Red Bull Blade Raid according to Isaiah
By Isaiah McCauliffe
The third “Red Bull Blade Raid” was held March 14-15 at Crystal Mountain, in Washington. Unlike years past, where the event was a blade running event where participants started their runs by exiting an aircraft. This year, it was a ground-launching event. Requiring competitors to ski launch their canopies in order to be eligible to run the course.
Event organizers Andy Farrington and Jon Devore (Red Bull team) set up the course by laying out a challenging run on the mountain's most difficult double black diamond run - the “Exterminator”. With only a couple months notice they managed to fill the registration with 42 competitors from all over the country and a few from over seas. Nearly all of the nations experienced speed flying, and ground launching pilots were present.
Most competitors showed up on the day before the practice day so they could get a chance to ski the run (required prior to launching), or get reacquainted with skis. As it turned out quite a few competitors were less then graceful once they strapped on the skis and headed down the double black diamond. You could over hear plenty of people talking about having no business being on skis, let alone trying to negotiate “Exterminator”. Many even had to ski down on their backsides.
Thursday, the official practice day came and everyone was anxious to get some runs in. The morning briefly began off with beautiful conditions, but by mid morning fog had rolled in. That didn’t slow people down though, most everyone was “vaguely” familiar with the terrain, and since the course was set up, people continued launching. Some managed to get as many as 5-6 runs, others weren’t as fortunate, out of the 42 competitors 7-8 didn’t get any runs in, either due to weather conditions and not being comfortable launching in the difficult weather, or unable to launch their canopy.
Friday, day one of the meet came; weather wasn’t looking so great, still foggy. Andy Farrington was asked what the forecast was looking like he replied, “It’s a little unpredictable, kind of like weather in the mountains” which wasn’t only funny, but true. Clouds rolled in and out, wind was up and down, but we managed to ¾ of the first round in.
Day two of the meet brought similar weather. However, there were a few more clear spots, and lulls in the wind early on and we managed to get the second round completed and halfway through the third. With that the first part of the third round was discarded and that finished the meet. It would have been nice to get more rounds in, but weather in the mountains has a way of being unpredictable. I think it would be safe to say everyone would have liked to get more runs in, it’s just a gamble when you need good weather in the mountains to get it done. Insurance for the event also required expediency in completion due to costs.
In spite of the only a handful of runs, everyone had an exhilarating time, for those that could ski and snowboard, the conditions were fantastic! Unlike a weather day at the DZ were all you can do is sit and wait, here you just went and enjoyed the snow.
