Slope Trash Magazine Adventure at the Amelia Earhardt Museum Slope

From Slope Trash Magazine

Slope Trash Magazine
Adventure at the Amelia Earhardt Museum Slope
By Greg Smith
Aug 24, 2002, 00:33

On the way back home from the Midwest Slope Challenge, I happened through Atchison, Kansas, the birthplace of Amelia Earhart. I decided to drive past the house her grandparents owned when she was born.

The house is on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River and wouldn’t you know it, there is a slope right out front. It is a small park and the bluff is covered with trees (more on that in a minute), but it is a slope nonetheless. It just seemed appropriate to at least make a couple of passes in Amelia’s memory.

I tossed the SH-50 and circled around to test out the landing area. I gave it a bit more on the next go and found some lift over the trees. After a couple of passes I landed again. Now for a good toss and straight in to the lift zone. I had planned to go out a bit further and get more room to work with and after a few turns it seemed all was well, that is until I grazed a particularly tall tree on the left and spun it in. OOPS!

The ground cover was super dense and I pushed my way through to try to find my downed bird. I spotted it in some trees below the lip of the bluff. Uh, Oh that seems to be a long way down and steep too. After almost sliding down the face of the bluff, I decided to attack the problem from below since I could not reach it from the top.

I spent the next hour or so searching in vain as well as sliding down the steep bluffs every so often. Is that poison ivy? I hope not! (as of today I seem to be relatively free of itching. So far so good, either I missed it, or I am one of the 25% that does not get affected by the plant).

Anyway, I was beginning to think how ironic it would be if my memorial flight ended up with a lost plane. I went back to the top, got my bearings and a couple of landmarks below, went down to the bottom again and this time as I walked up the hill for a final attempt to find the plane there it was, just lying on the ground waiting for me to pick it up and undamaged to boot. So I guess all’s well that ends well and I still think it was a nice thing to do for the memory of Amelia.

For info on the museum go to http://www.ameliaearhartmuseum.org/