So Cal XC

Garlock

2009-08-12T10:09:00.000-07:00

Two years ago I said that I wasn't going back to Blackhawk again. I wrote at the time that either I have lousy flight or I have to end a good one early because of my motion sickness problem; either way, I end up on the ground in triple digit temperatures feeling absolutely terrible. But since I made that pact with myself I've been back there three times averaging 104 miles a flight. So now I have a new site that I'm never going back to, Garlock.

The forecast going into Sunday wasn't stellar, but it was consistent. From the beginning of the week on, each model run said pretty much the same thing; for the desert, light SE winds below 11,000 ft with lift to about the same height. Blackhawk probably would have worked, but with the SE winds there would be a chance that we would run into airspace issues. Because of that, and for a bit of variety, we opted to go to Garlock instead.

Garlock is located about 30 miles north of Mojave just a bit south of where the 395 and 14 meet. Don't quote me on this, but it seems to be the north terminus of the Tehachipi mountain range. Launch is just under 5,000 ft and is even more barren than Blackhawk. Take off faces south. The prevailing winds here are generally SW. Because of China Lake, which is located due north of launch, pilots going XC have to either angle NE toward the Panamint Valley or NNW toward the Owens. Going up into Owens and flying the Sierra Mountains is, by far, more desirable, but it requires a SE wind; on Sunday that is what we were supposed to get and so that was our intention.

On Sunday Jonathan Dietch and I met up with Tony and Eddy at Jawbone Canyon at 10:30 before heading up to launch where we were to meet up with Bruce, Owen Morse, another pilot named Marcus (sorry, I don't the last name) and of course Wally the driver. To my pleasant surprise, Chris Van Veldon was with them when we pulled up to launch. The wind was crossing from the east when we arrived.

The other crew was almost completely set up by the time that we arrived so we quickly slapped our gliders together to catch up. Only, when I finish doing so I noticed that I failed to tie my VG line off and it was nowhere to be seen. It had disappeared up the downtube. Let's just say that when something like that happens you just can't stick your finger up there to pull it down. The LS4 is a great glider, but Moyes' downtube corner bracket system is one of the worse designs I've ever seen. Luckily for me it was still cross; without all the help I received I might be still up there.

At some point while getting the glider back together the winds turned upslope and pilots started piling off of the hill with Tony leading the way. Although no one seemed in danger of bombing out, no one was skying out either. I had only flown Garlock one other time; after struggling around launch I finally found my ticket out by heading over to the eastern most spine on the ridge. Because of that experience I headed directly to the same spot after launching on Sunday. However, this time the spine didn't produce. Owen was there with me, and although we did gain some height the lift was short lived. At about the same time both Chris and Marcus were working something near launch. Owen made the first move in their direction and then I followed after. Tony, Jonathan and Bruce were already on their way north.

Because I was the last person to the lift I was the low man on the totem pole. And as we climbed out and drifted behind launch the gap widened. Sensing that was about to be left behind I decided to fly back out in front of launch to see if I could find something else. I was rewarded with 1500 up and quickly caught up to the other pilots.

Soaring with Owen at 11,000 ft

Up ahead I could see Bruce heading out on course, but I wasn't sure where Tony and Jonathan were. I had my radio volume switch set too low and so I couldn't hear what was going on up ahead. Eventually I managed to get to the switch but I still didn't turn it up enough. Enough, though, to hear that there was a lot chatter going on so I decided to leave volume where it was. That decision probably cost me a lot of extra miles as I will explain in a bit.

Boomer Ridge

After first giving Black Mountain a go and not really finding anything worth stopping for I took my 11k altitude and angled over to Boomer Ridge and the Sierra Mountains. Once I crossed the 14 I could see Jonathan on the ridge flushing out from the back high points. It has been my experience that whenever I'm drilled off the mountain like that it's either because I got caught in a lee or that there was a large thermal forming out in front of the spine, drawing all of the surrounding air to it. Because of that, I stopped to work any up air I could find at that point hoping that it would eventually turn on and drift me right over the spine rather than copping a glide right to it. None of the light stuffed panned out but right before flying over the ridge I ran into a screamer. Coming into the area at about the same time was Chris Van Veldon; both of us climbed out quickly.

Inyokern

Jonathan was still struggling below on the ridge; I wanted to tell him that the thermal was out away from it to the south, but the lift was so strong I was afraid to let go of the base bar in order to key my radio mic. And speaking of radios, as I mention earlier having the volume turned down probably cost me a few extra miles. Had I had it turned up I would have heard Bruce say that the Sierra crest was working more than just fine. Whenever I fly down a mountain range I prefer flying over the front points and Sunday was no different. From Boomer Ridge I flew due north directly over the front points instead of using the altitude I had at the time to glide over the crest. Both Owen and Bruce reported later that once over the crest their flights were relatively easy and that they were able to take fairly long glides between thermals. I on the other hand, found strong sink over the canyons and choppy lift over the spines; a perfect combination for my motion sickness problem.

Still, at 30 miles out and at 11,000 ft I was in a pretty good position if not feeling all that well. Although faint, I could hear Owen on the radio say that he was at the exact same distance out at the exact same height. Only, I couldn't see him anywhere. I continued on. Near little lake another contributing factor to my relatively short flight presented itself in the form of a huge golden eagle. As I started to work some weak lift I got a sense that something was following me. I turned around to see the majestic bird just 5 feet off my keel. Thinking that he'd get bored and fly away I continued to work the weak lift. Four or five 360s later the eagle hadn't gone anywhere. I decided that it was time to move on despite not having the altitude I wanted to do so. A short time later I found myself unzipping my harness getting ready to land. However as I picked out the dirt road to land on I found something off the deck that would eventually get me back to 9k, eventually being the operative word.

Haiwee Reservoir

The climb seemed to take forever, which didn't do anything to help my mental state at the time. One more climb down the road a bit and I had had enough. I hadn't actually thrown up at that point, but I got on the radio to say that I was calling it a day and that I would be landing in Olancha. Only, half way through my glide it became painfully apparent that I needed one more small climb to make it. I write painfully, because feeling the way I did I wanted desperately to land on cool green grass and breakdown under a shade tree rather than out on the desert floor. About a mile out and unzipped again, I found some lift directly over 395. Circling just a couple of hundred feet off of the deck I gave the cars going by a show. I just hope that no one was outside looking up if you know what I mean.

Getting off the deck to get to the cool green grass

So now that's two flights from Garlock with both ending prematurely because of airsickness. I think a lot of it has do with the fact that because the site is new to me I don't have a sense of how long it takes to get from one point to another. Everything seems a bit far and out of reach so when I'm struggling a bit it's easy to give into my problem. Anyway, I'm not ready to give up on the site quite yet until I have tried flying down the crest from Boomer Ridge.

As far as they other guys: Bruce would win the day flying 135 miles; Owen and Jonathan would have personal bests going 126 and 83 miles respectively; Tony ended up landing on the south side of Owens Lake after experimenting with a line that didn't pan out; and Chris and Marcus ended up on the ground near Little Lake.

Distance: 61.17 Miles
Duration: 2:53 Hours
Max Altitude: 11,796 ft

Completing the Circuit

2009-06-28T23:30:00.000-07:00

I'm running out of personal hang gliding goals; I'm down to wanting to land on the beach in Fenwick Island, Delaware.

Because of my motion sickness problem I'm never going to fly great distances so my goals haven't been about site records or clicks on an odometer - well, except for breaking 100 miles (3 times to date) - they've been bit more modest: enter a major contest (Dinosaur Nats 1996); do the milk-run from Walt's to Janie's (finally in 2007); reach 17,999 ft (a number of times); fly certain routes; etc. One flight that I've always wanted to do starts at Pine Mountain, uses Frazier Mountain or Interstate 5 as a turnpoint and ends up on the beach in Santa Barbara. The flight isn't all that long but what makes it so neat and challenging is the terrain that needs to be traversed in order to make it happen. On Sunday the forecast looked like there might be a chance of achieving said goal. I've come close once, having had to settle with landing in Ojai instead.

With predicted SE winds over the weekend the best call for a long distance flight was Blackhawk on either of the two days. And, indeed, that ended up being the case for a few of the pilots that opted to go out there on Saturday. Tony flew to Quayle Lake for 115 miles; Bob Anderson landed in Neenach for 108; and Jeff Chipman and Chris Smith flew back to Sylmar for 91 miles, getting there above 10,000 ft. I could have joined them, but I opted to fly Pine Mountain on Sunday instead, mostly for the reason stated above. But also because I had just done that Blackhawk to the west flight the last time out. Not to mention that at the end of the day there would be a chance of landing on the beach and breaking down on nice green grass with a cool seabreeze in my face vs landing in the 106 degree heat in the desert. And finally, the flight would, coincidentally, complete my own little Race and Rally around the Southern California mountains that started back on Valentine's day.

I met Chris Van Veldon and Jonathan Dietch at the Kagel LZ at 8:30 after picking up driver Dana. Some of the Kagel pilots were looking to get away from the inversion layer so we had another truck load of pilots joining us, including Ron Weiner and Rob Burgis. Since I wanted to point out some of the LZs and retrieval roads to the pilots who had never flown Pine before we opted to take the back way through Frazier Park and Lockwood Valley. The forecast called for higher tops and more cloud development than Saturday; the first whispies started forming over Mt Pinos by the time that we reached the west end of Lockwood Valley at around 10:30. The upper winds were supposed to be out of the SE, but it was blowing light NW on the deck on the backside of Pine, which pretty much ended any thoughts of attempting a flight toward Salinas. Something that was considered after looking at the forecast.

Although it was blowing light north at Pine's old north launch it was blowing light south when we arrived at take-off. Tony already had his Atos, with its brand spanking new Mylar sail, set up when we pulled up. By the time we got the gliders off the truck the clouds had begun to fill in on the backside of the mountain. From our vantage point they seemed to have a bit more drift than the 5-8 kt SE winds indicated in the forecast.

Looking out toward Lake Casitas from above Pine.

Tony launched first and got up right away if not terribly high over the normal go to spine just west of launch. But once over the back I watched him climb out toward cloud base before turning my attention to getting ready myself. Jonathan was airborne not long after Tony and was already on the backside of the mountain by the time I launched 20 minutes later, followed by Chris soon after that. However, Chris and I struggled to get up high enough to go OTB. After an initial climb to 8k I found myself back down even with launch for another relight. On the second climb I didn't get much higher, but when I heard Jonathan on the radio say that he was climbing through 11k I left with what I had. Unfortunately, Chris didn't connect and ended up landing on the south side of launch.

Looking south from the backside of Pine. Below looking north from the same spot

Once over the back it took awhile to connect with something. The air was very buoyant, but I couldn't find anything organized. That is until I flew just south of Dry Canyon, about half-way to the Chute where I had a nice climb to the mid 13s. From there I just followed the clouds eastward against, just like what was predicted, a 5-8 kt headwind. Once over the "Badlands" things really turned on and found myself racing from cloud suck at just over 16k. At the same time the Kagel crew were on the radio still on the south side wondering whether or not to go over the back. Me reporting 16,000 ft made the decision a bit easier.

Getting ready to head east over the Badlands. Notice the smoke from a fire on the Grapevine just on the other side of Frazier. At one point the smoke formed in a column that went straight to cloudbase. (Photo by Jonathan Dietch)

During our pilot briefing earlier I let it be known that I thought that it would be a day to follow the clouds rather than the normal go to spots on the ground. Unfortunately, I didn't heed my own advice east of the Badlands. There was a nice cloud street to the north over Mt Pinos heading east, and two or three small clouds lined up just south of Frazier, but that didn't stop me from B-lining it to Frazier itself. From a starting point of 16k just short of Lockwood Valley I found myself below 10,000 ft on the far east side of it. Eventually, I latched on to something to get me back to 13k, but by the time I reached the towers on the east side of Frazier I was back down to 10k. After turning circles in some ratty lift while not really gaining any height I had a decision to make: should I continue to work the ratty stuff hoping that it would eventually turn on; continue on east hoping that I might find something that would put me back in the ball game; or turn tail and use whatever altitude I had left to get back to Lockwood in the hope that my last thermal would still be there. It came down to what was more important, tagging Interstate 5, which was just 2 or 3 miles away, or making it back to Santa Barbara. The distance doesn't seem like much, but the longer the delay for the return trip the greater the chance of getting shut down by the seabreeze. Also the lower you are in the Tejon Pass the more susceptable you are of getting knock down by the prevailing north wind seeping in from the Central Valley. I decided that getting back to Santa Barbara was more important than a few extra miles so I opted to turn tail at the towers. You can see me doing just that in Jonathan's video below.

By the time that I made it back to Lookwood I was down to 7k. That seemed awfully low after being so high earlier, but I still had about 2,000 ft to work with once I hit the valley. Fortuntately I found something almost right away which took me back to the mid 13s. While this was all going on Rob and Ron had decided not to try the out and return and instead opted to take their then 16k altitude over the Badlands and glide straight to Santa Barbara. Listening to their progress it became apparent that I just needed one more decent climb on my route and I would be able achieve my goal.

From just south of Mt Pinos I followed the cloud street as it arched around the north side of Lockwood to the middle of the Badlands. And just like during the leg heading east, at almost the same exact spot, I was forced to race away from cloudsuck at 16,000 ft. Once clear of the clouds I went on my 30 mile glide to Santa Barbara. The decision to go was made easy by the fact that the Kagel boys had arrived at the beach with 8,000 ft.

