Newcastle Hang Gliding Club

Further analysis of Christian Ciech's track log on the last day of the Europeans

Further analysis of Christian Ciech's track log on the last day of the Europeans

http://ozreport.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20916&start=2

It is not a faulty GPS. It's strange judgment. That is the point.

Discuss "Further analysis of Christian Ciech's track log on the last day of the Europeans" at the Oz Report forum   link»

Jonathan Dietch writes:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SsgrILjbu-k

This is the extended and narrated version of the video I shot during my first flight ever at King Mountain on July 19, 2010. I launched second while my 'Epic Spuds' team mate Mike was landing in the upper LZ. Mike quickly broke down then re-launched for a good flight score later in the day.

I launched from the steel NW facing ramp. Later, I was told there were only three flights from this "cheese grater of death" as I fondly refer to it. This video touches briefly upon most of the phases of the flight from launch through landing. At the end I add a 3D animation of my flight tracks using Naviter's SeeYou software, captured with Fraps.

There will be two more installments from launch through landing of days three and four. Day two was my bomb-out day and I failed to activate the shutter button and did not record the exciting landing on a dirt and gravel road. I may edit a short, narrated video of Day two in order to explain my decision error that cost me the flight along with being stranded for five hours.

On Day 5fivemy camera mount snapped in half about one minute into the flight from the Coyote launch. I had to stash the GoPro HD camera into my side pocket before I even had a chance to shut it off, so the video I did record was corrupted and unrecoverable. Too bad because I soared over some spectacular terrain including nearly getting tumbled in front of Big Southern Butte and then climbing out like a rocket on its lee side while three hawks attacked me. I also soared over the lava fields which would have been nice to capture as well. And then there was that landing in switchy and gusty winds.

I was so tired by Day six that I was glad I had no way to use my camera other than to lash it to my keel. No thanks, I said. I don't even want to think about it. Good thing, as my flight was and exhausting six hours. Did I mention the really exciting landing down the middle of a two foot wide tire track in sage covered field just behind soon-to-be winner Dave Gibson's T2C? In fact, 3rd place finisher, Mike Daily had landed across the street earlier and 2nd place finisher, Kurt Bainem landed next to us about 10 minutes after I set down. All we needed was Scott Huber to join us. But his absence and unknown status kept Gibson on edge.

If folks enjoy watching this video, and I haven't already posted it on your club's forum, etc., why not share it with your friends and any other interested parties? Facebook works pretty good too. It helps grow the sport as well as the King Mountain event and it helps me get the exposure I may need. Eventually, I will be seeking to make my video productions self-sustaining. In order to do that I need funding. And that requires exposure. Eventually I will no longer be able to afford to keep this up at the rate I'm going.

We had ourselves a real flight on Wednesday. We being the Jeff's, Raul, Derrick Turner, Ben Dunn and his dad, Tim, Mike Glennon, Wolfi, and numerous others. The forecast for 4,000' had been for light northerly winds turning to light westerlies by 2 PM. There were plenty of cu's but the lift seemed sparse around noon as we got to launch. Plenty of pilots had set up but only a few were launching.

The winds were actually quite strong on launch, but not so strong that we couldn't setup on the west side of the road. Other pilots set up behind the road in the more protected area. Wolfi launched and did a series of low passes over the almost flat launch so it looked like it was time to launch around 1:30 PM.

The hill side is quite dry and almost flat. But with the breeze coming into the hill side you just wander off into the wind and it picks you up and you float away in smooth air. A bit disconcerting because you spend so much time next to the hill at first.

We headed south right after launch to find the thermals. They were weak at first but then I spotted Tim climbing below us back north toward launch. Once I got over him the lift rose to a smooth and fully packed 800 fpm and I called over Shapiro and others. We quickly climbed to cloud base at 7,800'.

Having found the good lift earliest I headed out south with Raul just behind. I had set a 107 kilometer task, with a thirty kilometer leg to the south, then a fifty kilometer one to the north then back to the Sigillo landing field. The sky held plenty of cus' and we were high on the north/south ridge line.

The lift had been very pleasant over launch but as we headed south the lift became less so. There were plenty of thermals on the west face but they weren't as smooth as one would like. There was quite a bit more wind than had been forecasted.

