Greg,

Blairstown is a great place for fall/winter/spring ridge soaring. Field
conditions permitting, we fly through all of winter and any day of the week
since we have a commercial operator (Yard Creek Soaring) doing the towing.
The tows are standard to 2000-2500ft AGL over to the ridge, which is 4
miles away to the NW. In higher performance, you can easily make it back
from the ridge, though if there is any discomfort in making it back, we
have a model airplane at the base of the ridge to land in as our primary
land-out option.

The section we fly is Blue Mountain, primarily a 60 mile section, though it
continues both to the NE and SW of those two extremes, with certain
sections more or less flyable than others. The primary section has several
gaps and discontinuities which make it very interesting experience to fly.
Just once you start getting settled down and going fast, there's another
small transition ahead to start thinking about, which is a great learning
experience. Also, while our ridge on the better days is very solid, it is
not the best shaped ridge nor the highest. If you learn to the fly the
Blairstown ridge, you will be most likely comfortable flying any other
ridge along the Alleghany system in places such as Mifflin, etc.

In terms of badges/XC flying that can be done out of Blairstown, all of the
distance legs can be reasonably achievable depending on the conditions and
the skill level of the pilot. A Gold Distance can be relatively easily
achieved on any solid post-frontal ridge day just on our 60 mile section of
ridge if done with 4 legs. Diamond Goal/Distance require transitioning
upwind to the next couple sets of ridges which requires its own
considerations and better thermal conditions, and is usually possible more
in fall/Spring rather than the Winter. Blairstown also has wave conditions
set up fairly frequently, but it tends to be fairly elusive. There have
been Gold Climbs done out Blairstown, with the highest climb past 16,000ft,
but its not something to count on contacting on a consistent basis, like at
certain wave sites. Also, it is worth mentioning that we occasionally get
really special Southeasterly winds that make the "Backside" ridge work.
Since the wind comes in from the ocean, it tends to be a stable system
which dampens convection which makes the ridge super smooth. It is also
very steep and works with very little wind and is almost a wave flight
experience. I have noticed on multiple occasions that we will have a NW day
as a high pressure moves in, and then we will get a SE wind on the second
day as the high moves through. These days are relatively rare, but when
they happen, they leave a grin on everyone's face that has flown.

Some flights done out of Blairstown on the ridge:

Ron Schwartz-
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...ml?dsId=758843
Bobby Templin-
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...l?dsId=2300433
Ryszard Krowlikowski-
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...l?dsId=2300438

Something most can do on a "typical" NW day-

Imre Bocskay in the club 1-34-
http://www.onlinecontest.org/olc-2.0...l?dsId=2833799

If you have any further questions, you are more than welcome to contact me
at daniel AT sazhin dot net. We'd love to see ya out here!

Best Regards,

Daniel Sazhin
Aero Club Albatross/ 1-26 Assocation

At 19:36 17 September 2013, Greg Delp wrote:
I'm interested in doing some ridge flights in the Northeast US at various
s=
ites like Blairstown, Wurtsboro, Springfield etc... while bringing fellow
c=
lub members along to share the new experiences. Can anyone point us to
spec=
ific information and resources for the different sites? I've been able to
l=
ocate a few general briefings for Ridge Soaring and some older info in
ACA'=
s Blue Fly series but would like to get some more recent information
about=
the current tow operators, suggestions for Silver, Gold, and Diamond
dista=
nce tasks, recent land out area info and basically anything that will
help
=
some newbies get on the ridges safely. Any help with upwind ridge
transiti=
ons and the best places and techniques to make the transitions would be
app=
reciated too. Thanks in advance.=20

Greg
DY