Getting ready to cross over the San Rafael Wilderness Area on my way to Santa Barbara from Pine. Below a closer look at the terrain

A portion of the long glide to Santa Barbara

Crossing the front range (first three photos by Jonathan Dietch).

I arrived just under 6k so I decided to take a bit of a detour to the west side of town before turning around to land at the beach. Jonathan came in just a few minutes behind. Tony would end up flying out to Jawbone Canyon before turning around to land in Tehachapi (126 miles)

My flight was a bit of a disappointment as I didn't go out as far east as I had hoped, but it was a great day none the less. What was more of a disappointment, however, was the fact that on such a beautiful day all of my pictures came out lousy.

Distance: 71.77 Miles (measured from the farthest points)
Duration: 3:23 Hours
Max Altitude: 16,151 ft.

Completing the circuit around the Southern California mountains (about 310 miles)

Growing Up and Moving On

2009-06-18T22:32:00.000-07:00

On to middle school.

The "Aspirations" speech. I'd say that the "I want to stop global warming" speeches were down about 50% from when Bari had her culmination ceremony.

Mr. Brimble. Bari had him too. One of those teachers that you remember all your life. An ex-lawyer who one day decided to give it all up to teach.

Am I lucky or what?

One proud dad.

Miles Davis cool

Down One Side Up The Other

2009-05-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

My last three flights starting in Santa Barbara.

Blackhawk to I 5

2009-05-17T18:37:00.001-07:00

Photo by Owen Morse

If you read the NWS’s discussion page they often talk how their confidence in predicting conditions is based on the consistency of the run to run model forecasts; the more consistent the runs the higher the confidence. Well, I started looking at the forecast for the desert for the weekend a whole week before and each updated run turned out to be a carbon copy of the one that preceded it, give or take a few degrees change in wind direction: Saturday 12-13k tops with east winds; Sunday 14-15k tops with somewhat stronger SE winds. The only questions leading up to the weekend was what day to fly and where. With the east wind picking Blackhawk for Saturday seemed to be a no brainer. Despite the predicted higher tops Sunday would be a tougher call. With a moderately strong SE wind there would be an outside chance that it would be blowing down at Blackhawk – although as I have said in the past, no matter the wind direction it just always seems to blow upslope there. Crestline had great potential, but one always runs the risk of getting stuck below an inversion on the frontrange. A SE wind is generally a cure for that, but the lower level stuff was predicted to be out of the west. That left Laguna Mountain near San Diego. In the beginning of the week Laguna looked like the place to go, but as we got closer to Sunday, I wasn’t all that excited about what I was seeing: 9-10k tops with 15-20 knot winds. In the end it was decided that Blackhawk on Saturday would be the safest call. Besides, a great day equals a late return home; Saturday night would be much better than Sunday.

I met Bruce Barmakian at his house along with Owen Morse, Chris Van Veldon and Wally our driver before heading out to Hesperia to have breakfast with Tony Deleo and Herb Seidenberg before heading up the hill. The early morning winds on the desert floor were light out of the west but it was definitely east at launch. Clouds started to form above Big Bear at around 11:00. We started piling off of launch at a little after noon with Tony leading the way.

I think I have mentioned this before but it bears repeating: at most mountain sites it’s probably a good idea to try to hold the high ground for as long as possible if you’re not climbing out; Blackhawk is not one of them. If you’re not climbing then head out. There is usually a house thermal that sets up just beyond the front points and you want to make sure that you have ample altitude to search around for it. Except for Chris, everyone had to rely on the house thermal out front in order to get up and out on course. Only Owen and I didn’t connect. Both of us were forced to turn down wind low. Needless to say, skimming the tops of Joshua trees wasn’t what I had in mind when I was looking at that beautiful forecast all week. Of course, if there wasn’t a “however” you would be still looking at a picture of the pie covered faces of my daughter and her friend Sarah.

Down below 5k just before the 18 I lucked into a low leaner. By the time that I finished circling I was ten miles from launch and still in the ballgame. Owen, after reporting that he was about to land, managed to find something too - although I'm not sure where. Chris, who is fairly new to cross-country flying, on the other hand, managed to get up at launch and get ahead of us --but not as far ahead as he was reporting on the radio. Apparently his GPS was set in kilometers; before we figured that out he had both Owen and I thinking, “Who is this guy?”

Even though I managed to get back in it my maximum heights at that point were about 2k below what everyone else was reporting on the radio. I had picked up my low leaner at the base of the foothills just NE of the Mitsubishi cement plant and had kept that same position relative to the mountains on my way to Ord. Up ahead just short of Ord I could see Owen flushing out of the foothills low toward Apple Valley. I crossed above his flight path by about 2,000 ft, but when I saw him eventually start turning circles, I decided to angle back into the wind to join him. With such a uniform surface in the desert the thermals tend to be far and few between; I thought it be wiser to turn back into the wind for a sure thing rather than continue on. The decision paid off as both of us eventually had a climb out to 10k as we drifted past the north face of Ord. At about the same time Chris was hitting the deck near the Mojave River wash. Bruce on the other hand, managed to make his way over to a line of clouds set up along the north side of Victorville and was reporting climbs to 13k. Tony? No clue. Due to radio problems and no cell phone we would not here from him again until we were on our way home at the end of the day. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.

From Ord and with Owen in tow I headed straight down Main Street in Hesperia where I had another climb to just over 10k above the Sante Fe RR tracks. With the cloud street to the north I was worried that we might be on the wrong side of the convergence, but when I looked head across the 15 I saw a dust devil doing its thing right down Phelan Rd. I had plenty of height to fly in above it comfortably. Or so I thought. After crossing the 15 I started sinking like a stone and the dust devil suddenly started moving steadily away from my glide path. Thinking that the lift was out of reach I was surprised to hear the vario start beeping. And it continued to beep all the way to 15,000 ft, my highest climb of the flight.

The Cajon Pass

The whole episode was rather intriguing: I was just a few hundred yards upwind of the dust devil and below the top of it when I found the lift. As I started to climb out Owen came in low from a slightly different direction that put him downwind of my drift angle, but still managed to find something. I guess the only explanation is that the dust devil was the remnants of the last thermal and we arrived in time to catch the beginning life of a massive new one.

Mountain High Ski Area

Regardless, by the time I finished climbing out I was directly over Rte 138 on my way to a cloud forming near the Crystal Air glider port. The cloud dissipated by the time I arrived, but I found something over the town of Pearblossom for another climb to the mid 13s. And it was a cake walk from that point on.

Lake El Mirage out in the distance

I reached 15k again just on the west side of Lake Palmdale -- I briefly considered copping a glide to Kagel – and had another climb in Owens Valley strength lift to the mid 13s right above Lake Hughes. At Lake Hughes with 100 miles about to click over on my GPS and suffering from back pain along with the usual stuff, I decided to call Interstate 5 goal. Bruce had already made the connection above Frazier, and Owen had decided to fly out to Kagel. He arrived at 11k so he continued west as far as possible in order to get his first 100 mile flight. He ended up putting it down near Magic Mountain for 104 miles.

From Lake Hughes on the air was very buoyant; I had plenty of opportunities to stop to climb out in an attempt to get high enough to get atop Frazier, especially above Booster Junction where the 138 runs into the highway, but I was ready to land. Instead I just used the lift to extend my glide to Gorman...where I proceeded to get caught downwind while landing and taking out a carbon fiber base tube. The flags in Gorman were all flapping north (south wind) when I arrived. And it was still blowing south when I dropped down into the LZ on final. That is until about half-way through when I suddenly started to pick up speed. After dusting myself off I looked over at the flags flapping south.

Bruce would go on to the base of Plowshare Peak for 183 miles and a new RW record. Or so we thought. Tony finally managed to check in to indicate that he landed up the road at 204 miles.

Distance: 120.04 miles
Duration: 3:55 hours
Max Altitude: 15,097 ft.

Random Family Photos Cont'd

2009-04-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

Kagel

2009-03-30T22:34:00.001-07:00

Despite living in Los Angeles I rarely fly Kagel. Even before Bari was born, when I was flying every weekend, I only made it there two or three times a year. Because I learned in Santa Barbara, most of the pilots that I met and became friends with didn't live nearby and weren't inclined to make the drive south. It's not like I didn't meet anyone down here, but the Topa crew that I eventually fell into were like family. For me, besides spending time with my real family, there are only two things better than flying a hang glider: flying a hang glider cross country; and flying a hang glider cross country with a few of my closest friends. Kagel couldn't compete in that regard so it became a place of convenience instead; somewhere to go at the last minute when I just wanted to get some airtime in. Having said that, I have always wanted to fly from Kagel to Crestline.

I see the San Gabriel Mountains looming over the L.A. basin almost everyday; they have been calling my name for a long time now. If it's soarable in Sylmar and soarable at Crestline, why wouldn't it be soarable above the points in between? Of course, the flight has been done a number of times, just not that often. Because of the convenience more than anything, most of the flying at Kagel is "fiish bowl" in nature where the locals chase each other around chosen turnpoints. But the forecast for this past Saturday indicated that the flight to Crestline might be possible. I called ex-Topaflyer, and local pilot, Jeff Chipman on Thursday to see what he thought. He hadn't really looked at the forecast but was willing to give it a go. He'd put a crew together and leave a slot open for me. Everything would be in place, except for the fact that my son had a softball tournament that morning.

Huh-oh, another sporting event scheduled on a potentially good flying day. Luckily, the games would start at 8:30 leaving time to get to Kagel within a reasonable period. That is, if my son's team didn't make it to the finals. No one on his team played Little League baseball; they looked like the Bad News Bears at the start of their season. The chance of getting to the finals looked rather slim. However, the other teams were even worse. They looked like the Bad News Bears at their very first practice. Counting the week before, my son's team would win all five of their games and make it to the finals. I was there for all of his games the week before, and would be there most of the morning on Saturday. Surely he wouldn't mind if I left a tad early to go flying. After all, this was just an informal after school program. More like gym than anything else. And just like with my daughter and her lacrosse game, that is what I kept telling myself to help allay the guilt.

I met Jeff, Rob Burgis, Ron Weiner and Driver Dana at the Kagel LZ at 11:00. I had convinced Crestline pilots Dan DeWeese and Bruce Barmakian that a flight back home would be possible; they were there too. All together there were nine pilots that attempted the flight. Rounding out the group was Andy Pryciak, Sebastion Lutges and videographer, Jonathan Dietch. Andy and Sebastian would leave from the Kagel launch, while the rest of us opted for Towers.

By the time that we got to the Towers there were a number of people already set up over at Kagel. A few got airborne as we were setting up; they didn't do very well. Because of that I took my time -- probably too much time, but you know the drill with me by now: I don't like wasting non-airsick time bobbing up and down near launch in marginal lift. Things opened up, however, once our first pilot (Ron) got airborne.

*Most photos were taken off of Cal State University Long Beach's web site: http://www.cnsm.csulb.edu/departments/geology/

The earlier launchers had to fish around a bit before getting up and out, but by the time that I launched it had turned on completely allowing an immediate climb out. After topping out near 5k I made my way over to Kagel, getting passed by Bruce Barmakian along the way. There wasn't much near launch so I B-lined to Trash where a number of pilots seemed to be doing well. I must have caught the tail-end of the lift, because as you can see, I had to hang out a bit before the next pulse came through. Once it did I had a nice climb to 5400 ft. -- along with 4 or 5 other pilots in close proximity, including Dan and Bruce on their Atoses. After another little climb above the beehives I made my way over to Big T where Team Atos was already skying out. I was now officially bringing up the rear.

A slow steady climb at Big T turned into a ratty screamer once I drifted above the high point. I left for Lukens with 5800 ft coming into the west spine just behind Sebastian. Up to that point my climbs were getting higher and higher and the trend continued at Lukens. I climbed to 6800 ft but the reports from the earlier pilots indicated that I would expect to get above 8k once I moved over to near the towers. As I made my way there I was surprised to see Dan and Bruce just starting their climbs (Sebastian was also with them). I figured that they would be long gone. All three Atoses quickly skyed out. But when I eventually made my way under them I could only find light lift. I missed whatever propelled them skyward. Soon frustration set in as kept hitting a ceiling just below 7,000 ft. Eventually, I just gave up on the towers and made my way east. I would end up flying off the east end of Lukens with 6,000 ft.

While other pilots reported reaching Brown Mt. above 6,000, I limped in to its west flank at 4,800 ft. In my mind I was going to treat it like flying into West Divide in Santa Barbara: if I didn't find something right away I'd call it a day and head out to a landing field. Fortunately, the spine heading up to Brown worked and I was soon back bumping up against the 7K ceiling. From Brown I stepped back to Mt Lowe, but after not really finding anything to hang around for I made my way over to Mt Wilson.

I didn't have the altitude to fly over Wilson itself, so I headed to Mount Harvard. There was nothing above the peak, but when I slid out to the front points I found another nice climb to the high 6s, which was plenty high enough for me to head directly to Monrovia Peak, where at 7200 ft I had the highest climb of the day.

From Monrovia I angled directly over the dam of the San Gabriel Reservoir on my way to Glendora Mountain and San Dimas. Reports on the radio indicated that Andy and Sebastian were about to land at a golf course nearby. As I crossed over Glendora I spotted a glider climbing out with a hawk out on the flats near San Dimas Canyon. To my surprise it was Jonathan. The last time that I heard his name mentioned he was leading the pack to Mt Wilson. Anyway, after climbing out together -- kinda -- I made my way over to Johnstone Mountain while Jonathan took a more southerly route. Johnstone was only good for one or two 360s and so I soon found myself heading in Jonathan's direction again. But before I could reach the flats I had a change of heart and decided to take what altitude I had left and head directly for Frankish Peak, the far west front point of Cucamonga Peak. There Jonathan and I teamed up again, and played a bit of leap frog for the next couple of spines.