Twenty six kilometers south the valley narrows. The turnpoint that I had chosen from the maps was ten kilometers to our east, downwind away from the valley. The winds had picked up to seventeen mph and the turbulence was not a bit pleasant. Heading upwind to get more out in the flats away from the hillside did nothing to ease the turbulence at the end of the valley. We were talking on the radio about what to do next, as no one wanted to go downwind to the turnpoint.

I decided to head back north toward the launch and Derrick and the Jeff's also turned around running away from the worse of the turbulence.

It was easy flying the face of the ridgeline and sometimes there was even pleasant lift to thermal in as we headed back. The Jeff's hugged the hill side flying fast and low and only stopping now and then to thermal up a bit. I kept further out in front of the hill and climbed up at the wind mills ten kilometers south of launch. I wanted to be west of the venturi that I had experienced on the way down south just north of the wind mills.

Shapiro and I decided to head for the LZ and O'Brien headed back to launch. I went out into the valley but the turbulence was still the same. It didn't matter if you were in the" flats" or on the ridge. It was the winds mixed with the strong thermals.

Raul decided to head west to Gubbio as we came over the LZ. I watched as Shaprio got down. I had trouble getting down as I found lift all over the valley. I was right over the LZ as Jeff landed. I could feel the thermal that he was in as he tried to land. He said that he felt as though he could have turned at twenty five feet and gone back up again. He mentioned how rough the LZ was.

I was looking at other areas to land, maybe next to where we are staying at the Alba Rosa. But I was really hoping for a wind sock as the winds kept switching.

Finally the lift slacked off a bit and I was able to make a reasonable approach with a west wind. Unlike when Jeff landed it was coming straight down the LZ runway. I came in and it was smooth as could be. In fact, starting with my landing and thereafter the LZ was smooth and friendly to the landing pilots.

The pilots who flew north first instead of south as we did reported significantly less turbulence. They flew to the northern edge of the ridge line, about twenty kilometers. I had set a turnpoint a bit further north than that for our task. Eduardo from Brazil, had gone eighteen kilometers downwind wind to the east and was contemplating going to the coast which is about eighty kilometers away. There are not any airspace issues if you go due east from launch. He was able to get high and fly back against the winds to the Sigillo LZ.

On Thursday the Jeff's went up to launch around 8 AM knowing that the day would be blown out. They flew one glider (O'Brien's) taking turns, then O'Brien flew down after Shapiro top landed a few times and drove the car down. There was plenty of wind up top (45 km/h) but none next to the Alba Rosa as O'Brien landed next to our Agriturismo.

Local weather.

Scare writes:

The strange differences between GPS-altitude and pressure-altitude, here's Christian's in Google Earth with both.

http://ozreport.com/data/Christian_Ciech.20100723-155058.6034.12_GPS_and_pressure.kmz.

Green = GPS-altitude
Yellow = pressure-altitude with corresponding GPS-altitude
Red = pressure-altitude when there was no GPS-altitude fix
Blue = ground track

Looks like the pressure altitude is averaged over maybe 20 seconds and that has the effect of delaying the readings by that much.

Red's show up in columns because soon after losing 3-D fix it also loses 2-D and subsequent points are recorded as being at the point where the 2-D fix was lost, while pressure altitude continues doing whatever it's doing (rising or falling).

See it also here.

Matjaz Klemencic <<klemencic_matjaz>> sends:

European championship HG (Áger, Spain 2010) from Matjaz Klemencic on Vimeo.

Here.

I wrote earlier here: "Wide down tubes made for a very comfortable and solid feel when hoisted up on my shoulders. This is important if you want to have a strong launch in light wind conditions. I throw my shoulders back, stand straight, and rotate the glider nose down pivoting on my shoulders. The strong pivot point provided by the wide downtubes makes this easy and safe."

Well, it turns out that the Icaro downtubes are the same width as the Wills Wing Slipstream downtubes. I measured them both at the goal at Feltre. I also lifted up a Wills Wing T2C at the goal and it felt just the same as the Icaro 2000 Laminar Z9 13.7 on my shoulders. A good strong pivot point.

I first "noticed" the "fat" downtubes on the Z9 back at the 2009 World Championships in Laragne. I really thought that they were wider than the ones on the Wills Wing gliders. Last week, when I picked up the glider that I am trading for an Icaro 2000 ad in the Oz Report, I again noticed the fat down tubes.

