Here are a few photos from an adventure Colleen and I shared early in our relationship. This was from August 4. The reason there are only a few photos was Colleen had just bought her camera and the camera's battery wasn't fully charged.
West of Kalispell is a skydiving outfit, Skydive Lost Prairie. Every year they have a large skydiving event (the Skydive Lost Prairie Boogie) for a week the end of July, the beginning of August. I've wanted to attend to see what it is like but haven't gotten around to it. Back in 1985, when I lived in Minnesota, I did five skydiving jumps at the Wissota skydiving club in Wisconsin. So I have an interest in skydiving, though no longer a strong interest in actually skydiving as skydiving now falls under "been there, done that".
Colleen has a woman friend who is an avid skydiver and Colleen thought she would be at the skydiving "boogie".
So we got directions off the internet and away we went.
On the way to the skydiving place we drove by Dan's house. Dan... the guy who pastures cattle at my place. I've known Dan for years but never actually been to his place. We stopped at Dan's place so I could see his setup for how he holds his cattle over the winter, and for Colleen to meet him.
Dan was home, though he was initially confused as to who we were as we were in Colleen's pickup. We had a nice long chat and look around his place. Colleen and Dan got along great. I also got a measurement of his narrowest corral so I have an idea of the width I might make my loading chute when I rebuild my loading corral.
Then it was off to the skydiving boogie.
We could see lots of parachutes floating down as we drove down the dusty gravel road out of the trees and into the valley. The valley, surrounded by mountains, is a big and flat. There is plenty of room for planes to take off and land on the dirt airstrip.
After parking we walked over to the tents and quickly found Colleen's skydiving friend. She was relaxing and waiting for her next turn. In our conversation I learned she used to live in Wisconsin and had sky dived at Wissota skydiving club in Wisconsin and knew the owners. A small world, isn't it?
Colleen was hungry but the food cafe was out of buns. They had sent someone to get more buns but we decided not to wait. I bought us some huckleberry ice cream cones from some enterprising young kids earning money selling ice cream on a hot day.
We wandered along the airstrip watching the planes take off, and when they weren't, we looked at the "tent city" of the skydivers camped out for the weekend, if not the whole week judging by the looks of some of the setups.
We walked down the gravel road to the landing zone and watched the skydivers as they landed. A tent canopy was set up. Inside was a man who volunteered as the medic. Fortunately business was slow so he also filled paper cups with cold water for the skydivers to drink as they waited for the trailer to ferry them and their chutes back to the 'tent city' area.
The only injury that he treated was to a non-skydiver. A family was swimming at a nearby lake and a pre-teen chubby girl injured her foot on the dock when jumping in the lake. She was in tears from the pain. The medic had a good bedside manner as he chatted with the girl and put her at ease while he examined her foot. His recommendation was to go to Kalispell to have it x-rayed.
While the medic examined the girl's foot Colleen and I filled the cups with water for the newly arrived skydivers.
In between the groups landing we chatted with the medic as to where he was from originally (California) and where and what he did now.
It took multiple attempts for Colleen and I to develop the skill to see the free falling skydivers in their formations before they deployed their chutes. We could easily hear the plane high overhead and could tell when he cut his engine and the parachutists made their jumps.
Some skydivers came down so fast you'd think they were going to crash into the ground but they braked at the last minute and landed softly. As they zoomed in you could hear their chutes fluttering madly in the wind.
At the landing zone a barb wire fence for a neighboring property wasn't too far from the landing zone. A number of people landed in the neighbor's field to ensure they missed the fence. Once we saw someone almost go into the fence during their landing. That was a "butt" landing. Part of their chute did fall onto the fence.
One woman had to cut away from her main chute high up and go to her reserve chute. It was fairly windy so the main chute drifted away. Way away. A guy (boyfriend?) pedaled up on his bicycle after she had returned to the tent city as asked if we had seen which way it went. Nope. He pedaled down the road and some time later came back with the parachute. Kinda like me and my hat that blew off the cliff last week... where there's a will, there's a way to find it.
Another time a group of skydivers jumped with an inflatable raft. I think they took turns sitting in it as they fell. Eventually all had to deploy their chutes and the raft floated off to the east. A kid with an ATV went after it. I think he eventually found it.
There were plenty of women skydivers. They were easy to pick out as when they came down many would hoop and holler in their excitement. We saw Colleen's friend after she made her jump.
The skydivers were a variety of people and ages, though they tended to be on the younger side.
The Chippy Creek fire was less than a week old. Still it produced a fair amount of smoke. The Brush Creek fire was burning also. Fortunately our location was out of the smoke. Chippy Creek's smoke passed SE of us and we were west of the Brush Creek fire. It was nice to see blue sky and breath fresh air.
I saw a sticker that was the answer to the airplane pilot's question, "Why jump out of a perfectly good airplane?" The answer, "There is no perfectly good airplane."
The two planes that carried the skydivers. The first plane had a tremendous propeller backwash as it took off. The medic tent was at the end of the runway and when this plane started its takeoff the medic would hold the one side of the tent canopy to prevent the tent from being blown away.
Here is the medic tent. The medic is the guy with sunglasses facing this way. In the background behind him is the barb wire fence I mentioned earlier. The jump organizers placed pink ribbons in the fence to help the skydivers see the fence.
Many of the groups had people with cameras to record their jump.
And no, neither Colleen nor I did a skydiving jump when we were there.
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