Me & Southside - 3/28/2009 from NMERider on Vimeo.

At that point the west wind had really pushed through. East of San Dimas the air was pretty buoyant, but nothing seemed to be going up-slope, just sideways. From Johnstone Peak on I never got above 5,000 ft. I'd hit a point, do one or two 360s across its face and then move to the next one down the line. And continued to do so until I ran out of mountain.

After flying off of the San Gabriels I did something, or I should say, didn't do something that I'm still regretting today. I was so intent on making it to Andy Jackson that I only thought of the most direct route to get there once I crossed the 15. After crossing the freeway with just 3k, I picked up a low slow leaner just south of the foothills near Glen Helen. I had visions of it drifting me right to goal. However, once I got on the other side of the hills the lift petered out -- or I zigged when I should have zagged. Either way at 3400 ft I didn't have the altitude to make it to Andy Jackson on a glide. But like I said, I was so fixated on goal I didn't even think about deviating due north instead to get to the much closer foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains. It would have been very close. From the top of my last thermal it was 2.5 miles to where I landed and only 2 miles to the foothills; the extra 1/2mile might have translated into enough altitude to play with. And it wouldn't have taken much of a boost to make it in from there.

Although I'm kicking myself for not trying for the San Bernardino foothills, I have to say that I'm stilled satisfied with my flight. At just over a mile from goal, I'm going say that I came close enough for it to count. Out of the nine pilots that attempted the flight; four made it in (Ron, Rob, Bruce and Dan); two within 2 miles (Jeff and me); one landed at the base of Cuc (Jonathan); and two near San Dimas (Andy and Sebastian).

Distance: 61.09 Miles
Duration: 3:28 Hours
Max Altitude: 7,250 ft.

So Cal XC sites

2009-03-16T10:24:00.000-07:00

Plowshare Peak

Located in the Los Padres National Forest, Plowshare Peak overlooks the western end of the Cuyama Valley. The site record (Tom Truax) is 110 miles to Palmdale. This is a classic seabreeze front site flown mostly in late spring and early summer. Typically, the desert air drains west toward the ocean early in the morning. However, once heating occurs inland and the air becomes relatively less dense the flow reverses. As the cooler more dense marine air moves its way inland it dives in below the lighter desert air causing it to lift, often times higher than what it would just by convection alone. Plowshare Peak is in a perfect position for pilots to take advantage of this converging air.

When timed correctly pilots will stay with the seabreeze front either out above the Cuyama Valley or atop the Sierra Madre mountains as it makes its way eastward. However, more often than not progress is stalled just east of New Cuyama by air flowing in from the Central Valley, which seeps in through the canyons near Maricopa and meets the seabreeze front head on. However, if a pilot can get around the corner near Santa Barbara Canyon they can get back into a NW flow and be able to extend their flights.

When the record was broken pilots were getting as high as 12,000 ft and were able to fly over the trouble spot near New Cuyama. From Santa Barbara canyon they continued southeast toward Pine. From Pine they headed NE to Frazier Mountain and then out into the Antelope Valley

Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara is at its best during the post-frontal days of winter and spring. The site record is 100 miles (Craig Warren) to Palmdale. Since the Santa Ynez range is so close to the ocean it is very much influenced by the cool marine air especially in early summer when there is such a drastic difference in ocean and inland temperatures. But even in the winter when ocean and land temperature differences aren't as great, thermal killing inversion layers are still common. However, when cold fronts come through they steepen the lapse rate creating unstable soaring conditions. Its not uncommon to see temperatures below freezing at the top of the boundary layer. Couple that with residual moisture that leads to the formation of thermal marking cumulus clouds and you have the makings of a great soaring day. Having said that, its not uncommon on post-frontal days for the winds to be too strong and or cloudbase too low to fly. But when conditions are just right there aren't too many other places that can compare.

Pilots sometimes do out and returns to the west but going XC here means heading due east along the the Santa Ynez mountain range toward Ojai and the Topa Topa Mountains. From the east end of the Topas pilots make their way to Santa Paula Ridge and the Santa Clara river basin. And it's the Santa Clara river basin where the flight really starts. If cloudbase isn't too low it is relatively easy to make it to Santa Paula from Santa Barbara. But further east the terrain drops to just a series of low foothills. Couple that with the seabreeze flowing up the basin and it becomes tough sledding to continue on. Even on great days there are a lot of 50+ mile flights but few 60+. Most people land somewhere along Rte 126 west of Interstate 5

On the day the Craig broke the record he was getting to 10,000 feet, about 3,000 ft higher than what is common on even the best of days. With that altitude he was able to fly up the backside of the San Gabriel Mountains east of the Interstate before angling out into the Antelope Valley where he landed.

Bates Beach

Bates Beach is a coastal ridge soaring site located just north of Rincon Point. But Bates isn't just a ridge soaring site. When it turns on pilots are able to hop over the PCH to connect with and ridge soar the coastal range that extends down to Ventura about 12 miles away. At the end of the coastal range pilots can either fly out to the beach to land or head over to another ridge know as the Avenue. From the Avenue flights out the Oxnard Plain are common. Rumor has it that Tom Truax was able to continue on and make it to Malibu one day.

Bates is generally the place to go on post-frontal days when the mountains in Santa Barbara are blown out. However, it's not uncommon for pilots to get on course in the mountains and have the winds pick up forcing them out toward the coast. If they happen to be in the right position they can make it out to Bates on a glide and then continue on from there.

Ojai

Ojai (Topa Topa Mountains) is known as the place to go on Santa Ana days. It is best flown in the fall. The site FW record (Robert Millington) is 85 miles to Santa Maria and the RW record (Tony Deleo) is 133 miles to the Lucerne Valley. Santa Anas are down slope winds that filter through NE to SW oriented canyons. Because of the protection of the San Rafael Mountains that sit directly north and the way that the Topa range aligns, Ojai is generally not affected by them. It can be gusting up to 60 MPH offshore in the nearby Santa Clara river basin and still be dead calm in Ojai.

Flights to Santa Barbara are common. Typical days produce 6k thermal tops; on the day that Robert flew to Santa Maria they were getting to 10k in Ojai. On the very next day three of us went in the opposite direction out into the Antelope Valley using Pine and Frazier mountains as stepping stones. On a non-Santa Ana day Tony jumped over the back and got under a cloud street (13k) above the Sespe wilderness area that extended east to Interstate 5 between Lake Castaic and Lake Pyramid. From I 5 he angled NE to fly along the Leibre mountains before dropping down into the Antelope Valley and points east.

Pine Mountain

Pine is located just north of the of the Topa Topa Mountain range. The site FW record (Robert Millington) is 186 miles to Furnace Creek and the RW record (Tony Deleo) is 212 miles to the base of White Mountain in the Owens Valley. Pine is generally at its best when "Four Corners Highs" set up in late summer, which pump monsoonal moisture into the area. Lift is better when there is moisture in the air because a moist parcel of rising air retains heat longer than a dry parcel. Of course, there is also the added bonus of having thermal marking cumulus clouds present. But one of the drawbacks of this infusion of moisture is the chance of thunderstorms. However, Pine generally doesn't see the overdevelopment that some of the other desert sites to the SE do when the monsoonal flow sets up.

Another drawback on monsoonal days is that they are accompanied by SE winds and all of the long XC flights from Pine are toward the east. However, when the SE flow is light pilots can easily fly upwind; and if they're lucky enough to make it around the corner of the Tehachapis near Mojave the wind direction is perfect for a push up into the Owens Valley. Often times, though, a west wind will push through in the afternoon forcing pilots to angle over to the Panamint Valley instead.

Pine can work on other days well in the summer; the old FW record of 180 miles to Ludlow was set on a "blue" west day. On the same day that the Kagel record was broken Tony Deleo flew over 200 miles landing east of Twentynine Palms. Also on a west day.

Kagel

Kagel is located in the San Gabriel Mountains above Sylmar. Although arguably the most consistent site in Southern California, it is not known for it's XC -- although the site record for both FW (Jeff Chipman and Ron Wiener) and RW (Sebastian Lutges) is a very respectable 141 miles to just east of Twentynine Palms. The building density of Los Angeles County makes XC flying problematic. Having said that, the XC flying can be very good on light Santa Ana days, for example, when the seabreeze is able to push back against the NE to set up a nice convergence over the mountain range. Flights to Crestline and beyond are possible. The old site record (Ted Boyes) was to the Palm Springs area. The new site record, however, took place on one of those magical days where pilots were able to get high enough to cross directly over the San Gabriel Mountains into the desert. And during another great flight, Adam Stone dropped over the back to Acton and then flew east along the north side of the San Gabriel and San Bernardino Mountains before dropping back over to the front range again near Yucca Valley to land in Palm Springs area.

Marshall/Crestline

Crestline for short. Crestline is located in the San Bernardino Mountains just a few miles east of the Cajon Pass. Although not as consistent as Kagel due to its exposure to northerly winds, it is a reliable place to fly. Like Kagel it not known as an XC site. But on the right day Crestline has the potential to produce exceptionally long flights. The site RW record (Bruce Barmakian) is 168 miles to Lone Pine.

The problem with XC here is timing. The desert works best in the summer, but during this same period the front range is susceptible to low inversion layers brought on by the marine air flowing east through the L.A. Basin. Generally speaking, pilots simply can't get high enough to go over the back into the desert when the prevailing SW flow sets up. A SE wind in the summer keeps the marine air away, but it also leaves the possibility of thundershowers. Still, for XC a SE wind is preferable. It was SE when Bruce set his record. On that day a number of us were able to climb to over 13k on the front range before heading out into the desert toward Hesperia and points north. The rather paltry FW record (John Scott) of 80 miles was set on the same day (later broken by Zac Majors with a 96.8 mile flight to Santa Paula).

Another notable XC flight (Dan DeWeese) was to the Mexican border (116 miles). The prevailing wind was north near launch but an east/west convergence set up further south along the course line. After first flying east to San Gorgonio, where he climbed out to 14,000 ft., Dan found a nice cloud street heading south set up over the town of Soboba. From Soboba Dan flew over Palomar Mountain then Laguna and finally Campo before turning back to land on Hwy 8.

Blackhawk

Blackhawk is located on the northside of the San Bernardino Mountains not far from Big Bear and overlooks the Lucerne Valley. The site FW record (Rick Culbertson) is 161 miles to the north side of Las Vegas and the RW record (Bruce Barmakian) is 221 miles to Mesquite, NV. Although it is sometimes tough to get out of the Lucerne Valley, Blackhawk is probably the most consistent XC site in Southern California. Because it is open desert flying, there aren't a lot of obstacles and pilots can land practically anywhere. Also, despite having two launches that face NE and NW respectively, pilots, for the most part, can get off the hill in any wind direction. It just seems to always convect up slope.

Having written about the lack of terrain obtacles, there is restricted airspace (Twentynine Palms) just to the NE of launch. It is easily avoided, however. In a west wind pilots fly east along the mountains before angling out over Landers and then Joshua Tree. From Joshua Tree they only have to stay over Rte 62 to avoid the airspace to the south.

Even when the prevailing SW sets up it is pretty easy to stay west of the airspace from launch. During SW winds pilots either head up Rte 247 before dropping into the valley east of Daggett or they take a more direct route north over the Ord Mountains. Either way their destination is Intersate 15 where the SW provides a nice downwind shot to the Nevada border.

Tony Deleo had the most notable flight to the west when he landed just short of Santa Maria for 204 miles. Bruce Barmakian went 183 miles on the same day.

Ord Mountain

Located just east of Hisperia the XC pontential here is not that much different than Blackhawk's. One drawback, though, is it's proximity to the Cajone Pass, which makes it susceptible to the marine air that will often seep in from the L.A. Basin. Another problem is that it only has a north facing launch, but unlike Blackhawk, doesn't have a mountain range behind it to protect it from anything blowing from the south. But that didn't stop having both the FW record (Larry Tudor 173 miles) and the RW record (Bruce Barmakian 306 miles) occur on SE days. Both pilots on separate days flew up into the Owens Valley with Bruce contunuing on to Gabbs Nevada. At the time Bruce's flight was an unofficial "foot-launched" world record.

Lake Elsinore

Like Plowshare Elsinore is a convergence site. Located in the Santa Ana Mountains Elsinore faces east overlooking, well, Lake Elsinore. The site FW record (Randy Haney) is 167 miles to the Needles area. Just like Plowhare the early morning east flow reverses and comes onshore once it starts heating up inland. Pilots try to time their launches to coincide with this west/east convergence as it passes through. However, because of the terrain, the seabreeze also wraps around the north and south ends of the Santa Ana Mountains only to meet up again in what is known as the Elsinore Convergence Zone (see above) east of launch. Once across the lake pilots will follow this shear line to Hemet and points east. That is, if they can get up and over San Jacinto Mountain. Randy was able to do that on his record flight out to Needles. When San Jacinto proves too much of an obstacle "Out and Return" flights are common.

But, because of the surrounding terrain, seperate and localized convergence zones are also present, which pave the way for long flghts in different directions. One day Bill Soderquist and Bill Rear flew to Barstow after crossing over the San Bernardino Mountains via San Gorgonio.

Cont'd...