But it was all a delusion on my part. When I made the effort to actually measure them they were the same as the Wills Wing Slipstream (not Litestream) down tubes. They just looked wider (cord wise)  to me.

That's what it looks like:

Click on above to see the better version. I don't have the waypoints for the 2010 Europeans, so I don't have a spot where he crossed the line, and I don't have a way to know from that what his goal time actually was.

Jeff Hunt <jeff> writes:

We have our tow trike back in operation finally, it starts, runs, restarts after shutdown, does not seem to overheat, doing what she is supposed to. Finally!

We are based west of Austin about 50 miles. There is a Dragonfly based at Luling now. Calling Joel or myself to make appointments for anything is how we operate. Joel Froehlich <<jfroehlich>>.

Belinda sends:

http://ozreport.com/14.065#1

Gordon Rigg, who always enjoys a controversy, <<gordon.rigg245km>> writes:

Attila took third ahead of final task winner Mario Alonzi by just five interesting points.

Christian Chiech physically passed the goal line second on the last day, behind Mario but still half of a kilometer ahead of the pack, which was Attila, Alex, Martin and me. For unknown reasons his GPS and scoring system put Christian behind us all in 8th place almost a minute behind his true finish position. Initially Christian and the Italian team questioned this.

The tracks are available on the ager2010 scorers blog. You can see his GPS is dropping out regularly on the flight and badly on the last part of the final glide. I'm don't think the time data is in the kml track log file which is all the scorer published, but this is the likely reason for the the strange time error.

The French took up the protest because correcting the finish order would most probably take enough points away from Attila to put Mario 3rd (in the official results one second between Attila into goal second and Alex into goal 3rd on the last day is worth eight points, and Attila took the bronze officially by just 5 points).

Also it seems that on earlier tasks there had been a manual correction of finish order (unlike on this last day). There are also some problems with earlier 6030 firmware that is known to lose four seconds compared to the latest, but larger errors like Christian's on the last day were not encountered previously.

It seems that in the end CIVL officials refused to allow a manual correction of Christian's finish time for the last task (I'm not sure if previous smaller manual corrections actually occurred or not), even though many pilots agreed that the published result was wrong. Mario was not impressed and refused to collect the 4th place FAI diploma and was not present at the prize giving.

I think the only way to regard it is as a strange non catastrophic GPS failure for Christian that worked out in Attila's favor. In the end the final scores are altered by everyone else's score, even if that score is due to a dodgy GPS (or a good one is a dodgy carbon pod).

GPS's are so much better than anything we had to score with previously (pilots were getting away with half a kilometer on every turnpoint a few short years ago), but it is not yet 100% reliable and accurate. In any case, take a look at your track logs and if there are regular dropouts send it back to the manufacturer. The dropouts are easily recognised from vast altitude errors (sea level points). Those dropouts might cost you your score, but may also affect someone else's significantly!

Piotr Cywinski <<p.b.cywinski>> writes:

I had a fantastic flight in Annecy France 18th of July 2010. I only began flying in October 2008, at Dynamic flight in Australia (probably best week of my life). In May 2009 I moved to Paris for work and had to spring for a new glider. I spoke with my flying peers and they said I should get a topless glider, that they thought I was ready, so I did, and I freakin' love it! WW fusion SP 150 (in awesome condition with only about 30 hours on it).

Apologies for the quality as I have only the GoPro standard video camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp20qTm3ZZo&feature=player_embedded

Some details on the flight in the French Alps. Conditions down low rough and bumpy, upstairs silky smooth. Lift everywhere! Cloud base was about 12,000 feet. Two and a half hours of heaven.

Helmet strap is now part of my pre-plight

The forecast was ominous. A north wind at 7 knots at 4,000' rising to 13 knots at 8,000'. Launch height was almost 5,000' and the high mountains, over 8,000', were just to our north. The lift looked like it would be good as would cloud base, but would we be rotored by the north winds?

The report of the winds on launch were that there weren't any, so we all drove up to the top to find this to be the case. I was still very concerned about flying here, just in case the forecast proved true and what we were seeing was a lull.

The thermals strengths picked up on the south facing launch and the winds coming in at launch became strong and very inviting. Given the conditions a long task was called at just before 12:30 and while I wasn't going to be the first to launch I didn't want to be the last off. I got ready and in line with about ten or fifteen pilots launching quickly before me. The conditions at launch were perfect and I was off quickly myself.

