women. Had any fliers fallen into the saltwater below? No, not that one flier could remember. Have fliers ever collided? Yes, one acknowledged, but in a hanglider. It wasn’t pretty, he said. I didn’t press him to elucidate.

Optimum wind is 8-12 miles an hour coming directly at the bluff. The day I was there wind was light, velocity variable, and shifting from northwest to north, thus ranging from marginal to impossible. However, both men there at the time successfully launched after great attention to detail. First, the most northerly of the two launch sites was chosen as the most favorable. Then several telltales, ribbons on sticks, were placed to show the precise wind direction on the slope, moment by moment. Paragliders are steered by color-coded ropes, so the ropes and cloth have to be laid out carefully on the launch site.

The first flier to launch had to abort his flight. Apparently a wind shift nearly carried him into a tree at the launch site. Then he had to lay out the paraglider again. Both fliers quickly lost altitude after takeoff, presumably to pick up flying speed. Birds flying from a perch in a tree usually do somewhat the same thing. In any case, after losing elevation both fliers flew where they wanted to go. In the distance they reminded me of orbital spiders suspended in the air with no visible sign of connection to support.

Hanglider/paraglider functions as a lover’s lane after dark in good weather. I found that out by accident as a beginner stargazer. Anyone who tries to fully appreciate the stars and planets in Bellingham is a masochist. There is far too much city light and Hanglider Road would get away from city light and provide a view I thought. What I saw was more than expected, couples in cars parked along the road. I never did find anyone who shared my enthusiasm for stargazing, so I was alone. Not wanting to intrude nor be mistaken for a peeping Tom, I went home.

The hanglider parking area at the end of the road at night has long been known for drinking, garbage, mischief and defecation by young people who party there. That hasn’t changed much except that the devoted good men who fly paragliders pick up the garbage and restore to usable positions the port-a-potties turned over or pushed down the bluff. How people’s motivations in life do differ! §