Valentine's Day

2009-02-15T05:22:00.000-08:00

Luckily Lauren isn't too sentimental. I didn't have to worry about hurt feelings by going flying on Valentine's Day. Now me, I am sentimental so normally I wouldn't think about flying but the forecast was just too good to pass up. It had been raining off and on all week and the pattern was supposed to continue into the early part of this week. However, we were due for a brief break in the weather on Saturday before the another storm was forecast to roll into town later that night. That was what they were calling for in the middle of the week, but as we got closer to Saturday the forecast delayed the arrival of the second storm until late Sunday.

If I didn't have to worry about Lauren being upset about not being home for Valentine's day, there was the matter of missing my daughter's lacrosse games. But as it so happened the games were to be played in Santa Barbara. I've never missed a single sports event that either of my kids have participated in. What was one day, especially considering the fact that these type of conditions only come around every so often and there would be another game to attend the following day? At least we would be driving up to Santa Barbara together and meeting later in the day. She, her brother and one of her best friends and teammates could even watch me launch before heading over to the games; that should more than make up for me not being there. Well, that's what I kept telling myself to help allay my guilt.

As mentioned a number of times, Santa Barbara is at its best when it is post-frontal, but more often than not the winds are too strong out of the NW and or cloudbase is too low to fly. As you can see the winds were forecast to be perfect with regard to direction and velocity. Dampness would be another matter and low cloudbase did prove problematic for a number of pilots. But a couple of us managed to get by the most difficult spots; a lot had to do with timing.

Unfortunately, my family had to leave for my daughter's first game before seeing me take off. They did, however, get a chance to see a few PGs and Tony's Atos take flight. It seemed a bit early to me. There were clouds forming overhead, but they had a grey, blah look to them. But the early launchers made it work and were soon making their way down range.

Eliminator to Lake Casitas 19-mile XC - 2/14/2009 from NMERider on Vimeo.

I launched around 10:40, just after Jonathan Dietch, who was ready, willing and able to go on his first open distance XC flight. As you will see in Jonathan's video above, launch was working just fine and we were soon making our way east. A quick tank up at the Thermal Factory and we were on our way to Montecito Peak (below).

It was paint by the numbers to Castle Ridge with all the usual spots working like they're supposed to. I would spend most of the day flying with Dean Stratton. Most of the photos are his. The one below is looking back from Castle Ridge toward the west and the road cut on East Romero.

When there is an abundance of moisture, cloudbase is at its lowest and thickest from Castle to the start of the Casitas Pass where things tend to open up a bit. It's never a bad idea to slow down a bit in this section and work whatever lift you can find because the usual spots maybe just too shaded in to work. Saturday wasn't any different, and indeed, once we got past the powerlines things opened up enough to make a play for the Casitas Pass.

West Divide; Whiteledge out in the distance

Generally speaking, you want to have at least 4500 ft of altitude above Noon Peak before heading over to Divide; on Saturday we left from the clouds 300 ft below that. But after another quick climb to cloudbase at Divide we were on our way to Whiteledge. Unfortunately, Jonathan didn't connect at Divide. He did, however, have a fortunate glide to Lake Casitas, otherwise he might still be up there.

East Divide

My normal go to spot didn't work at Whiteledge -- perhaps because I arrived lower than usual -- so I had to eke around the front corner. But each little finger spine got me a bit higher as I progressed eastward; by the time that I rounded the far corner I was back up to cloudbase again. Reports on the radio indicated that Tony had landed at the Diversion Dam, which was just ahead. Since I was starting further south than normal I ended up coming in below the top of Bump Three, my usual go to spot from Whiteledge. Since Tony was on the ground I was bit worried about being low, but as soon as I hit the spine the vario started singing. I didn't climb terribly high but it was enough to go for a glide across the 33.

Coming up to Nordoff Ridge

Up ahead, Dean was skimming the top of the Nuthouse spine. He had gotten ahead of me at Whiteledge. The Nuthouse didn't work for me so I continued on to the Pyramid...low. I've been down at the bottom the Pyramid before and had made it work, so I wasn't too worried about bombing out. But on the other hand, there was Tony down on the ground at the dam. It took awhile for something to came through to set a wingtip into, but once it did I was up and out and giving Dean chase.

Dean making the glide to Twin Peaks

Running down range having to stop at each spine in order to tank up negates a lot of the performance differences between HGs and PGs. Still, I fly a Lightspeed; Dean was just flying more proficiently than I was. We stayed together for most of the flight because he'd out climb me, but then I would get him on the glide, especially the long ones like the one between Nordoff and Twin Peaks (above).

Boyds, Puckers and then Santa Paula Ridge in the distance.

The Rocky Bluffs

As you can see from the photos above, Ojai was gorgeous and as usual worked like a charm. I left Puckers with 6k, my highest point of the flight, for a glide to Santa Paula Ridge where I met up with Dean again. Despite my encounter with a PG during my last flight, Dean and I mixed up pretty good when we shared a thermal together. Still, I was a bit reluctant to get too close and that probably cost me an opportunity to stay with him on the climbs.

At the east end of Santa Paula, Dean angled out to a small cloud forming in the valley while I decided to fly right off the end of the range toward Oat Mountain and the one cumulus cloud sitting above its foothills. Up ahead east of Piru the sky was dotted with clouds. If we could have made it there there would be no telling how far we could have gone. But getting there ended up being the problem.

Dean and I had a nice climb out above the foothills about halfway to Piru, but both of us ended just short of the clouds. I gave it my best in the foothills east of Piru, but I was never able to latch on to anything solid. It was especially hard to do while losing my breakfast in the process.

Because the Lightspeed does have a little more umph, I managed to make it a little further down the 126 than Dean. Judging from the picture taken some time after landing, if we had flown through the area just a tad later we might still be in air.

Distance: 56.66 miles
Duration: 3:27
Max Altitude: 6,062 ft

First Flight of 2009

2009-01-07T16:47:00.000-08:00

Do you have to include a flight to your flying statistics if the only reason that you threw the glider on the truck was because you were going to participate in a contest, and that if you were just free flying on our own you would have stayed home because the conditions looked less than ideal? Aah, what the heck, even with that extended sled ride, 2008 was still probably my best year. I set a PB with the 107 mile flight from Blackhawk in the spring, and I also had my longest flight from Santa Barbara to start the year off. That flight was the longest flight from Santa Barbara by anyone last year. So here are my final stats for 2008:

Flights: 9

Distance: 472.45
Hours: 22:08

The last two years started out like gang busters; I flew over 60 miles in each of my first flights of the year. What would the first flight of this year be like? There was a dying front coming though on Saturday, but I wasn’t expecting much in the way of post-frontal conditions. To my pleasant surprise, Friday’s forecast for Sunday actually showed some potential. Tony was still out of action so I called Owen Morse to see if he would like to join me. Owen participated (actually won) in the XC League Meet but Santa Barbara didn’t really cooperate with great conditions; this would be a good chance for him to fly it when it was on. Then on Saturday Tony called to say that No Cal pilot, Scot Huber, was in town and was looking for someone to show him around. Scot holds numerous site records so I looked forward to flying with him. Well, family obligations got in the away of Owen’s plans so it would be just Scot and me with the plan being to meet at Bailard on Sunday morning.

Although the lapse rate looked good there was the matter of a fairly strong NE wind that we would have to contend with out in the Santa Clara river basin. Because of that, I had my sights set on perhaps setting a new Out and Return record. We didn’t have a driver so if anything if we made it back to at least Divide Peak we would be able to land next to one of our vehicles. We would still have to retrieve the other truck from launch, but it would better than hitchhiking from points unknown. But as luck would have it Tony accepted my request when I called him in the morning to give us a ride up the hill. He also volunteered to pick us up wherever we landed at the end of the day.

If I was pleasantly surprised by the forecast, I was doubly so when Cus started popping over the range on the way up to launch; with a prevailing NE flow I was expecting a blue day. Despite our bit later than normal start, Scot and I were the only HGs at launch. The PGs, however, were out in force. That would end up being good and bad: good, because no matter how fast you set up your glider they are always faster and so they provided nice wind dummies; bad, because at first conditions weren’t as good as they looked making things awfully crowded above the Thermal Factory with pilots just trying to stay in the air. I would end up having a mid-air with one of them. More later, but both of us were able to continue our flights.

Scot and I launched a little after 11:00 (the local HGs were still nowhere to be seen). The early launching PGs were all doing great with some high above the RR and others already on course from the Thermal Factory. Personally, I don’t like to hang around launch and when it’s crowded less so. Launch was working great, but when I had the altitude to make it above the first bump of the Thermal Factory I pulled out of the lift and went on my glide.

A slow, and as it would turn out, eventful start.

When I first got to the TF I had to share the air with just 1 or 2 PGs. That soon became what seemed like dozens as more pilots got in the air and others began sinking out from the higher elevations. Scot and I would spend the next 40 + minutes bobbing up and down atop TF doing our best to dodge the PGs (and they, us). As it turned out I wasn’t very successful.

If the PGs have it over us in their ability to slow down and cut a sharper turn, we have the advantage in sink rate. On Sunday the better sink rate seemed to have won out as one by one the PGs dropped out of the sky leaving only a few of the later launchers to contend with. That didn’t stop me from getting up close and personal with one of them.

Rather than write again about the incident here I will just repost what I submitted to the South Coast PG forum:

“I had a near mid-air with someone on a blue paraglider and I just want to tell my side of the story and apologize for my contribution to the incident. I was working some light lift in front of the Thermal Factory when the paraglider came in from the Skyport to join me. After turning one or two circles together it looked to me like the PG was getting the best of it so I widen my circle to let him climb through and then I dove in behind and below him after he banked up inside of me. The PG continued to crank and bank...right over the nose of my glider. Whether it was from the turbulence from my glider or caused by his evasive action the PG then had a very scary looking collapse. Luckily the pilot pulled out of it and continued flying on.”

I came to find out later that the collapse was caused by my wing nicking one of his lines. If you want to read more about the incident you can click this link and scroll down to the start of my posts: http://scpa.info/bb/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1189

As things would have it, that same thermal finally got me high enough to head out on course to Montecito Peak. I was supposed to be showing Scot the way down range, but he had actually gotten ahead of me after climbing out from Parkers. Going to and leaving from there was something that he did on his own. And it ended up not being the last time that he would take the less than conventional route, completely ignoring my advice in the process. Please note that I write that with a sense of intrigue and in no way mean it to be insulting.

Anyway, east of Montecito all the normal spots were working just fine. We started playing with cloud base (roughly 4,500 ft) just east of Castle Ridge. It took awhile but I finally caught up with Scot just west of the power line crossing. Just in time to, ahem, guide him through the Pass. I arrived at Noon with Scot in tow below the main point so I continued on to the eastern spine. Whereas I tried to hold the high ground Scot stepped a little more out front. There were clouds to Whiteledge but Ojai was completely blue making me believe that the NE was scouring things out. Because of that, I wanted to step directly back from Noon to get on the back ridge line before continuing on. But while I was sitting there trying to make things work close to the main point, Scot was busy enjoying a ride to cloud base. Seeing that I changed my plans and stepped out front to join him.

As I made my way to cloud base Scot made his way to Divide Peak – has never been down range before and there he was leading the way through the Casitas Pass. Seeing him go on his glide I got on the radio to tell him not to go any further than Divide until he could climb out above the peak. Soon after that I was at cloud base and on a glide to join him. Only he was nowhere to be found. That is until I looked east. There was Scot at about 3500 ft at the base of East Divide. The only thing I could do was to tell him to keep me informed of his progress.

A view at Whiteledge from the NW. Some advice: always climb out on the front points first; don't just fly up the face.

For myself, after having a slow but steady climb above Divide, I headed for Whiteledge. I arrived comfortably and had another good climb at my usual go to spot in front of Whiteledge’s namesake. Scot had managed to pull it off and was now climbing out above Whiteledge, but further out front. As we sat at cloud base the thought was to perhaps turn back for an out and return (spending so much time at the Thermal Factory put the Kibosh on an OR record attempt) But the reports coming over the radio about the strong west near launch persuaded us to take a chance and continue east despite the blue skies. As it turned out we had a west wind all the way through the Ojai Valley.

The Ojai Valley looking south. Photo by Marty DeVietti on a different day.

From Whiteledge I angled toward Bump Three while Scot took a straighter line to the 33. He was rewarded with a nice climb to the base of the last cloud that we would see for the rest of the day. Bump Three was good for a few 360s but that was about it. However, I had a pretty good glide and ended up crossing 33 at about 3,500 ft. Scot was slightly ahead now starting to climb up the Nuthouse spine. I had the height to continue on to the Pyramid, but as I was crossing out front of the Nuthouse spine I hit some nice solid lift. After topping out I headed for the Pyramid, but found nothing worth stopping for so I continued on toward the front points of Nordoff. At that point I got on the radio to tell Scot that there was no reason to step back to the higher back range through Ojai as the front points work perfectly fine. Two seconds later he came back over the radio to say that he was taking his altitude and stepping back to the back range. Oh well, you try.

The Ojai Valley looking east (photo: Marty DeVietti)

At Nordoff I climbed out to 5,400 ft above the high point behind the front ridges and then went on my glide to Twin Peaks. The lift there was smooth and steady if not particularly high there. But I had my best climb of the day above the front point of East Repeater. There I climbed to just under 6k in strong and steady lift. Afterwards I made a play for Puckers for one last boost before heading over to Santa Paula ridge. Puckers, on the other hand, didn’t cooperate and I had to bail all the way back to just below the front point of Boyds. There I picked up a low leaner that drifted me back to Puckers again where I had an eventual climb out to 4800 ft. Not as high as I would have liked, but it seemed like the day was shutting down so I left with that. Meanwhile, Scot had come low into Boyds at about the time that I was half-way through my climb above Puckers. After topping out I looked back to see how he was doing only to see him continue east low. This time he didn’t pull off and ended up putting it down on the side of a hill near the Thomas Aquinas College.