Heading to the right I found smooth strong lift and soon was in 600 fpm. I must have found something better than the other pilots because soon I was one pilot down from the top of the stack and over 9,000'. Two early launching pilots had headed north into the mountains and now three of us headed toward them.

The lift was friendly and I found plenty up on the steep rock faces after losing some altitude going back about five kilometers and staying on the edge of the 33 kilometer entry circle. I kept an eye on the two higher pilots and on the others around and below me as I worked the lift to get into the right position to get the race start.

Moving further back into the mountains I left all the other pilots behind except the two I was keeping my eye on. I was being tactical trying to get to the best altitude and also the best position as I was now a half kilometer inside the entry circle. I had to mix lift with position with the position of the two higher pilots and I was almost at cloud base at 10,000'. Thank goodness I had on five layers.

There were about three or maybe four levels of cloud base and I was climbing up the sides of some of the clouds and busting through little bits of mist getting around their edges and moving to where the air was going up in front of the clouds. The clock was ticking down and it was almost time to go and I needed to get just outside the entry circle.

I climbed to 10,300' and saw many pilots a few thousand feet below me. Sure they were plenty high, but I was in a good position and it felt great to be able to get it just right. I crossed back into the entry start circle just below 10,00' a couple of seconds after the clock started at 1:30 PM.

As I went out on course there was one pilot out in front of me below me and another just above me to my left further into the mountains. The idea was to follow other pilots as I really had no idea how to fly these mountains. I was loving the air and loving the view and loving the race, but I needed their help to find the next lift.

After a glide of about fifteen kilometers the two pilots in front of me finally found some weak lift. I joined them and soon was above them.

I was really missing that lift that we had over launch and back behind it. Franco Rinaldi had said that the lift on the launch hill was generally weak and it was better back in the mountains, but we just weren't finding anything like what I had seen earlier. The whole valley was dark, shaded by the clouds on the mountains.

Two pilot headed out one below me and another one above, one of the two that I had been keeping tab on soon after launch. There was a  gaggle of pilots below me who had come in underneath as we were slowly climbing out but I figured I could go with these two guys and stay in the lead. That turned out to be a bad idea for me, at least.

We glided along reasonably high starting out at over 8,200', but the lift just wasn't there. I was counting on the pilots in front of me to find the lift as I was unfamiliar with these mountains and they had to be locals. We headed across a valley and after searching in a bowl and finding nothing I was a little bit behind. I head over to a rock face where I saw them climbing slowly. I came into the rock face 10 kilometers from the Belluno turnpoint and found nothing. What were they climbing in?

I raced around to the west side in the narrow valley hoping that would be the side with the lift, but I just fell out of the sky. I had to run back to the main valley to find a reasonable place to land.

Seems to me I should have been a bit more conservative and stayed with the pilots just below me on the first weak climb out on course. I could have waited there for conditions to improve and I would have had a lot more help on the next glide.

http://www.guarnieritrophy.it/index.php?dest=delta&sub=result&task=delta_task_1&lang=en

The weather turned good with light winds on Sunday and a cloud base of over 10,000'. Thirty to forty pilots showed up for the day and a 128 km task was called which took us up and down the valley in the Dolomites back and forth between Fonzaso and Belluno.

Click to see the big picture.

The launch window opened at 12:30 PM and the race started started at 1:30 PM. The fastest time was about three hours at about 40 km/h which is a normal speed for hang gliders. There were lots of slow areas and large areas shaded by the cumulus clouds.

While the predominant glider at the competition was a Icaro 2000 Laminar Z9 or Z8, the Wills Wing pilots were 1,2,3 on the podium. The fourth finishing pilot flew an Airborne C4. A significant number of pilots got to goal, but didn't take the last turnpoint, which was across the valley.

The cu's started forming before noon to the north in the steep mountains, the Bellunoese Dolomiti. They continued through out the day sometimes getting a bit vertical and casting large shadows. The whole area is extremely beautiful with the mixture of clouds and steep mountains for the whole course.

There was a bit of carnage in the LZ. These competition pilots just have a terrible time landing even with a nice head wind and no turbulence. One combat pilot was completely out of control and landed just between two parked gliders on the side of the LZ. He wasn't even headed down the LZ.

