2016 Summer and lakeside wildfire

A major exciting point on Jackson Lake in late summer of 2016 was the Berry Fire that exploded on the northwest shore and spread all the way to the south entrance of Yellowstone NP.

The Balboa 24, Turva.

The fire on August 27th.

Strong afternoon winds and dry conditions led to very fast fire growth.

The Bombardier CL-415 Super Scoopers 260 and 263 operated by Aero-Flite were fighting the fires. 

1,600 gallons picked up in 12 seconds, at least per Wikipedia.

Not too often probably that you get to watch a scooper pick up water with the fire it is fighting visible in the background.

The lake must be big enough that they didn't need to close it for boats.

They were actually flying north though, towards Yellowstone.

They fly in formation one behind the other, and made the round trip in very regular intervals.

A smoke-filled valley.

The winds filled in even worse the next day.

2015/2016 late winter

Nice April skate skiing conditions.

Much faster method of travel on the water surface, unless maybe we get a sailboat that foils!

Playing follow the otter tracks.

Sometimes straight, sometimes not.

It just keeps going....

2015 Late Summer

August and September Conditions:

A dry looking Skillet Glacier this year.

A great evening sunset sail.

Morning at the south end of the lake.

The Grand looking imposing with some late summer snow.

The local Tanzer 22.

Great weather for the final weekend of the year.

2015 Mid Summer

Variable August weather...

Atypical low clouds.

A beautiful morning.

A squall that was nice and didn't produce any lightning.

2015 Launch

Finally launched in July after the serious boat work projects.

A dry summer.

2015 restoration work

A late launch in 2015 to complete some deck and cabintop wet/delaminated core repair, and some other restoration work.

Bad port sidedeck.

Foreward cabintop was particularly bad, a very flexible top skin.

Most sidedeck bad core removed to dry balsa.

The bad/wet balsa.

Nearly every piece of deck hardware was removed, and the penetrations were overdrilled through the top skin, filled with thin and then thickened epoxy, and redrilled through the plug.

Often re-used the cut inner skin, and taped the joint with cloth and biax.

One mistake was slightly over-shimming the supports and not checking the deck, resulting in putting a little too much camber back into the sidedeck after curing.

Fall 2013 CJ Strike

Fall 2013 Southern Idaho Sailing Association race on CJ Strike Reservoir near Mountain Home, Idaho.

Always a fun mix of trailerable boats with SISA.

The winds always seem to be pretty good at CJ Strike.

2013 low water

A super calm and warm high pressure system the weekend before Halloween. An overnight kayak trip to check out the shallow water areas with the very low lake level this year.

Impressive to see the entire lake like a sheet of glass.

Not ideal sailing conditions!