We had a clear beautiful night with 34 km winds. I called up a friend who was begging to get out and suggested a night fly. It is amazing how good your vision gets when your eyes adjust and the temp was only -7.
My friend Chris flies a SLE, spends most of his time on the water and had never seen a Arc before.
Scorpion filled quickly, clicked on the ski's and off I went. Winds were so clean, sure is something I'm not use too, Scorpion was a beautiful thing to watch just sitting in the pocket with no input from me just laying back in the seat harness and loving every minute.
I headed down the Lake into the narrows when Chris finally got his unit flying. He dropped in beside me and was talking about the Arc and how its was sitting in the window.
We just split up he was heading back to switch to a snow board when I rounded the point.
I was hit by a large snow devil that literally was like hitting a wall of snow, down to instant zero visibility. I tried to cut hard downwind to get away from the snow devil when I took to the air. The lift was incredible reminded me off the old hang gliding days in Death Valley.(got arrested for that one, Twice).lol. I was caught in the vortex and began spinning madly, kept trying to edge out but kept going up. I felt like I was on a swing, had to be a good 40% angle as I turned with winds. The lift wasn't violent and I knew I was going up but just did my best to keep control of the kite. Snow finally started to disperse and my visibility was coming back and now I could see where I really was.
Chris and I both concur I was probably a good 70' in the air doing 30' to 40' circles. I was able to get out of the top end, we use to call them boils, the lift dies off but the turbulence can get brutal. The ride down was pretty sweet, with the wind speed filling my kite I really got to explore the Scorpion's true float capabilities .
I'm getting to old for this, heart was pounding out of my chest for awhile. Tired and sore but hell of a night, taking a shower and off to bed. Think this is one the Wife don't need to know about.....lol..

Wholy Crap man, awesome story!! Way to keep a cool head and work it through. Could have been nasty but what a ride. That is a great story.
I've been in lot's of white outs and screaming winds but never an experience like this one. Glad you're okay - wow, love it
Mark

DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMMMMMMMMBBBBBBB that sounded like a hellova ride. alot of people would have come out the other end heading for the emergency room so props for keeping cool. shows who's got "IT!!!"

ITS JUST STARTED SNOWING HERE......... WOOP WOOP!!

What's a snow devil

same as a dust devil - only cleaner

CRAZY !!!!!

I seriously doubt I would have remained composed. No doubt that composure saved your bacon !

When I'm being lifted unexpectedly the 1st thing that hits my brain is " trust your kite " Then I PANIC !!!!!!

Thanks for passing that one on. I hope your story helps me keep my cool.

When spinning how did you know what to do for kite input ? Generally WHAT did you do as for as kite input ?

Power , a dust / snow devil is a mini Tornado.

And here am i thinking that getting lofted 5/6 feet was scary:o. 70 feet yeehar bro:Ange09:

OMG...Wow...what a wild ride that must have been...glad you came back to earth safely...that could of been really, really bad...Props to you for remaining so calm...I would have #@%$#! a purple twinkie...brown shorts for sure! That's definitely what saved your bacon...

Looking back...is there any way you could have avoided that devil or things that you might have done differently (besides the obvious fact of avoiding the devil in the first place)...?

BTW, please don't take this as criticism...this can happen to any one...just wanted to get your feedback or a lesson learned. Thanks.

Wolfee
When you went home, how did you handle the wife. She must have seen how stoked you were. Oh, honey just another uneventful kiting time. Only got boosted 70feet in the air for the ride of my life. If I would have crashed and burned, they still would be looking for my bdy parts but other than that just the same old, same old. If the wifey finds out the nag factor will go off the rector scale. Yea, best to keep that one secret from the wife. Great story, looking forward to more details.

Well, finally got up still feeling wiped out. I guess the number one question is how did I know what to do? I had no visibility so I had no idea how high I was or how fast I was moving. I know I wanted out of that little devil but needed to keep my kite inflated. I was feeling some G-force and aware the kite wasn't directly over my head or thats how it seemed. I kept trying to turn out of the vortex with out loosing lift, short little pumps. I have experienced a lot of wild thermals in my younger hang gliding days and knew that a devil can have the same characteristics as a thermal, so had an idea what to expect. When I finally started to get visibility back I realized how large the loops were but still didn't know height. I started to slow and dropped back under the kite, turned away from the devil and finally cleared the devil and then seen the height. I orientated myself back into the winds direction and started heading down. The ride down was actually pretty sweet, sure can't say Scorpions don't have float.
I have been thinking if there ways anyway to avoid it but the way I came around the lake point I just didn't have a visual on it. I was cruising pretty fast when I hit it probably around the 40 mph mark hit it. I remember in hang gliding I had hit thermals so strong it was like running into a brick wall. You could actually be stopped in mid air, the trick was to shake your glider violently as possible and make the nose enter the column. It sounds funny but works. In my case I think the speed is what punched me through and into the devil itself, if I had been travelling slower might just got a good boost.
As for my wife, I married a red head so like living on the edge...lol. She would kill me if she knew what happened, but still loves me. Maybe it will come up in a conversation when I'm in a rocking chair, then she'll be too slow to hit me..lol

God isn't ready for you yet bro... :singing:

Too bad you didn't have your helmet cam recording Wolfee

still having problems with it, basically know it don't work below -40 and since I broke the original helmet attachment can't get it to stay on properly. Working on get a few people out, you know how it works, more people than kites and get some descent shots. Heights don't really bother me, I've launched off of 7000 foot cliffs when I use to hang glide. Did my share of jumping too but thats another story.I'm not getting any younger, knees are on their last Howrah if you know what I mean. Pretty sore tonight but just glad I din't get hurt don't think safety gear would have covered that one. Luck of the Irish...

Kick ass ride! Glad you're in one piece bet it was your hang gliding experience that helped too ... that's something I've been dying to try for ages!

thats the best kiting adventure story i have ever read. Glad to hear you made such a great recovery. i bet you wish you had a helmet cam on....

:wee: Glad you are safe. Probably best to keep the ride from your wife. She knows the results and no sense worrying her. I have a couple of stories I haven't told but none as crazy as this.

Reflecting on the incident, the wild part was the spin and no vision. All I could do was try and keep my lines tight and ride it out. The height was a little startling at first but just getting my orientation was all that was riding through my mind. As I mentioned before the ride down was actually pretty sweet, probably helped bring the heart rate down.
I guess that's one of the thing with kiting you just never know what mother nature can throw at you. In closing, hats of too the Peter Lynn guys that kite really saved my ass. I could feel it bucking but it held up and brought me home safe. Hell of a Christmas present.

Freakin' awesome story. Did you do your radio show yet - maybe it was in the plans so you'd have an awesome leadin!Sounds like your HG experience gave you the backgound to mentally sort it out up there. You figure it was a mix of mentally understanding the situation and 'muscle memory'?
Think you were on one side of the devil and your kite on the other? Like a rock being swung on the end of a string, so to speak - can't imagine how one could steer out of that.

Apologize for going analtical on you, I was reading some articles by this French paraglider and Speedwing designer Olivier Caldara (BioAir Technologies). His wings use reflex airfoils in their design, so they have some autostable tendencies like Arcs. He noted that makes them enter thermals more easily than regular cambered foils (his nose down in a gust to lower AOA instead of pitching up). But it also makes his foils tend to pitch up a as they leave a thermal instead of nosing down. Sounds similar to Arcs vs older LEI C kites, where the Arcs nose down in a gust while the C's will boost harder even without pilot input.

Again, awesome story - and glad we heard it first person instead of from somebody else!

krumly