Another pilot in his Z9, had his hands about a foot from the base tube and came in lying down and landed that way taking out a downtube and injuring his arm (I saw it later in a sling). There were numerous other bad landings with minimal control on the part of the pilots. They were often flying too slowly.

The pilots of the Para and Delta Club at Feltre put on a great (if short) competition, with plenty of sponsorship. We had lunches provided both days. A big dinner on Saturday night. An awards presentation on Sunday with a buffet, and an embroidered tee-shirt. As well as a competition. All for 40 Euros.

When I was forced off the hill side and out into the main valley near Belluno I had to find a place to land. There were a number of options, but the country side was hilly, the fields a mixture of corn and grass and electric wires, and a semi dry river bed. I had time to check out four or five possible fields and to make a decision. It was unclear what the direction of the wind was, but I decided that it was light and that I should not consider it in my choice.

I decided on a field that was up on a hill and therefore a bit higher than the others. It was not the longest but had a nice dog leg in it and was the one with the least obstacles. I knew that I had to come in low over the houses and power lines so that I could make it into the field and not into the trees at the end. I had been concerned about my landings from the three previous flights, so I wanted to nail this one.

I came in without excessive speed so that I could relax coming over the trees and the three houses. I wanted to bring the glider down as low as possible first. I pulled in over the houses and rocked up at about ten feet AGL. Now the idea was to just wait it out. Wait until the glider was ready to stop flying then flare. I ignored that fact that the trees were coming up quickly.

When the glider said that it was running out of steam I flared and had a wonderful one step landing with the glider resting nicely on my shoulders. The trees were still a ways away and there was no wind in the field or around it. Now I can have some confidence that if I have to land out next week it won't be a disaster.

http://www.fastretrieve.com/PWCA/2010/Chelan%20%28Comp-Open%29.htm

Rank Name Nation Glider Score 1 Josh COHN USA Niviuk Ice Peak 5550 2 Nicholas GREECE USA Ozone Mantra R10.2 5360 3 Yasushi KOBAYASHI JPN Gin Boomerang proto 5137 4 Ayumu MIYATA JPN Gin Boomerang 7 5045 5 Jack BROWN USA Ozone Mantra R10 5000 6 Len SZAFARYN USA Ozone Mantra R 100.2 4962 7 Ulrich PRINZ DEU Gin Boomerang 7 4875 8 Dean STRATTON USA Ozone Mantra R10.2 4863 9 Andre RAINSFORD ZAF Ozone Mantra R10.2 4819 10 Carlos Daniel GOMEZ VEN Gin Boomerang 4744

http://www.fastretrieve.com/PWCA/2010/6.html

Josh Cohn and the USHPA Magazine editor, Nick Greece, finish one and two in Chelan.

Paul Voight <flyhigh> writes:

I recently witnessed a Hang Gliding landing clinic held in Salt Lake by my son, Ryan Voight. The experiment was a total success with 9 pilots attending (willing to shell out funds to learn to be better landers!) Which I find refreshing!

Every participant went away with better landing skills (and the knowledge to improve further!)

I brought the idea back to New York and decided to hold another landing clinic here in Ellenville, hiring in Ryan to run the clinic.

The format involves flying, (weather permitting), video analysis, and class-room discussion.

DATES: Saturday July 31st + Sunday, Aug. 1st - cost $95 per pilot. The clinic can be held rain or shine as stock footage and the lecture material easily support the subject

Results

# Name Nat Glider Total 1 Gerolf Heinrichs AUT Moyes Litespeed Litespeed RS-3.5 8153 2 Thomas Weissenberger AUT Moyes Litespeed RS3.5 8012 3 Attila Bertok HUN Moyes Litespeed 7847 4 Mario Alonzi FRA Aeros Combat 09 GT 13.2 7842 5 Dan Vyhnalik CZE Aeros Combat 09 14L 7803 6 Primoz Gricar SLO Aeros Combat 09 GT 13,2 7528 7 Grant Crossingham GBR Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5 7449 8 Christian Voiblet SUI Aeros Combat 09 GT 13,2 7430 9 Martin Harri SUI Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5 7386 10 Balazs Ujhelyi HUN Moyes Litespeed RS4 7380 11 Alessandro Ploner ITA Laminar Z9 (Icaro) 7073 12 Elio Cataldi ITA Wills Wing T2C 6999 13 Carl Wallbank GBR Moyes Litespeed RS 3.5 6852 14 Filippo Oppici ITA Moyes LITESPEED RS4 6850 15 Davide Guiducci ITA LITESPEED S3,5 (Moyes) 6712 16 Gordon Rigg GBR Moyes Litespeed S4 6689 17 Jon Durand Jnr AUS Moyes Litespeed RS 3,5 6535 18 Marc Utrillo ESP Aeros Combat L09 6283 19 Christian Ciech ITA Laminar Z9 (Icaro) 5879 20 Luis Rizo Salom FRA Wills Wing T2C 144 5864

