A10
News
wallowa.com
August 12, 2015
Wallowa County Chieftain
Elk
Initiative
celebrates
25 years
Local paraglider first to
traverse Hells Canyon
By Steve Tool
Wallowa County Chieftain
Paragliding skill and just
the right weather helped lo-
cal part-time resident Todd
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Canyon in a wind-powered
device. Weigand is a profes-
sional paraglider who owns
several paragliding compa-
nies and resides part-time in
the Wallowa Valley.
Weigand made the 82-
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The record was no accident
for Weigand. “The day be-
fore, the weather forecast
was looking really good for
high cloud base for good
thermals and good wind di-
rection toward Idaho. “We
probably have to understand
air more than any other
air-user pilot in the world,”
Weigand said. Later that
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Snake River to Oxbow Dam,
camped out and hitched a
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After a quick lunch
and checking the forecast,
Weigand correctly deter-
mined a record-breaking
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directly east for the next 4.5
hours, reaching heights of up
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The enormous height was
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yon generally lacks thermals,
an upward current of warm
air paragliders use to main-
tain height. “You get as high
as you can because all the
way across, you’re sinking,
and (the canyon) is trying to
suck you in,” Weigand said.
In a stroke of good for-
tune, Weigand landed on a
little strip on Mackay Bar at
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Salmon and Main Salm-
on rivers. “I landed next to
this river camp with all the
people running over while
cheering and screaming,”
Weigand said.
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Weigand from the paraglid-
ing lessons his daughter had
taken from him. “I ended up
just being able to jump on
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the next two days until we
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seph.” Weigand said.
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the main fork of the Salmon
River.
Eagle Cap Excursion Train
Train Ride & Lookingglass
Hatchery Tour
Saturday, August 29
Departs from Elgin
at 10 a.m.
800.323.7330 eaglecaptrainrides.com
See the fall season schedule online.
The Blue Mountains Elk
Initiative (BMEI) celebrat-
ed 25 years with a two-day
celebration in Pendleton
earlier this month.
The BMEI is the lon-
gest-running initiative of
its kind. It represents the
partnerships between fed-
eral, state, private land-
owners and industries,
Tribal Nations, the Rocky
Mountain Elk Foundation,
and other sportsmen’s or-
ganizations and conserva-
tion groups.
The mutual goal of all
agencies involved is to im-
prove habitat for elk and
other wildlife across the
Blue Mountains of north-
east Oregon and southeast
Washington.
Nearly 10 million dol-
lars have been leveraged
since 1990 for habitat im-
provement, conservation
education and research.
Current issues facing
elk in the Blue Mountains
include: poor elk distribu-
tion, low calf recruitment
(survival) and invasive
weeds that quickly over-
take large areas, rendering
them unusable for elk and
many other native wildlife
species. More information
is available at www.fs.fed.
us/pnw/
Courtesy photo/Todd Weigand
Just another selfie at 15,000-foot-plus altitude. Todd Weigand, well on the way to his record-
breaking flight from Mt. Howard to Mackay Bar, Idaho.
Of course, Weigand takes
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ries a radio, a variometer,
which is a device that tracks
ascent and descent, as well as
a satellite tracker that sends
out signals as to his location.
A pack carries his sleeping
bag, food and safety equip-
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emergency parachute.
Weigand returned to this
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ly a decade, hoping to es-
tablish a tandem paragliding
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plenty of airtime here over
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all summer long, there’s lots
of good sites in the area,
over Imnaha, places by Elk
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yon. I’m looking forward to
it,” Weigand said.
Multitudes attend blues festival
By Steve Tool
Wallowa County Chieftain
It’s a long way from the
Mississippi Delta to Wallowa
County, but the blues made
its 19th yearly journey none-
theless. Five blues bands,
bronzes from Parks Bronze
and about 40 different beers
also journeyed to the Bronze,
Blues and Brews Festival held
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A larger-than-average au-
dience attended the opening
Cyril Neville,
night’s blues jam, held for the
bandleader as
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well as lead
evening of Aug. 7. Several of
vocalist for
the bands joined together for
headliners
a high-energy jam that last-
“Royal
ed for several hours during
Southern
the balmy evening. The beer
Brotherhood”
garden was open with offer-
belts out his
ings from several breweries to
own special
quench the thirst of revelers.
brand of
blues during
The main festival on Aug.
the finale of
8 opened with promising
the Bronze
weather and the stylings of
Blues and
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Brews
mond. “Polly O’Keary and the
Festival on
Rhythm Method” followed
Aug. 8
Steve Tool/Chieftain
with a high-energy set that in-
cluded O’Keary jumping off
Second to the headliners
the stage to mingle and play followed, playing their stellar
bass with a very appreciative Portland interpretation of New came the “Sultans of Slide”
featuring, you guessed it —
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slide guitar. The band has three
capable slide players who
played a number of standards
as well as original tunes well
into the evening.
Threatening clouds gath-
ered as headliners “Royal
Southern Brotherhood” took
to the stage, but the few min-
utes of rain failed to dampen
the spirits of most of the crowd
as the band, led by vocalist
and second-line percussionist,
Cyril Neville, and lead guitar-
ist Buddy Walker blazed their
way through the hottest set
OHSU Resident
of the night with much of the
Hunter Poarch, MD
crowd on their feet and danc-
7/28/15- 9/4/15
ing through the set. The blis-
tering set proved RSB is not
Hours:
Monday - Friday
considered one of the top U.S.
7:00am to 7:00pm
blues bands for nothing.
Saturday
After the closing number,
9:00am to 1:00pm
it’s doubtful anyone went
603 Medical Parkway
home without thinking they’d
Enterprise, OR 97828
gotten their money’s worth and
then some for the weekend.
Winding Waters Clinic
mainstreetshownshine.com
AUGUST 14 & 15th
Enterprise, OR
Register online at:
mainstreetshowandshine.com
Registration upon arrival $20.00
For information go to
mainstreetshowandshine.com
or contact us at
mainstreetshowandshine@gmail.com
or 541-426-2100
Visit wallowacountychamber.com
for information about lodging,
restaurants and more!
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