Volcanic Peak, 376' agl, Face 025º, 0.2mi Long

[Bill Cummings]

Volcanic Peak
My wife told me of this peak with a communications tower on it's western end in 1995.
While she was driving between Las Cruces and Deming, NM on Interstate ten she was at mile marker 116 and looking south when she spotted the mountain.
In 1997 we drove to the base of the tower but the road up was terrible with sharp volcanic rocks. (She named it, Volcanic Peak.)
I'm sure other pilots from the area knew of this place and checked it out and they may call it something else.
Cell phone coverage was non existent and even today (12/2016) with the Verizon network it can't be relied on but sometimes will work from the base of the tower.
About two years back Hadley Robinson and I went on an exploratory camping trip of the area and I told him that because of the road's condition it would be a waste of time driving up.
BUT -- Yesterday Robin and I were checking out a tow road area and a dry lake bed near the same mountain and since it had been nineteen years sine I was last there we checked the road up for improvements.
Sorry Hadley--- the road is now two wheel drive to the top. Many truck loads of dirt were hauled in to cover up the tire cutting lava rock.
Robin and I estimated that the site would take a north wind and after checking Google Earth back at home it would take a north wind.
The ideal wind direction is 025º
High point is 4,742' msl.
On Google Earth the tower location is:
32.177916º
-107.204110º
I would for now think that this site's ability requirements might be H2 or H3 and P1 or P2 but Hadley should give us his opinion.
Launch is near the base of the tower at 4,650' msl.
The closest landing zone (LZ) is at 4,366' msl at a 5/1 glide to the northwest of the tower.
The soaring ridge line is 0.2 mile long.
There is a power line to the north west the goes up to the tower.
For a short way there is a road that follows the pwr line that can be used for retrieving the pilot.
The mountain is on State land so permits may be needed for recreation. This will need further investigation.
Below I made a Snipping Tool capture of Google Earth:

Volcanic Peak.JPG (84.06 KiB) Viewed 10988 times

The yellow line is the soarable ridge face.
The two parallel red arrows show the wind direction 025º.
The red line to the northwest is the power line but the road following the poles disappears part way up.
Access is by way of the Afton railroad crossing to the east southeast.
From Las Cruces it takes about an hour of driving to do the 35 miles to the tower.

[RobinHastings]

Thanks for doing the research on it, Bill! It's pretty cool to have another potential flying site. It's not much lower, AGL, than Packsaddle in Texas - and a whole lot cheaper. I can hardly wait to take a flight there. (No north winds in next week's forecast, though.)
-Robin

[Bill Cummings]

Robin and I found a better LZ today. The LZ is a little higher yielding 350 feet but after launch a pilot would head to the east end of the ridge where the mountain gets higher by 100 feet.
I would probably land east of the mountain in a grassy area since it is closer to the road.
New pilots could land straight ahead into the wind (025 degrees.) and carry for three minutes straight into the wind to the road.
PG'ers are good to go from the base of the tower with no brush to grab lines due to the fill the tower people hauled in.
HG will entail carrying to a different spot and using a portable 3' by 12' ramp. Otherwise the launch would be like the rocky La Luz, NM north launch.
I came two or three steps from stepping on a Diamond Backed Rattle Snake. I think he has a nice home under the communications building at the base of the radio tower. I somehow lost some footage of different segments of our trip into Volcanic Peak. I lost the snake video too. I do have some stills with my Cannon camera that I took of the horizon features. I checked Google Earth for the direction and distance to each feature and will try to add them here as time permits.
At some point I could make a picture board and hang it on the tower fence so that people will have the terrain features identified. Like Names, Height, Distance and compass direction.
Below is the only video I could choke out of my GoPro and into my Dell. It shows the road up to the tower. It's a little over two minutes.
https://youtu.be/UwSp1tYrH6E

Robin on a 200º heading from the truck toward the LZ, in line with the tower..JPG (55.1 KiB) Viewed 10960 times

From the launch it is 0.4 mile (2,112') to the LZ flag just beyond the creosote bushes at the base of volcanic Peak. (6.5/1 glide)
Gee I hope my math is correct! You can still land shorter but the brush starts to get thicker.
From the LZ and straight ahead to the road and your retrieve pick up ride it is 0.16 of a mile. (845')
How's my math doing?
BY THE WAY. NO OFF ROAD VEHICLE USE.

[Bill Cummings]

TYPO ALERT! THE VOLCANIC MOUNTAIN RIDGE IS 2/10TH OF A MILE LONG NOT 2/100TH OF A MILE LONG
When the moderator gets some free time I'll see if he will go back and correct this typo.    {Corrected 1/1/2017}

