Sunny Pine Mountain, 6/14/08

[faoro]

It was good to escape Santa Barbara's June gloom yesterday and make a run to Pine Mountain. Bob Hurlbett and I dusted off our rusty skills and joined Art, Andy D., OJ and Fast Eddy for a trip up to "The Temple." Brendan and Brad followed a bit later for a tandem. The lapse rate was fair, but the BLIPMAPS were predicting only modest altitudes. Spring flowers were out, despite the dry season: paintbrush, lupine and some late ceanothus. Conditions were typical for June, a bit rowdy. You had to be patient, but rippers would come through and have you hanging on to your courage. Bob took a frontal with riser twist and horseshoe for the entertainment of the pilots still on the ground. He got pinned OTB for a spell. We all hit sharp-edged 900 fpm lift and got up to 10K. We cruised around for about an hour, then Bob and I went eastbound with the prevailing SW wind and checked out the tops around Haddock, but there wasn't much there. All five of us landed on the road at CalTrans. Diablo stopped in for a chat on his way biking.

At 2:30 PM, we followed up our first trip to Pine with a "cool-down" flight from Chief Peak. The five of us congregated on the middle bump of the ridge at 5K and proceeded to race to the high school. After staying about even over and past Stooges, we took different tacks on the next ridge. Andy got up to 4,100 at Bruce's and boldly made a stab at goal. I left Nordhoff ridge before the Pyramid with 3,800. Andy was already halfway to the high school, so I got on the speed bar and quickly burned through 2,000 feet and made up most of the distance. He was low and couldn't get on the speed bar until the final push. I was sure he would deck as he came full into the SW wind, but he swung around and put himself right in front of me. We both cleared the eucalyptus trees in the single digits to land on the football field and he beat me by about 45 seconds.

Great fun! Two hours and twenty minutes total flight time.

[andy dainsberg]

my first pine flight left me w/ no doubt on where to find some adrenaline ~!~

very surge-y, sharp and stressful (for me) thru 8600. i just felt very small despite full ballast. over 9000 tho it seemed much nicer and i could take a look around-- awesome view... bobs calm response during (and recount of) what appeared from launch to be an ultra-gnarly collapse shows what it takes to fly there well. "maintain at least 300 agl."

Later at chief OJ got to fly over a black bear at close range.

[oj]

The other pilots had slow climbs and reported turb at 8k, but launching last seemed to pay off today. The vario was quiet (I have the sink alarm turned off) out to the bonzai tree and then it was a one thermal climb to 10k. I didn't fly Pine at all last year so the higher bank angles and g's while thermaling took a few minutes to adjust to. Being a high pressure day, the xc options weren't good so everyone just boated around before heading out to the Caltrans lz.

At Chief's we thought that a race to the high school would be fun, so when everyone got established we all headed out at the same time. Faoro's Trango showed it's speed on bar over to Stooges but it cost him altitude. I was surprised that Art's 1-2 Sport was as fast on trim as my Tempest is at half bar. Art came in a bit higher at Stooges and took a quick skip to Nordhoff Ridge while the rest of us tanked up. I could see he was getting a flat glide through Nordhoff so I went after him, knowing I could get up at the West end of the ridge. Ron, Andy and Bob stayed at Bruce's to get to the top of the ridge while Art and I pushed ahead low. We got to the end, where it always works, and got nothing! We were stuck halfway down, working light lift way too close to each other, while the other three cashed in their altitude chips and headed out. I made a run back to Bruce's but was too low to grab anything and did the slow flush. I spotted something ahead on a low nob and thinking it was a deer I headed for it, then realized it was a large brown bear staring up at me. Being in flush mode allowed a good view from just 50 ft. as he turned and crashed through the bushes to hide. Hearing it snap large branches like they were nothing as it ran made me glad I was well out of reach. Landed at Topa Topa School and was joined by Art later on.

Thanks for driving Eddy.

Pine: 1080 fpm up, 760 dn, max alt. 9980, 1 hr. 40 min.
Chief's: 600 up, 560 dn, max alt. 4950, 55 minutes.