The Wellvilles

Launch

The Wellvilles are a range of mountains slightly north of Brigham City, Utah. It is a perfect formation of crags and peaks that looks as though God designed it specifically for soaring. I have eyed them for years. Everytime I drive up to the Short Divide, I pass the Wellvilles to the west and wonder about the possibilities of flying the perfect range. Cody and Greg flew the Wellvilles in June after being introduced to the site by a local pilot, and since then I have pestered them about flying there. This past Saturday the weather conditions looked poor around Salt Lake for flying and there wasn't enough wind for the Short Divide, so we came up with a plan to fly the Wellvilles with Cody's house (and a barbecue) as our goal - which works because Cody's house is only 8-10 miles to the east, over the back.


Bruce launching


Greg


Greg

Finding a driver is always an issue, especially with sites like the Wellvilles. Because the launch area is an hour's drive from the LZ and because the road is very primitive, you don't want to drive back up to retrieve your vehicle. We were in luck! One of my friends from Texas was out for the week and we managed to hornshwaggel (in Texas a word meaning to coerce or finagle) Darryl into driving. Darryl and I met Cody and Greg in Brigham City around 12:30 pm, and before long we were on the road to the Towers launch. The road to the top is in my book a catagory 4-5, with 5 being the nastiest, scariest road I've been on. Along the way to the top Darryl could be heard muttering short sentences under his breath like, you crazy fools do this for fun?, as well as making reference to situations where one might have brought along a case of pampers. At one point for meanness Cody locked the doors and sped up the truck just to dispell any ideas anyone might have about abandoning the truck.


Greg


Bruce


Bruce


Cody


So we made it to the top without incident, and we were rewarded with one of the most beautiful launches I've been on. We quickly set up in the afternoon breeze, and before long I was launched and circling in a little disorganized core above a craggy spine just north of launch. The thermal amazingly came together, and I was soon a few hundred feet over launch. The boys were quickly suiting up and making their way to launch as I was coring my way to a thousand feet over. Greg and Cody took off close together and were soon making the best of the late afternoon lift. At one point, in the words of Darryl, Cody was well below the prominent point in front of launch and out of site when he meandered into a decent core that saved him from a premature landing. The boys stuck it out in the light lift for another 45 minutes and managed to climb out to a thousand and some change over. Greg was the next to go over the back and with his altitude managed to fly to Pisgha Peak, which is the mountain directly over the back. Greg was amazed to see Cody venture over the back, being only a few hundred feet above launch, the Code Man got drilled and ended up landing in Sardine Canyon. Greg soon found himself out of lift and low and opted to land in the same wash Cody had landed in earlier.

I was able to manage a bit more altitude and squeaked over the back. I landed at the Dobson's residence after conversing with Cody several times on the radio regarding the location of his house. We all ended up at Cody's house where we had a great barbecue and enjoyed the Dobson's awesome digs.




Cody's backyard