Day 3 Oh the Colors!

It didn’t seem possible to send our athletes into a more special place than we did yesterday, but today the task committee might have sent the benchmark for unbeatable beauty. We haven’t been to Mt Edna since year 1. It’s one the highest peak in Southern Utah (nearly 12,000′) and right now is ABLAZE with fall colors. The daily wrap-up film is quite literally mind blowing. Catch all the action on our instagram channel (@xredrocks), but here’s how it went down: We drove the pilots to within 1’200 vertical feet to the summit where they made short order of the hike to the Peak of Mt Edna. It was still early, before 11 am, but thermals were already creating up the south bowl and athletes didn’t delay a second- BOOM, they were in the air, and quickly climbing. The task had the Pro and Adventure athletes walking or flying up the ridge to Delano peak (over 12,000′), and then a short flight down to near Junction where they would top land in a beautiful meadow, walk downhill a short distance to the Junction launch and then get back into the sky to get to goal directly for Adventure and up the Tushars to tag a couple turn points (the farthest in the southern Pahvants). The flying was mostly straightforward, with staying under our 18,000′ airspace (and dealing with hypoxia and cole) one of the biggest challenges. Several of our Pro pilots did in fact break airspace even though they did everything they could to stay below. It was just an epic day. Stories of walking through a Dr. Seuss magical wonderland, waterfalls, Elk and Moose and just some terrific, and at times technical flying ruled the day. Our Challenge athletes were tasked with walking from Edna to near Delano and back before flying, which while a beautiful hike along a gorgeous spine at altitude was a thrill, we really gave them a tougher task than the Pros! But they made short work of it, launched into the Stratosphere and several were able to fly all the way to goal. BRAVO!