Volcanic Peak
My wife told me of this peak with a communications tower on it's western end in 1995.
While she was driving between Las Cruces and Deming, NM on Interstate ten she was at mile marker 116 and looking south when she spotted the mountain.
In 1997 we drove to the base of the tower but the road up was terrible with sharp volcanic rocks. (She named it, Volcanic Peak.)
I'm sure other pilots from the area knew of this place and checked it out and they may call it something else.
Cell phone coverage was non existent and even today (12/2016) with the Verizon network it can't be relied on but sometimes will work from the base of the tower.
About two years back Hadley Robinson and I went on an exploratory camping trip of the area and I told him that because of the road's condition it would be a waste of time driving up.
BUT -- Yesterday Robin and I were checking out a tow road area and a dry lake bed near the same mountain and since it had been nineteen years sine I was last there we checked the road up for improvements.
Sorry Hadley--- the road is now two wheel drive to the top. Many truck loads of dirt were hauled in to cover up the tire cutting lava rock.
Robin and I estimated that the site would take a north wind and after checking Google Earth back at home it would take a north wind.
The ideal wind direction is 025º
High point is 4,742' msl.
On Google Earth the tower location is:
32.177916º
-107.204110º
I would for now think that this site's ability requirements might be H2 or H3 and P1 or P2 but Hadley should give us his opinion.
Launch is near the base of the tower at 4,650' msl.
The closest landing zone (LZ) is at 4,366' msl at a 5/1 glide to the northwest of the tower.
The soaring ridge line is 0.2 mile long.
There is a power line to the north west the goes up to the tower.
For a short way there is a road that follows the pwr line that can be used for retrieving the pilot.
The mountain is on State land so permits may be needed for recreation. This will need further investigation.
Below I made a Snipping Tool capture of Google Earth:

Volcanic Peak.JPG

See earlier post above for JPG.
The yellow line is the soarable ridge face.
The two parallel red arrows show the wind direction 025º.
The red line to the northwest is the power line but the road following the poles disappears part way up.
Access is by way of the Afton railroad crossing to the east southeast.
From Las Cruces it takes about an hour of driving to do the 35 miles to the tower.

[Bill Cummings]

Looking west from the base of the tower on Volcanic Peak in line we can see first Providence Cone 268º 4.2 miles. Elev. 1381m / 4532'
Beyond that is Dragon Ridge near Deming, NM at Elev. 1764m / 5786', 26.13 miles.
To expand the picture hold down the Ctrl key and hit the + (plus) key.

Providence cone 268º 4.2 mi - Dragon Ridge 26.13 mi. Looking west..JPG (55.13 KiB) Viewed 10955 times

______________________________________________________________________________________
Massacre Peak (Dona Ana Co.) 346º 14.6 miles, Elev. 1616m / 5303'

Massacre Pk 346º Elev. 1616m -5303' 14.6 miles.JPG (48.62 KiB) Viewed 10955 times

_______________________________________________________________________________________
Magdalena Peak 006º (North) 21.7 miles, Elev. 2019m / 6625'

Magdalena Pk. 006º 21.7 miles, Elev. 2019m - 6625'.JPG (39.41 KiB) Viewed 10953 times

[Bill Cummings]

Hey Robin, what do you think of my flight plan, for a landing pattern, for my first flight from Volcanic PK?
The sink out plan has me leaving the end of the ridge, 100' below the high point of 4,741' and heading for
the next cone to the SE. Then burning off the rest of the glide and land at the road to eliminate the carry
to the truck. It would be a crosswind downwind run with the SE cone to help with lift.
What do you think?

BC's landing pattern flight plan for 1 st flight..JPG (58.02 KiB) Viewed 10939 times

Close up of the LZ.JPG (62.08 KiB) Viewed 10939 times

[Bill Cummings]

I was able to find the lost video files of the expedition Robin and I did on December 12, 2016.
I edited and put together a little over six and a half minutes of our new, north northeast, facing hang gliding and paragliding site.
My wife nineteen years ago named it, Volcanic Peak. At its highest point it is about 425' above the landing zone (LZ).
The launch is about 325' above the landing zone which would be a 5/1 glide. The video shows the two wheel drive to the tower. The road doesn't switch back to the east to get you to the very top. At the base of the tower it is PG ready for launching. For hang gliding the launch can be done from the road edge almost at the tower.
https://youtu.be/776XMtBfEbs

Robin on a 200º heading from the truck toward the LZ, in line with the tower..JPG (55.1 KiB) Viewed 10932 times

[RobinHastings]

That's an excellent video, Bill. (Especially of the rattler...) It does a fine job of showing what the site is like. Weather forecasts show a possibility of northerly winds next week.
-Robin

[Bill Cummings]

Robin,
I've been looking at Volcanic Peak for soaring on the back side (South southwest) the prevailing direction.
The blue lines show the estimated wind direction limits that I think would work on this 4/1 slope, requiring 15 to 20 mph winds.
This SSW (average) face is also 0.2 mile long. The red line is launch level 313' agl along the back side.
At the east end of the ridge you would have 50 feet of terrain above launch, (above the red line.)
If one were to sink out below the red line, the yellow line is the path to the LZ.
The (yellow) path length would mean an 11/1 glide. Downwind --- I think that would be a realistic expectation.
What do you think?
This would have us driving to launch and from the LZ to the car it would be a carry down to the road.

11to1 downwind glide to LZ. Takes 180 through 230 direction.JPG (43.04 KiB) Viewed 10908 times

[RobinHastings]

DECEMBER 20, 2016:
Almost the winter solstice, but the temperature was T-shirt weather at the top of Volcanic Peak today. Winds were north, but very light, so we left the gliders at home. Bill and I did find a very nice slope for HG to take from though, which will handle wind directions from northwest to northeast. We looked at a potential southwest-facing launch point, too, and checked out some LZ's as well. We're ready to go when the winds and our schedules permit.
-Robin