From my glide from Puckers I came in fairly low on the west flank of Santa Paula Peak. But as soon as I got over the ridge I hit a strong thermal. Unfortunately, it didn't take me very high. If I had to guess I'd say that the top was being sheared off by the same strong east that I would eventually encounter when I got around the corner. And the same east wind that began knocking me down after I did, making me think that I was going to have to land up on the plateau. But it was also the same wind that allowed me to ridge soar an east facing cliff that gave me the altitude to make it out to the 126.

Once on the ground I gave Tony a call and by the time I finished breaking down he was there to pick me up; soon after that we had Scot with us after a nice property owner gave him a ride to the 150 for an easier retrieve. Thanks again Tony. And Scot if you’re reading this it was a blast flying with you. You don’t hold all of those site records by playing follow the leader – here’s to you.

Distance: 38.33 miles

Duration: 3:31

Max Altitude: 5,926 ft

Family Vacation

2008-12-30T21:44:00.000-08:00

We got an unexpected visit from my father for the holidays so we packed everyone up and headed over to the Grand Canyon for few days. But first a couple of Christmas shots:

I had no problem getting reservation so I didn't think there would be much of a crowd but the place was packed. Luckily we got an early start on Saturday and were able to gain access to most of the vistas before the crowds took over. They had a nice dumping of snow during the preceding week so the views were even more spectacular.

In case you hadn't already guessed that is my 85 year old father on the left. It was -4 degrees F on Saturday morning when we headed up to the park. My father lives in Florida now; a bit of a change I would say.

I believe this shot was from Mather Point. All the vistas were awe inspiring, but if I had to choose the best spots I would say that Yavapai and Lipan Points offered the most spectacular views.

"The oldest building in the park?" "That's nice." "I want one of those icicles!" Forget the Grand Canyon; the kids would have been just as satisfied just playing in the snow the whole weekend. Dad did plan ahead though and packed the sleds. There was a nice hill across the street from the hotel to be put to use -- and use they did.

So Cal XC League Meet (Called)

2008-12-11T21:10:00.000-08:00

Dean Stratton has been running a contest modeled after the Northern California XC League Meet called, well, the Southern California XC League Meet. Once a month, during a weekend, an XC contest is held at designated site in Southern California. The first two contests were held at Marshall and the last two in Santa Barbara. I didn’t attend the Marshall events but I had planned to participate in Santa Barbara during at least one of the weekends. I hadn’t flown since Blackhawk, so I had a couple of extra kitchen passes in the bank. However, in the morning of the first event in November I awoke to high clouds, a lousy 6k 7 degrees Celsius lapse rate and a splitting headache; I opted to crawl back in bed with Lauren instead of making the trek. But, despite the conditions they managed to get in a half-way decent task. I regret not going – although that Sunday’s task was cancelled.

The forecast for the December event wasn’t much better than November’s, but I decided that I would go no matter what, if for no other reason than to show some support. Anyway, RUC was actually showing the possibility of a pretty good day, albeit a bit breezy out of the east at the top of the lift band. Good, that is, if the predicted high clouds held off until everyone was on the ground. They didn’t.

One of the problems with a somewhat loose contest like this is getting everyone herded to together to get the ball rolling. Normally, during this time of year, Tony and I would be on our way to launch by 9:00 so that we would be set up ready to go by 10:00 at the latest. Well, the pilot meeting wasn’t scheduled to start until nine; in reality things didn’t start clicking until sometime near ten. The delay caused us to miss an opportunity to take advantage of the mid-morning clear skies before the high clouds rolled in – for the HGs anyway; the PGs got skunked outright.

It was decided at the pilots’ meeting that the PGs would use the Altinator launch and the HGs would take off from the Eliminator. Both groups were greeted with east winds. Despite the iffy launch conditions at the Eliminator a task was called: RR to the VOR then east to Romero and then out to the beach (I was hoping for at least a 35 miles task to put me over 500 miles for the year). But with the east wind a few of us were clamoring to head up to the Back of the Rack launch - named, btw, by yours truly. Some pilots, however, wanted to stay where they were to wait out the conditions. I argued that since the RR was going to be used as the start it didn’t matter where we launched from; those that wanted to stay, could. After some hemming and hawing my argument won out. Only when we got up to the backrange it wasn’t exactly the same launch that Tom Truax and I discovered many moons ago. We had taken off from a turn-out just east of where we would launch, but that area was now blocked with vegetation. At the original spot there are a number of places to set up, but at the new launch we were required to set up in the middle of the road. It ended up not being a problem as only 2-3 cars had to maneuver around us.

The Back of the Rack is located on the back ridgeline directly behind the Thermal Factory. It’s only used in an east wind and the flying is mostly ridge soaring, that is, until you get out to the normal trigger spots on the front range. When we first arrived it was still sunny but the high clouds were closing in fast. By the time the first pilot (John Greynald) got in the air, they were pretty much on top of us – although it was still sunny west of the RR. Meanwhile, the PGs had thrown in the towel after giving up on the Altinator and later the Skyport, because of the east wind. And not long after that, the day was called for the HGs too. John had gotten on course, but the day was deteriorating and he soon found himself low over the Holy Hills. As part of the task committee, I’m not sure if it was he or Dean who called it, but it was called none the less. Since there was no task everyone decided to play around a bit and then cop a glide out to the beach.

However, I wanted to see if I could still do the task (plus our truck was parked at the T LZ) so after a few runs back and forth near launch – I’m still kicking myself for not taking pictures of launch and the back country behind it – I headed out on course.

High clouds rolling in.

Normally I would cut straight over to the RR but I noticed Aaron LaPlante climbing out above the Thermal Factory so I headed there instead. I didn’t get the best glide and didn’t find the same cohesive lift. After turning a few circles I decided to give up the high ground and try my luck out front. I found something just over the road behind the power lines.

As you can see by my track there was definitely some east influence. I thought the drift would take me right over the RR, but the lift gave out about half-way there. No worries, because I had plenty of altitude to reach the RR comfortably. Unfortunately, the RR wasn't working. Not one beep. Discouraged, I basically gave up on the day and decided to head out to the T LZ to retreive our truck. If I had to do it all over I would have at least tried flying directly over the Tit to see if I might have found some lift there. As it was I angled too far west to give it the proper shot. Anyway, after a long glide I made it to the T pretty easily.

If you look at my track you'll see a not so straight line where the green turns into yellow. Since buying the LightSpeed I've never really tried to air the thing out to see how fast it can go. The air was pretty calm and I had some altitude to play with so I thought what the heck let's give it a go. I pulled the VG full on and stuff the bar. Only as soon as I did it my left wing dropped which led to some PIO. At full VG I was experiencing negative bar pressure making it hard to slow the glider down to correct the situation -- of course I should have just popped the VG. After getting the glider to fly straight I made a second attempt with the exact same results. Either I have to work on my racing skills or perhaps make some adjustments to the dive sticks. I say perhaps because I had Kraig Coomber test fly the glider when I first bought it and according to him it flies fast and straight.

Random Family Photos

2008-10-13T12:10:00.000-07:00

Halloween

Our 13th wedding anniversary.

Lauren's parents' 50th.

Lauren's 46th birthday.

A vacation to Montana without dad.

Poppy season near Gorman.

First day of school.

More La Costa shots.

Blackhawk 9/14

2008-09-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

I actually hadn’t planned on flying. Lauren had a conference at the La Costa Spa and Resort in Carlsbad Thursday-Friday and we had decided that she’d keep the hotel room an extra night and that the kids and I would drive down to meet her for a little poolside relaxation. There was some talk of staying even one more night but dad nixed that for a number of reasons, none of which, ahem, had to do with getting back in order to go flying – I hadn’t even looked at the forecast :-) But out of the blue (I tell you) both RebarDan and Tony called Saturday to say that they were heading over to Blackhawk on Sunday and wanted to know whether or not I wanted to join them, with Dan indicating that it looked like that there was going to be a pretty good turnout. I had to tell them that I would have to get back to them. “So, you want to go flying?” was Lauren’s response after over hearing one of the conversations. “I wasn’t even thinking about it, but…”

However, even with a kitchen pass in hand I wasn’t sure if I was going to go anyway as the logistics would be a problem for me. It’s a long drive out there and even a longer drive home when the prevailing SW winds set up. On long days that means I’m home close to midnight. On Sunday the winds were supposed to be ESE, meaning we would be flying toward home. Great, except that Tony was already out near Blackhawk camping out and Dan’s and John's crew would be heading back to San Bernardino at the end of the day. I could have left my truck out that way, but that would have meant another late night getting home and I just wasn’t in the mood for that. My ace in the hole was Jonathan Dietch.

Jonathan is back in the sport after a 20 year absence. He emailed earlier in the week to find out some information about Pine Mountain because he was thinking of heading up there on Sunday. I told him that I probably wouldn’t be flying, but Blackhawk would be a better call weather wise, and that for someone who is just getting started flying XC would be a better choice than Pine anyway (launch itself can prove to be tricky but once you get on course you can practically land anywhere). But I told him that if things changed I would call him on Saturday night to see if he wanted to throw on board. If the plan came together we would meet at my house in the morning and either hook up with Tony or Dan in Hisperia leaving my truck there for retrieval later in the day. Jon would fly to somewhere near the truck and then drive chase after that and we all would be home at a reasonable hour at the end of the day. Well, when I called him to let him know that my plans had indeed changed, he told me that he wasn’t feeling all that well and that he had decided to stay home and rest. “Well, if you just want to drive for me you can sleep in the truck all the way out to the Lucerne Valley” I sheepishly said in response. Jon was at the house at 7:00 and we were loaded up on Tony’s truck in Lucerne for the ride up the hill at 9:00. Dan and another crew from Crestline, including John Wright, would meet us at launch a bit later. All told I think we had at least 8 pilots up there.

Despite the predicted SE winds it was blowing straight up the NE facing launch when we arrived. Other than a few clouds over the mountains it was supposed to be a blue day with the thermal tops in the 12-13k range. At just before noon Tony was off first as is usually the case; he likes to be in the air when things turn on rather than on the ground waiting for them to. I would like to be able to do the same, but I don’t like wasting my non-sick air time bobbing up and down near take off so I always tend to go for a little later launch.

Anyway, once Tony started climbing out I got suited up and headed to launch. One last radio check and I would be on my way. UGH!! More radio problems. I just purchased a whole new set-up to take care of this crap and I wasn’t transmitting. While Jon and I jerked around with that, Owen Morse took my place in line. Eventually we got the problem fixed, but once I got into the air at about 20 after 12 another problem arose: the radio got wedged against my harness which engaged the PTT on the radio itself causing a constant high-pitched beeping noise. I couldn’t get at the radio where I had it mounted, but if I changed my body position a bit the noise briefly stopped. But after awhile that didn’t even help. I had climbed out a bit by then, but I couldn’t hear my vario and after no longer able to take the sound I decided to go out and land.

I couldn’t access the radio but I was able to grab the antenna. Even after a few yanks I still couldn’t free it up enough for the noise to stop. That is until I was well clear of the mountain and down to about 5k. With on last pull I could hear the Velcro coming undone and the noise suddenly stopped.

Once clear of the mountain the winds were as predicted out of the SE. My normal last chance thermal was nowhere to be found so I pointed the glider NW and blundered downwind. Luckily, it didn’t take too long to find something and after a slow climb I was back in the game drifting toward the 18 at just over 9k feet. Tony, at that point, was already in Apple Valley, Owen, a couple of miles ahead but still in the mountains and Dan, just getting off the mountain. Unfortunately, everyone else got caught in the SE flow and apparently barely made out to a landing area. There was also one blown launch.

After topping out at just above 10k just west of the 18 I continued on toward Apple Valley. As I pulled even with Rabbit Dry Lake Bed I opted to angle over to the Granite Mountains to give them I try. I wasn’t high enough to reach the spine that angles down to the SE and directly into the wind. I had to settle for a spine coming off to the south. The problem was that if the spine didn’t work I would find myself low on the leeside when I angled back downwind. And although I might have gained 100 ft or so I didn’t find anything cohesive and that is the situation I found myself in. Thinking that I made a big mistake I set my sights on a small rocky hill near the Bear Valley Cutoff. Down to about 5k again I started to pick up some scraps of lift before I reached the hill. It was another slow go at first, but it all came together for another climb out to 10k. From there I headed right down the 18 in very buoyant air.

Tony had called Joshua Approach in the morning to see whether or not R2515 would be cold. It was going to be so as long as we stayed above 6k we could fly up 395 toward the Owens Valley. But before I got in position to even consider that I had to first clear the Class-D airspace of the So Cal Logistical Airport. It ended up not being a problem as I crossed over the airport with about 5,000 ft to spare. However, by the time that I reached the 395 I was down below 8k. Couple that with the fact that Tony was struggling a bit up ahead and that there seemed to be more of an east push than south, I opted to head due west toward Palmdale and Lancaster rather than up 395 toward Ridgecrest.

