Visiting A Special Place

Doug and I on Sauratown

For years, Doug Hileman and I have met at Hanes Mall early in the morning on Christmas Eve to do our final Christmas shopping. This year I had finished all my shopping so I suggested we head up to Sauratown Mountain to check out the hang gliding launch for 'old time's sake'.

In the early 1980's Doug and I, along with a group of devoted area hang glider pilots opened and developed one of the most reliable soaring sites on the whole east coast. Sauratown Mountain has 300 feet of south facing granite cliffs that collect the heat from the sun all day long and releasing it as thermals and the evening 'glass off' conditions which Sauratown became famous for.

Sauratown Mountain represents one of the great times in my life where I had a core group of close friends who all few together and worked for the combined goals of flying hang gliders at our 'own' site.

I moved away in the late 80's to further my hang gliding career, but all the time keeping my ties to my home site. In the early/mid 2000's the TV station that owned the property and had been working with us for years was bought out and the new owners didn't want the liability of having people flying hang gliders from their property - so they closed the site.

Doug and I met in King on Thursday morning and drove up as far as we could go on Tower Road and parked on the shoulder of the road, in the freshly plowed snow. It was probably a 3/4 mile walk past the locked gate and through the unplowed snow to the parking area where we'd unloaded gliders countless times in the past.

Walking past the old fire tower which apparently hasn't been used in a few years, I was reminded of how many times we used to run up the first few flights of stairs to get the best feel of which way the wind was blowing when we'd get to the top of the mountain. The first flight has now been removed to keep anyone from heading up the aging structure.

The Firetower

Walking on the north side of the rock structure and up the path toward launch, we were the first persons to make prints in the 5 day old snowfall. We crested the 'peak' of the mountain at 2443 feet above sea level and then walked the slight downhill slope over the rocks to the launch area.

The view from the 'peak' of the mountain.

The set-up area, which in the past would accommodate comfortably about 5-6 gliders, and in a pinch would hold 8-10, had now grown up with 4 ft. high scrub pines. The main launch ramp however as still in place and was completely usable - had we brought some gliders along.

The main ramp - still in usable condition

Visibility out into the valley was pretty good. It wasn't so crisp that you could see a sharp horizon, but still a good view.

The view toward King

It was really nice to be back up on the mountain. It brought back a lot of memories and while it was wonderful to be there again, it was quite sad at the same time. A lot of people: Jake, Peter, Tom, Doug, Jeff, Junebug and myself worked really hard to make the site a viable place to fly. Others, Doug R, Jeff R. and more joined later to keep the site open and safe.

We hung out probably about an hour and a half and then headed back to King for some lunch.

While we were up on the mountain, I tried out my new GoProHD camera by mounting it on the end of a 6-8 ft stick. You can see a couple of minutes of footage below:

Sauratown Launch - Christmas Eve 2009 from GW Meadows on Vimeo.

Be sure to click on HD to see it in the highest resolution.