Teams:

# Name Total 1 ITA 22803 2 AUT 22642 3 SUI 22351 4 GBR 22254 5 FRA 20764 6 HUN 20735 7 CZE 20234 8 GER 19030 9 SLO 18033 10 RUS 16858

http://www.guarnieritrophy.it/index.php?dest=delta&sub=prog&lang=en

We drove up to the hang glider launch at Mount Grappa, but I wasn't feeling right about flying, so we just waited around until Mathias and Heinz launched. The cloud base was low but there were vast amounts of cu's out in the flats which were very enticing. A couple of paraglider pilots had ventured out there and it was great to see them leave the hill side.

The winds were just right on launch and we had just seen a pilot flying a Bautek Twister get back up from almost landing at the LZ. He was disappearing behind a cloud when the two pilots took off.

Belinda and I drove down the switchback and by the time we got down to the bottom and to the LZ Heinz and Mathias were low above the LZ and planning to land. Looking back at the hill side we could see the cu-nimb activity behind it and the towering cu's over it. The whole ridgeline had dark clouds above it.  I guess it was the right feeling not to fly.

After meeting Franco Rinaldi for lunch at the restaurant at the LZ we all headed from Feltre for the competition this weekend. The cu-nimb exploded and there was rain once we got by the Brenta river in the canyon north of Bassano del Grappa.

The competition starts tomorrow on Saturday. Franco says that seven years ago this competition was as big at the Montegrappa competition with 100 pilots. Then the paraglider and hang glider pilots spilt.

On Thursday the clouds were low at about 4,000' on the Montegrappa launch as we looked toward the mountain from the LZ. They were also quite diffuse, soft looking. The forecast was for light lift.

After we drove up the switchbacks of Strada General Gardino to launch we saw that a few paraglider pilots were managing to soar so clearly flying was not a problem. We set up and I launched first in no wind conditions off the steep ramp. Heading west I didn't find any lift until almost the end of the ridge line and then it was a substantial thermal that showed 500 fpm on the twenty second averager. I was quickly to cloud base at 4,200'.

After a few minutes of fooling around on the hill I headed west to the next hill, Costalunga, across a small valley, Valle Santa Felicita. Getting near the west side of Costalunga I found good lift and again climbed quickly to cloud base. I had noticed that unlike the first two days here there were plentiful cu's out to the south in the flats. I wanted to leave the hills and go cross country.

I couldn't go that far cross country as Belinda had taken the train to Padova to check out Giotti's, so that idea was to do an out and return. Also there were airspace issues to the south away from the hills.

The cu's are barely visible because of all the moisture in the air. When you climb to cloud base you can't quite tell where the open air ends and the cu's begin. It gets especially thick right near the base of the cu's. If you look out horizontally it is quite dark. At the same time it is no problem to look down and see the ground below.

It turned out that there was plenty of usable lift under the rapidly developing and diminishing cu's to the south being blown to the east by the five mph west winds. I wasn't able to get to Cassola to where we are staying but made three attempts and each time was able to get back to lift to the north whenever I got down to 3,000'. It would have been easy to glide to Cassola, but I wanted to be able to come back without difficulties.

I thoroughly enjoyed being out in the flats away from even the minor turbulence of the hill sides. This is not something that I choose to feel better about, that is just the way it is. I would love it if turbulence didn't bother me at all, and in competition it seems to bother me a lot less.

Years ago when I first started going cross country I flew at Chelan Butte in Washington state, USA. The Butte is about 3,500', but only 700' above the flats five miles to the east on the other side of the canyon formed by the Columbia River that almost surrounds the Butte. My first big competition took place at Pine Mountain, Oregon, east of bend, and it is a lone hill surrounded by flat desert. It can be rough out there in the flats, as I have experienced in the flats east of Chelan, but for the most part I love the flats (especially in Texas).