If I had found a nice buoyant seam on my way to the airport it was just the opposite on my glide from it. After starting my glide well over 11k I didn’t find another thermal until I was down below 5k a mile or so east of Lake El Mirage. But, again, after a slow start I had an eventual climb out to the mid 10k. And just like before, I found a great seam of buoyant air. After climbing out to the mid 11s on the east side of the lake, I B-lined to a large dust devil set up about half-way across it near its southern edge. Since the dusty was drifting away from me toward the SW it took surprisingly long to catch up with. But once I did I had the highest climb of the day to just over 13k. Looking down on the swirling dust I could see a number of circling crows and Owen screaming in from the east. Pretty neat.

Once topped out I continued heading west fully expecting to run into the SW sea breeze at any time. I was flying in another buoyant seam. There seemed to be pockets of lift everywhere along my course line, but when I stopped to work them they never panned out. I was content to just dolphin fly my way to the 14. Unfortunately, at about the 70 mile mark my motion sickness kicked in. After that I let Jon know that I would be on final, but that I would try to at least make it to the 138/14 junction.

Up to that point, Jon had been reporting L&V conditions on the ground; it wasn’t until he made it to the 14 that he hit the sea breeze. I was at about 4k when I reached the 14 but at that height I was still seeing an east wind. Thinking that I just above the lower level SW I continued my final glide to the west. As I got lower my ground speed numbers did indeed drop, but not enough as I ended up whacking it in going downwind 85.4 miles from launch.

What happened was simple: when Jon was reporting SW winds he was a lot further south on the 14 than I was; I was on the wrong side of the convergence line. If I had been feeling better and made that assessment earlier I may have scooted south to work the shear line. However, the line would have taken me directly into Class-D airspace.

Owen landed at Avenue H and 20th street for just over 81 miles, a personal best for him. There is a good chance that he might have flown farther. Not being familiar with the area, when I indicated that I was heading for the 138/14 junction he thought that I meant the one on the south end of Palmdale, not the one on the north end of Lancaster. The deviation cost him some mileage.

Tony and Dan both headed up the 395 and landed in the area of Ridgecrest.

Labor Day Weekend

2008-09-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

I guess before I post an entry about a pretty nice flight from Blackhawk on the 14th I should do one on a not so great flight from Pine Mountain over the Labor Day weekend. To be honest the main reason I hadn’t posted the write up earlier was because I was going through one of my, maybe it’s time to give the sport up, phases and just wasn’t in the mood. I get that way every once in awhile, especially after a so so flight. In this case it was that and the fact that they had another fatality at Kagel, making it two in the last two or three months; when you have kids that stuff weighs on you. You think, is it all worth it? After such a short flight the answer at that time was no. But like every other time I started thinking this way the feeling past with time and I was right back poring over the weather forecasts for the next opportunity to fly.

Anyway, here is quick recap of my 15 mile flight from Pine over the Labor Day weekend:

On Wednesday the forecast looked perfect: 14-15k tops with cloud development and light SW winds. It looked so good that tried to shame the Santa Barbara crew to come out and join Tony and me for a day of flying. They were supposed to head up to the Owens, but I happily pointed out that other than Saturday the forecast was saying that it wouldn’t be worth the trip and that they would do better by staying home and flying Pine. It worked. Five of them showed up at launch.

By Saturday morning the forecast wasn’t quite as good as the tops lowered to 12-13k with an added 20 % chance of thundershowers. We also had to contend with an upper level north until we got out into the Antelope Valley. Once out in the valley each model seemed to predict a different wind direction, from SSW to due west.

Despite the chance for overdevelopment the sky was completely blue when we stopped by the north launch to check the wind direction (light north). However, by the time that we got to the south launch a towering cloud had formed just east of the Chute. The cloud formed so fast I thought that the day would be over before we even finish setting up our gliders. But after the initial burst of activity things stabilized a bit.

I launched first. As you can see by my tracklog it took awhile to latch on to something. Tony launched right after, and after an initial climb out found himself down in the same position. It was, of course blowing south at launch altitude, but once I got above the ridge there was a pretty good north push. Despite the abrupt wind shift I had a fairly smooth climb to the mid tens. From launch I took a glide to the backside of Reyes where I tanked up to the mid 11s and headed for the Chute.

As you can see by the track of the thermal that I picked up just short of the Chute we had pretty strong NW wind at altitude. By the time that I topped out in the mid 12s I was back above the front range just east of Haddock Peak.

Up until then I was in the sun, but to the east the whole area north of the Chute was shaded in with development. A while back Tony got caught in some cloud suck to 19k (from a 13k base – yes you read that right) in the same area so I was a bit wary of taking a glide toward Grade Valley under the darken skies that extended out into the middle of Lockwood Valley. Because of my worries I flew through some lift in the beginning of my glide because I wanted to maintain a safe cushion between me and cloudbase. That ended up being a mistake because I didn’t hit any lift at all along my course line. As I write above, the shaded area extended well into Lockwood Valley. However, the southern edge of the sun line was just a mile or two off my right wing. From my position just short of Grade Valley I had a choice of either eking a glide to the sunny side of Lockwood or save some altitude by veering off to the south for the sun there. The problem with heading south is that there is only one area to land in. I would have to keep the LZ within reach while searching for lift. The terrain wouldn’t allow me to just drift downwind. Because I didn’t think that I had the horse power to make it to the sunny side of Lockwood high enough to search for lift I opted to head south. Besides, there was a line of wispies that extended from the back side of Thorn Point (the east end of Pine) to Alamo Mountain.

Well, the decision didn’t pay off and I was soon on the ground less than 15 miles from launch.

Back To Pine

2008-08-03T21:53:00.001-07:00

The east end of Pine Mountain

Sometimes the short flights can be more rewarding than the long ones; Sunday was a good example of that. I headed back to Pine after not flying for over a month. This time it was just me and Tony with Fast Eddie driving. Depending on the weather model the day was supposed to be either very good...or not. Great above the mountains but absolutely terrible on the south end of the Antelope Valley. The difference in the predicted lift tops between the Tehachapis and the valley floor near Lancaster was a whopping 10,000 ft. Never to such an extent, but you often see that kind of variation with strong SW winds; the sea breeze gets sucked right up through Soledad Canyon and spills out onto the desert floor.

The game plan going into the day was simple: get up at launch; head over to Frazier where we expected to get above 15k; fly up the Tehachapis; and either head up the Panamint or Owens Valley depending on how much west wind we encountered when we got to the Garlock area (since my motion sickness would be kicking in at about that time that last part would be Tony's game plan, not mine). Well, the first part worked out. I did get up at launch and I did start making my way to Frazier.

I write in my last post that once you leave launch and head east you have to cross over about 8 miles of unretrievable terrain. Now there's more than one way to make the crossing. One way is to stay on the front side of Pine and then go over the back from the east end of the range where the glide to Grade Valley, the next retrievable LZ, is relatively short. The problem with this route is that as you get further east on Pine the closer you get to Wheeler Gorge and the marine air that seeps through it.

The second route is to go over the back at launch or Reyes Peak, which located just east of take-off, and head over to a long connecting spine on the north side of the mountain known as the Chute. The LZs are on the west end of the Chute so the idea is to probe as far east as you can up the spine while at the same time leaving yourself enough altitude to make it back to the landing areas in case you can't find any lift. However, the winds on the north side of Pine are generally NW so you have to make sure that you don't probe too far east because you will be bucking a head wind on your way back. From the Chute you have a choice of either gliding to Grade Valley or San Guillermo Mtn. If I have the altitude I prefer Grade Valley. There always seems to be thermal just on the east side of the valley, but mostly because it sets you up nicely for a nice down wind shot to Frazier Mtn. Guillermo pumps out the lift too, but flying there puts you a tad north of the thermal generating foothills south of Lockwood Valley.

The third route is to go over the back at launch and head to Dry Canyon, the last landable LZ before the "Badlands." I loathe this route. Mostly because it hardly ever works (for me anyway). But by taking this route you are really only giving yourself one chance to find the lift needed to make the crossing. I recommend that you always try the Chute first. If it doesn't work you can always peel off to Dry Canyon for that one last chance of finding something. That's exactly what happened to me on Sunday.

I left Reyes Peak at 11.5 and made my way up the Chute where I proceeded to not find any lift at all. If I had kept going I probably could have eked into Grade Valley on a glide. But if I didn't find something along the way I would have gotten there too low to take advantage of anything that I might have stumbled on when I arrived. So instead, I turned around and made my way back down the Chute to the west hoping to find something coming up the spine. When I still didn't find anything I peeled off directly north hoping that I might stumble into the convergence. On the drive up it was blowing north almost all the way to the south launch so I figured it had to be out there somewhere. As I probed north I kept checking my ground speed for signs of the NW wind. I ran into it just short of Dry Canyon so I turned around and headed back the other way. It was obvious that I was in converging air, but I simply could not find any cohesive lift. NAM had predicted a 6k inversion layer and it seemed like that was what I was dealing with. I did manage to break though fleetingly to 8k at one point, but that was nowhere near the height I needed to make the crossing. After a bit more searching I threw in the towel and headed to the Dry Canyon spine for that one last chance effort before putting it down. As I would be north of the convergence zone I wasn't expecting much, but as I flew over the spine at around 5600 ft my vario started singing. Soon I was well over 11,000 ft and on my way to Guillermo. Go figure. At Guillermo I had another climb out to the mid twelves and then it was over to Frazier.

Lockwood Valley. Guillermo is the peak at the bottom right-hand corner.

Looking back at Lockwood from Frazier.

Going into the day I thought the tough spot would be Pine itself because of the marine air influence. I figured that if we made it to Frazier we would be well on our way because all of the models were saying that we should see at least 15k tops and cloud development. There were some clouds but they didn't seem like they were the result of any thermal lift. However, I got to Frazier in perfect position and as I zoomed up the SW spine with 50 mph ground speed I prepared to be yanked to the stratosphere. I'm still waiting. I don't think that I have ever been flushed off of Frazier before. But there I was at 6500 ft on the east end of it floundering out toward Hungry Valley.

Frazier with the Antelope Valley in the distance.

Of course, any time that you have a long glide in front of you it is nice to be as high as possible before leaving; it's especially true for the transition from Frazier to the Antelope Valley. The prevailing surface winds here are north as they funnel up and over the Grape Vine from the Central Valley. The most direct route to the Antelope from Frazier is due east to the Tehachapis Mountains, which make up the valley's northern V-shaped border. The problem is that if you're not high enough you will find yourself blown off the mountains in leeside conditions once you get into the valley. Ironically, the lower you leave Frazier the farther south you have to go, and the longer you have to glide in order to give yourself a chance of getting established in the Antelope. It's north along the Grape Vine, but just a few miles into the valley the prevailing winds turn SW. On Sunday that meant we were right smack in the middle of that thermal killing marine air that I wrote about above. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Looking south down I 5 with Pyramid Lake the distance.

On the ground Eddy was reporting north winds all the way to Quayle Lake, which is located near the start of the Liebre Mountains (the valley's southern border) a few short miles east of Interstate 5. I was hoping to leave the mountains with 15k so that I would be well above all of that lower level north, but instead I was down below 7k and actually flying into a bit of a headwind as the winds were wrapping around the east end of Frazier. Fortunately, the air above Hungry Valley turned out to be be pretty buoyant. Unfortunately, it also wasn't very smooth; my motion sickness problem kicked in a tad earlier than usual. But I fought through it and found myself climbing out to just short of 9k just west of the Interstate near Rte 138, which was actually not that bad of a position to be in in order to drop into Antelope. However, the air just on the other side of the Interstate before the start of the Antelope is generally pretty turbulent; due to the topography it seems like the winds come together here from every direction. This mixing zone usually provides plenty of lift, but because of the way I was feeling I elected to fly through it. That's the thing about feeling lousy: everything becomes half-arse. You would like to fly longer, but you no longer have the motivation to do everything that you can to make it happen; when you fall out of the lift you're working you don't go searching for it again; if lift is turbulent you fly out of it. And that is where my mental state was once I got into the heart of the Antelope. It would have been nice to have flown farther but I was ready to land.

The flight was only 43 miles or so, and of course I was feeling sick at the end of it, but because of the low save at Dry Canyon, and the way I was able to work my way over to the Antelope in relatively good shape from my position at Frazier, it was pretty rewarding none the less.

Tony would end up just short of Mojave.

Pine Mountain 6/21

2008-06-24T10:42:00.000-07:00

Photos by Bo Criss (from a few years ago) of Circling Hawk and Robb Milley.

Over 100 miles on my last flight, could I make it two in a row? The conditions were certainly conducive for a long one: lift to between 14-15k; nice cloud development; and a 15 knot wind. A Blackhawk to Arizona flight seemed like a good bet, but man, it was supposed to be over 110 degrees out there. The thought of setting up in the heat atop that barren landscape just didn't seem that appealing. At least at a place like Crestline you can find a little relief by setting up in the shade below the pine trees. However, driving all the way out there with a predicted NW wind seemed a bit of a risk. Plus just getting high enough to go over the back into the desert is always a crap shoot even on good days because of the inversion layer. Elsinore had some potential, but that NW would take us away from all of that high stuff out in the desert. Kagel? See above and the discussion about inversion layers. So where to go? The South Coast PG club was hosting a summer solstice fly-in up in Ojai, but in the end we opted for the site that had the greatest potential, Pine Mountain in Ventura County. It was farthest up wind, and even though there is no shade anywhere near launch to provide relief from the heat, images of the surrounding pine forest just made the place seem more inviting.

