Flying sites

Take-off – Big Sur - Lower Hike and Fly

Direction: Takeoff orientation unknown.
Coordinates: 35.9350, -121.4600
Altitude: 305 m
Region: California, US

Take-off description

Takeoff is undeveloped and there are a few smaller trees that you need to fly over after launch. With any wind these should be easily cleared. You might be tempted to launch above the trail to have more clearance, but there is a tree on pilots left that can get in the way (don't ask me how I know), so it's better to launch a tiny but further down with more room. Exact launch coordinates 35.935109, -121.460307

Getting there

The trail can be found on some maps. basically you follow the trail that is marked as a road on google maps behind the fire station, then take the left after a half mile or so on the trail maked as "loop trail". The trail becomes very overgrown and once you can hike straight up the ridge, you should just hike straight up.

Weather

I launched with a NW wind and it worked well providing over an hour of ridge soaring and wind on launch was probably only 6-8mph cycles coming through. The soarable area is pretty small to pilots right, but fun. Bad sink exist on the lee side in NW. The previous day I launched from Prewitt Ridge and this launch area was the location of the best thermal and I climbed from 850ft to 2800ft...

Rules / airspace

National forest... same rules as Prewitt launch

Comments

I only launched here 1.5 times and if you can get a ride to Prewitt, that is better, but this is nice if you only can hike and fly.