Looking back at Pine from the NE (Bo Criss)

South Launch (Bo Criss)

Pine really is a beautiful place and one of the best kept secrets in Southern California. At 7,000 ft it offers some pretty unique vistas. Toward the SW you can look out over the Santa Ynez and Topa ranges and see the Pacific ocean with the Channel Islands sitting just offshore; on a clear day even Catalina is visible. To the north, Mt. Abel and Mt. Pinos loom above the "badlands" that stretch out to Cuyuma Valley to the west and Lockwood Valley to the east. Not much to look at under hazy blue skies, but when cumulus clouds are present their shadows make the low lying peaks and valleys stand out and come alive. Of course, that same beautiful topography provides problems when trying to fly XC. Pilots have to cross about 8 miles of unretreivable terrain once they go over the back and head east. Saturday's predicted WNW winds would make the crossing much easier, but launching more problematic.

The Badlands (Bo Criss)

Pine has a south and a north launch so a predominately west wind presents problems getting off of the hill. Just to the right of south launch there is a rather large spine (the Knob) that creates rotoring conditions in a west wind. And the north launch is just plain sketchy, even when it is blowing straight in. Pilots rely on ridge lift conditions in order to make it over to the house thermal located about a half mile or so to the east. A crosswind doesn't help. However, get in the air safely from either launch in a west wind and you're in perfect position for a long flight as you can avoid Edwards' airspace to the south once you get out into the desert

After first meeting up for breakfast with Tony and Carolyn we picked up Robert Millington at the Rite-Aid parking lot in Ventura. Back in the day that used to be the meet spot; we would have 10-15 pilots shuffling gliders every weekend morning making preparations to head up into the mountains. Here it is on one of those days that you dream about and it was just the three of us (having said that, the PGs had close to 20 pilots at there fly-in). Anyway, after stopping for gas in Ojai - Yikes! - we made our way up Hwy 33. It was sometime around 11:00 when we drove past Rose Valley and there was already some cloud development on the backside of Pine.

Robb Milley's photo from the PG fly-in in Ojai. The back sun-lit ridge is the east end of Pine.

Like I said, the prediction was for moderate WNW winds. Because of that, I expected the winds to be blowing fairly strong through the summit gap. But, when we arrived, although still north, the winds were light. Seeing that, I thought to myself, "We're going to be suckered into taking off from the south launch;" not something I was looking forward to.

When we arrived at the north launch it was blowing straight in. But after beginning to set up our gliders we noticed that the clouds had more of a west drift than NW. Also, a nearby portable weather station was showing some puffs up the south side. We decided to pack up and head up to the south launch, which is about a two mile drive up the mountain.

Got up to south launch to find the winds blowing every which way but up. After about 20 minutes of watching more of the same we opted to head back to the north launch to take our chances there. When we arrived after the two mile drive back the other way the winds were dead calm. No one wanted to take off with no wind from that particular launch, but no one was willing to throw in the towel with that beautiful cumulus filled sky above us, so it was back to the south launch again.

This time the winds were consistently blowing out of the west. Of course, not ideal, but if typical, we expected an occasional bout of upslope direction to get us off the hill. And sure enough, as we set up our gliders that is what exactly happened.

Normally in a west wind I turn east immediately after take off rather than head to the house thermal spine to the right of launch. That gets me away from the rotor, but it also gets me away from the south side LZs. Sometimes you just have to pick your poison. Tony took off first and headed right. You could tell that he was in some pretty rowdy air, but he made it work and climbed out above the spine. Robert launched next and turned left like I was planning to do. I was busy getting ready and I so didn't see how far east he had gone, but when I got to launch I could see him floundering back against the headwind to the spine Tony climbed out on.

After backing off from launch for some equipment adjustments, I finally got in the air myself. It was about 2:30. The winds at launch itself weren't all that strong, but I shot straight up into the air once leaving the ground. I once heard Steve Moyes say that when it's all said and done hang gliders are nothing more than leaves in the wind. That is exactly how I felt as I made my way over to the spine to the right of launch after deciding not to head east after watching Robert.

The wind noise made it almost impossible to hear my vario, but I had no intentions of letting up on the base bar. Both Tony and Robert were screaming to 14k by this time. At first I tried to drift up the spine with the lift, but I seemed to be getting more tossed around than anything so I tried extending my circle downwind to the east. When I continued climbing I put the glider on its tip. By the time the lift petered out I was well over 13k and somewhere between Reyes and Haddock Peak.

Normally I would make my way to the "Chute" hoping for one more climb out before crossing the badlands, but with the west wind I just B-lined it straight to Grade Valley. Both Tony and Robert opted to make their way to Frazier Mountain using it as a spring board to the Antelope Valley. They made it work, but with a WNW wind I thought it would be better to stay to the south and fly closer to Alamo Mountain. Besides, Frazier was completely shaded in and there was a sun line just north of Alamo.

Frazier Mountain (Bo Criss)

I had a little climb out above Grade Valley to around 12k and then a big one to 15,350 ft just north of Alamo. By the time I reached Hungary Valley just west of I 5 I was still above 14k and in great shape to drop into the Antelope Valley. It would have been nice to have been through this area earlier in order to take advantage of the clouds lined up above the Elibre Mountains on the south end of the valley, but by the time that I had gotten into position they had already shot their load and were dropping virga. I was forced to take a more northerly route out into the middle of the valley. But, apparently not northerly enough.

Antelope Valley (Bo Criss)

Both Tony and Robert were a few miles ahead and to the north of me. No one was reporting great lift, but they seemed to be doing alright. I, on the other hand, never found anything better than zero sink after leaving the mountains west of I 5. In a last gasp effort to stay in the air I angled low over to Fairmont Butte hoping that the relief would provide some help. When I didn't find anything out in front of the butte I knew that my flight would be over as I would be in the lee once I crossed the top. Of course you never want to give up; I spent the last 3 1/2 miles circling 200 ft off of the deck before finally, well, throwing in the towel and landing (56.89 miles).

Robert would go on to Victorville for a 110 mile flight. Tony? How about a new site RW record with a 208 mile flight to just east of 29 Palms.

Getting home is a story in itself. Let's just say that my head didn't hit my pillow until 4:30 am and leave it at that.

Btw, three pilots set a new site record from Kagel on the same day.

Blackhawk 5/3

2008-05-06T14:39:00.001-07:00

Well, I told myself I wasn’t ever going back to the place again. As I write in my other blog, either I have a lousy flight or I’m ending a good one early because of my motion sickness (due to the lack of physical references the wide open desert terrain seems to exacerbate the problem); either way I’m sitting in triple digit temperatures miles from home feeling absolutely lousy. But I figured on a big day the Litespeed would get me 30 miles farther than what I would normally get with the Fusion before having to end my flight because of nausea; that would put me at about triple digits, making it worth the drive. And the forecast was calling for a big day: strong SW winds at altitude; lift to 13k+; and cumulus cloud development. However (there’s always a however), there was the question of whether or not we could even get off the hill because of the strong SW, and it looked like we would have to contend with sun blocking high clouds. Plus Bari was supposed to run in a track meet on the same day. Well, on Friday night Bari decided that she had more important things to do than run in the meet, and I decided that the positives in forecast far out weighed the negatives so on Saturday morning I threw the glider on the Pilot and hit the road.

I met Bruce, Wally and Rebardan for breakfast in Apple Valley. We would meet up with Tony, Carolyn and to my pleasant surprise, Bob and Marge at launch. At 10:00 there was already some cloud development above the mountains. And in another good sign, the winds were calm on the desert floor. It wasn’t until sometime after noon, though, that the first cumis started to form out over the flats. Because of that, we didn’t start getting airborne until sometime around 1:00.

Dan and Tony

I was second to last off with Bruce bringing up the rear. The other three pilots were somewhere overhead climbing out. Both Bruce and I found some nice solid lift just short of the front points of the mountain. I was on top and actually out climbed him on the way to 10.5. Tony had reported leaving to go on course at 11.5, but rather than search around for something to get higher, I left with what I had feeling giddy that I just out climbed the top rigid wing pilot in the country. However (there’s that word again), the giddiness didn’t last long when I found myself out on the flats below 7k listening to Bruce come on the radio to say that he was leaving the mountains with 13k. And it wasn’t until I dipped below 5k at about 13 miles out that I was able latch on to something again. Listening to the reports on the radio everyone but Bruce had close calls in the same area. Unfortunately, Dan couldn’t pull off the low save and landed nearby.

Looking back at launch

Now back at 10.5, I pointed the glider to a nice cloud street angling NE from Rodman Mountain out to the Cady Mountains between I 40 and I 15. I had a great line as there seemed to be lift everywhere, but I spent a lot of time circling without finding something to really set a wing tip into. It wasn’t until somewhere near the 40 that I was able to put the glider on its ear. At 13,383 ft., I had the highest climb of the flight; let me tell you, it was cold. The forecast was calling for -5 C at 14k, and I had no reason to doubt it. It might have been cold (and turbulent) at 13k, but because of the tail wind my GPS was showing 60+ MPH ground speeds.

Over the Cady Mountains I had a choice of staying with the cloud street or taking a more easterly track to cut some distance to the 15. I decided to stay with the clouds and was rewarded with another climb to just short of 13k above the rail road tracks at Afton. Both Tony and Bruce were 10 miles or so ahead of me and Bob about the same distance behind.

Baker

From Afton I dropped into the Cronise Valley in order to follow the 15 toward the NE. Conveniently the Interstate takes the same angle as the prevailing winds out there. I was about to match my longest flight from Blackhawk so I would have been happy with a flight to Baker which was just a little further down the road. About two or three miles short of town I had dropped down below 6k and announced on the radio that I would probably be landing shortly. However, just as I made my announcement I blundered into smoothest thermal of the day. Topping out above 10k, and not feeling all that badly, I decided to press ahead.

Over the next 25 miles, however, the terrain slowly climbs from just 937 ft MSL at Baker to about 4700 ft. at the summit near Clark Mountain before dropping down to the state line. Despite the thickening high cloud cover at that point of the day I found enough lift to press ahead up the shallow incline. At about 90 miles out I topped out in a thermal to the mid 9s; would it be enough to get me over the 100 mark? Perhaps. But the last reasonable landing area was at the 98 mile mark and I was too low to make it to the next one down the line – even that wasn’t all the great because I would have had to land down hill in an area covered with yucca plants and Joshua trees. Fortunately, I found something off of the deck that put me over triple digits and enough altitude to make the mountain pass to land on a flat surface and 107 miles from launch, my furthest flight to date. At about the same time Bruce was putting it down at the Nevada state line after a glide from Clark Mountain. Both Tony and Bob landed in Baker (77 miles).

Photos by Bob Anderson and Marge Variano

Poppies

2008-04-20T20:23:00.000-07:00

We had a nice Passover Seder at Lauren's uncle's house on Saturday night. On Sunday, her cousin and his family joined us for a nice trip out to the Antelope Valley to see the poppies and other wildflowers in full bloom.

We took the I -5 route and came into the valley from the west. There weren't many flowers above the foothills of Gorman but we did come across one patch that was worth stopping for to take some pictures. The poppies, of course, are beautiful by themselves, but they particularly stand out when they are surrounded by Lupines and other colorful flowers.

After Gorman we hopped on Rte 138 and headed toward the reserve. There were some large poppy fields at the base of the Tehachepis, but I wasn't sure if we could back to them so we didn't stop to explore. About 10 miles in we came across some spectacular fields right along the highway so we stopped for more pictures.

We had intentions of going to the reserve, but on the west side of Fairmont Butte the fields were just blanketed in flowers. Knowing the area from various hang gliding adventures I knew that there was a maze of dirt roads running through the fields; we spent the rest of our outing just driving along them.

Marshall April 13th

2008-04-13T23:54:00.000-07:00

The forecast was calling for 8-9k tops and light SE winds everywhere in Southern California from the L.A. Basin to the Central Valley so it seemed only logical to call a Crestline to Bakersfield goal. Sure we would have liked the tops in the desert higher, but what the hay, there is nothing wrong with aiming high -- get up above 10k above the Tahachepis and you practically have Bakersfield on a glide; the valley floor is only about 500ft. MSL.

Of course there was the little problem of the predicted morning NE winds. When the upslope switch occurred was key to how successful we would be. I met Bruce Barmakian at his house in San Bernardino at 8:00 just in case we decided that the winds wouldn't cooperate and we would head to Blackhawk instead.

The decision was made early to wait out the local winds. And wait out we did. Because of a persistent north we were unable to launch until just before 3:00. Fortunately, famed juggler Owen Morse was part of our crew; he promised that he could teach us how it was done in less than 20 minutes. So there we were, two truck loads of pilots atop of Marshall throwing rocks up in the air waiting for the winds to turn around. Surprisingly, no one got beaned; as a matter of fact, we all did pretty well -- although I don't think Owen has to worry about anyone taking food off of his table any time soon.

In our crew it was Bruce, RebarDan, Owen and me with Wally driving; we punched off together in that order as soon as our gliders were set up and ready to go. Owen and Bruce found something to left, and Dan and I to the right. After a slow start everything coalesced somewhere in the middle for a quick smooth climb to 9,000 ft (I'm the white track). Unfortunately, Owen missed the boat and was on the ground soon after. Apparently his fate was shared by about half the pilots on launch.

Ugh, more radio problems. I would have to chase the rigids around with the hope that they would see me following them OTB into the desert.

Another, not so smooth climb to the high 10s near Sugar Pine Mtn and it was "Game On," with Bruce leading the way -- at least I think it was Bruce; I lost track of the other rigid. Regardless, all three of us (four, if you count a very aggressive hawk) met up again just east of the Cajon Pass on the backside of the range.

Bruce bailed first in the mid 9s, followed by Dan soon after. I stayed back and was rewarded with another climb out to the mid 10s. I lost track of Bruce but I could see Dan taking a line along a ridge to the north of the valley that leads up toward Wrightwood from the 15. Because I left higher I was able to come in even with him as he was climbing out over the ridge. We didn't get terribly high but it was enough to keep moving on. But here I made a big strategical mistake: as Dan and I ran up the ridge together -- the Litespeed did a pretty good job of keeping up -- I found a slightly better line on the desert side of it. Because of that, and not having radio contact with Bruce to see how he was doing up ahead and where, I decided to go with it and angle out to the flats. Dan, and finding out later, Bruce, opted to stay in the mountains. Both were rewarded with eventual climb outs to 12k near the Mountain High ski area. I on the other hand was never able to get above 8300 ft for the rest of my flight.

Despite not getting terribly high I managed to make it to the Crystal Air sailport in pretty good shape. As I was coming in I could see a sailplane getting dropped off in a thermal to the north of my course line. I headed in his direction, but the lift proved to be fleeting. Both of us bailed at about the same time with the sailplane heading north and me west.

At just over 42 miles above the town of Pear Blossom, the old home of the USHGA, I ran into a headwind. Without contact with the other pilots because of my radio problems, and thinking that the seabreeze had pushed through (it hadn't; just some localized west wind I guess), I turned around thinking that I'd try an out and return. I didn't get far. And as you can see when I took a low leaner off the deck near the end of the flight it actually had a NE drift (didn't like where it was drifting me to so I threw in the towel and landed). At dark when I was eventually picked up, the seabreeze still hadn't come through so my decision to turn around was an obvious blunder. Live and don't learn - read how my previous flight ended.

Both of the rigids made it to west of Palmdale with Bruce taking the day with a 72 miler landing near the poppy reserve.

Easter Egg Hunt and Flight

2008-03-25T15:02:00.000-07:00

We're a mixed religion family. We never go to church or temple, but we do recognize the holidays. Of course this past Sunday was Easter and what would the day be without an Easter egg hunt. The only problem was that the forecast was calling for a potentially good hang gliding day. So I did what any selfish father would do and scheduled the hunt for the crack of dawn so that I could be at launch at a reasonable time.

Despite having the hunt so early one of Bari's friends accepted our invitation to join her in the fun. Our dog Phoebe must like the scent of hard-boiled eggs, because she seemed to be in most of the pictures that were taken of the day.

Poor Nicholas, though, had some kind of bug and didn't get to sleep until about one a.m. and was still feeling it in the morning so he didn't participate until later in the day when he starting feeling better. And no, the remaining eggs weren't left outside all day waiting for him to find them.

Three hours after Bari had gathered her last egg I was set up and ready to go at the EJ Bowl launch in Santa Barbara. That's my usual flying partner's (Tony Deleo) VR in front of my Litespeed.

Originally we were thinking that Kagel might be the place to be. They were calling for light NE winds with thermal tops around 8k. Even though I live in L.A. I rarely fly Kagel so I'm no expert in reading the weather conditions for the place, but it looked to me like it could be one of those classic convergence days that I keep hearing about. A day to fly Crestline and beyond. But Saturday the forecast was calling for similar conditions and it ended up blowing down all day so we opted to head up to Santa Barbara instead.We were supposed to have record temps and the lapse rate looked great to about 6k, but because the mountains are so close to the ocean in SB you're never quite sure what you're going to get; the marine air has a habit of shutting things down in a hurry. Because of that we decided to start a little higher up on the range and launch from EJ Bowl rather than the Eliminator. Tony launched first and I was few minutes behind just after noon.

Both the RR and the Thermal Factory were working fine -- although, as you can see I had to search a bit before dialing into something above the latter.

Up ahead Tony seemed to be doing fine, but I didn't find anything at Montecito Peak itself and had to drop off to the east spine where I proceeded to drop below 3k hanging on to any scraps that would keep me in the ball game. Looking over to East Romero I could see that Tony was struggling too. After awhile both of us climbed out at about the same time despite the mile distance between us. It's funny how that works.

Romero wasn't that much different than Montecito, but I didn't have to hang around as long. Out front Tony was getting up at Castle Ridge so I left a little lower than I normally would (note the strong west drift at Romero). Didn't find anything on the spine that Tony was climbing out on so I continued on to the next one down the line where I found my strongest thermal since leaving launch which enabled me to get ahead of the Atos.

A few thermals later I had reached Noon Peak, the start of the Casitas Pass, comfortably. I climbed out right away to the mid 4s, but rather than take that altitude and continue on I decided to step back to the back of the range where I was hoping to find a convergence. Unfortunately, it didn't pan out and so I was forced to go back out front only to watch Tony climbed out above me to regain the lead. Feeling frustrated after not finding cohesive lift, I eventually ended up leaving for West Divide lower than my original climb out.

At Divide I never did reach the top of the peak (too impatient to hang tight -- although Divide is no place to be messing around waiting for something better to come through) so I ended up tempting fate again by coming in way low at Whiteledge. However, the 3 hour hike, sans glider, will have to wait for another day.

My normal go to spot after leaving Whiteledge wasn't working on this day, but I found something just west of Rte 33 that got me over to the Pyramid where I had on of the highest and smoothest climb out of the day. It was supposed to be in the 90s in Ojai so I had little doubt that that flying would be stellar once we reached the valley. I wasn't disappointed.

I usually stay out on the front points in Ojai, but because I had the altitude I decided to step back to the high ground at Chief's Peak; it wasn't worth it. I ended up having to angle back out front on my way to Boyd's. Normally Boyd's can be counted on to get you high enough for the glide to Santa Paula Peak but not on this day; nearby Puckers, however, was going off.

With light NE winds, the hope going into the day was to eke into Ojai from Santa Barbara and then work the NE/SW convergence to points east once we got to the Santa Clara river basin. Unfortunately, the sea breeze didn't over power the offshore stuff as far inland as we had hoped. Both Tony and I left the east side of Santa Paula Peak in the mid 7s with a west drift, but at 3:00 it was still blowing east at 15 mph in nearby Fillmore. In front of me, after getting tired of bucking a headwind, Tony opted to turn around at the 50 mile mark and land in Fillmore. Of course, I had to at least match that, but instead of turning around I tried to stretch out my flight as far as possible. I landed at the 50.64 mile mark. At 4 o'clock it was still blowing east in the LZ.

Mammoth

2008-03-18T21:36:00.001-07:00

Took the family to Mammoth this past weekend. Despite the fact that it was snowy, cold and windy -- so much so that they had closed the top of the mountain for most of the two days that we were there -- and Nicholas spending most of Saturday layed up in the lodge with altitude sickness, everyone had a good time.

Technically, I'm not a bad skier -- in fact, I was an instructor at one time -- but when you ski as infrequently as I do (half dozen times in the last 25 years) proper technique only takes you so far. I simply don't have the leg strength to do well and enjoy myself on the bumps and steeps -- not that I did a lot of mogul skiing; it seems the snow boarders have eliminated most of the bumps fields from the slopes. But, this was family outing; I had more than enough fun spending time skiing with the kids.

Here we are in the middle of the Sierras during a beautiful snowy weekend and this is the view from our hotel room. I booked the reservation on line where they had a box designated for preferences. I put down that we didn't want a room next to the jacuzzi and that if possible wanted something with a view. When I called the hotel to confirm the reservation the guy at the desk said, "You requested something with a view?" "None of our rooms have views." No kidding. Other than that, though, everything else was fine.

After spending most of the day sleeping off the effects of altitude sickness on Saturday, Nicholas recovered enough to have a good time playing in the snow back at the hotel. It is amazing what a difference 2,000 ft can make. Right before leaving the hotel he was perfectly fine; twenty minutes later he was as white as a ghost. The same thing happened to him on a hang gliding trip to Walt's Point a few years ago. At launch he was fine. But after I had taken off, Lauren took the kids up to Horseshoe Meadows but had to immediately turn around because of Nicholas' sickness.

Speaking of the Owens Valley, here is a nice shot of Mount Tom. One of my goals is to fly from Walt's and meet Lauren and the kids in Mammoth. The flight is tough to accomplish because of the prevailing SW winds; and a preferable SE usually means overdevelopment. Anyway, if you want to have any chance of making it to Mammoth you must get over Coyote Flats (under clouds in the distance on the left) and get established over Mount Tom. One of these days.

Double Digits

2008-02-24T06:36:00.000-08:00

There are two reasons why I only fly about once a month (if that); here's one of them:

My son turned 10 this past week. Seems like yesterday that I was rushing Lauren to the hospital -- out the door at 10 of; born 10 after. And now he has reached double digits. Wow!

He decided that he wanted to invite some of his buddies to go bowling with him and then have them come back to the house for some pizza and cake.

I read somewhere that bowling has become the new "in" thing to do. Yeah, that's my son, the budding hipster. I have a feeling that he is going to want make those tattoos permanent before too long. What's a parent to do?

I have to say, not a bad Dick Weber impersonation. Is there a penalty for releasing the ball too early?

Who us? A minute earlier they were knocking each other silly over that ball.

And here is the second reason why I don't fly all that often: my daughter, Bari. If you look you can see the chaos breaking out in the background. I don't care what anyone says, boys and girls are just different. Put a bunch a girls together and they'll find something productive to do. Boys? Put away the china.

First Flight of the Year

2008-02-19T16:12:00.000-08:00

1/21/08

Santa Barbara is a hard place to call. It is at its best when post-frontal, but more often than not the winds are too north or cloudbase too low to get a great flight in. Since it is an hour and a half drive from my house in L.A., I can’t just jump on the good days like the locals who can just look out their kitchen windows. I always have to take my chances and hope for the best.

Monday was not post-frontal, but the forecast called for the same type of conditions: a steep lapse rate to about 6k with a lot of moisture; the winds were predicted to be WNW in the mid-teens above 4k and about 10 knots below that. If anything it looked like I would at least have Bates to fall back on if Santa Barbara didn’t work. And since I hadn’t flown since the end of October I decided that I was going to go up and give it a shot no matter what.

Woke up at 6:00 to a completely clouded sky. But when I checked the weather discussion page they were talking about a window of just partly cloudy conditions for Ventura County; a phone call indicated that it was mostly sunny in Santa Barbara; the winds, too, were turning more favorable; and so I threw the glider on the truck and hit the road.

When I got to Carpenteria the winds were actually eddying SE. Casitas Pass was socked in, but it was still pretty early so I held out hope that cloudbase would rise as the day progressed. Out to the west there was a beautiful cloudstreet out toward Santa Ynez Peak, so if we couldn’t head east through the pass it looked like a flight out in that direction looked more than doable.

I met Bob Anderson and his friend Marge, a PG pilot, at the beach. Marge was going to take a tandem ride instead of flying herself and drive for us after landing. To my astonishment Bob and I, along with just 2-3 PGs, were the only pilots heading up to launch. Seeing that it was holiday and such good conditions I thought the place would be packed.

The clouds were really starting to fill in as we headed up to launch, but looking down range we could see that the top of the peaks through the pass were visible. Cloudbase above launch looked to be in the high 4s -- maybe a little lower toward the east.

I launched after the tandem PG somewhere near 11:30. After getting a little bit above launch I headed over to the Thermal Factory, which is the first spine on the range heading east. I had a quick climb there to 5k and cloudbase and then I was on my way. A few 360s at Montecito Peak with a PG pilot and a couple more by myself atop East Romero and then it was over to Castle Ridge.

Here is where the flight got interesting. East of Castle I had to contend with a series of low cloud banks. Coming up to the clouds I had to decide whether to go under them or around them. To get under them I would have to cut off my climbs early, which was almost impossible in such buoyant air. For the most part I was just flying straight at this point without stopping so I didn’t have much choice but to go around. This didn't give me much hope of making it through the Casitas Pass. Maybe I would tag Snowball and then turn around and head in the other direction. I had one last bank of clouds to get around before Noon Peak, the start of the pass. I wasn't ready to give up on my progess until I could see what was going on behind that last white wall. If it looked like it would be just more of the same I was going to turn around. But once I got around the last bank I could see that, although base was still below the peaks at about 4k, things opened up a bit and there was some sun on the lower spines. I decided to continue on.

I got back up to cloud base at West Divide, but that didn’t stop me from coming into Whiteledge Peak way low. It would be close, but I needed to find a thermal right then and there or I would be looking at a long hike out (unfortunately, that is what happened to Bob). I lucked out and found something that got me up and over to peak. This is where things got interesting again.

The mountains in Ojai were completely shaded in. There was not one ray of sunlight anywhere on the range. The south side of the valley, however, was bathed in patches of sun so rather than stay in the mountains I angled out to the SE toward the Sulphur Mountains. Three thermals got me to the east side of the Sulphurs in perfect shape to cut the corner to Santa Paula Peak.

Like everywhere else along the range, Santa Paula was completely shaded in so I had to fudge out into the valley on my way to Fillmore. But with such a steep lapse rate I just knew if I could make it out to the Santa Clara river basin I had a great shot of making it to Interstate 5, one of my flying goals. Sure enough, at Fillmore I had a nice climb out to the high 3s above town, and then another climb in the foothills just east of Piru and then it was just an easy glide to the interstate. Further east the sky was completely black so there was no reason to continue on; it was just a matter of finding a nice LZ to land. I ended up putting it down on a plateau on the east side of Castaic Lake at an RC park, complete with a runway and windsock. Distance: 61.7 miles; time: just under 3 hours.

Photos by Bob Anderson