SCPA & SBSA Discussion Board

caught the full eagle bus up, up and away to ej bowl. andy jumped off quick and had an amazing glide to the peak gaining altitude the whole time. so us lemmings soon rolled off too. floated around the peak and altenator nice and high for a while with bob a., jon blake, master bader, and lompoc joel. headed east from there skipping peaks as we were specked out. it seemed we had a bit of an east wind up high all day. bob a. and i got stuck bobbin around ridge level at the powerlines for a while, where hammer and howser met up with us. doug found one, turned and headed back west. we finally got a fine piece of ass up over 5. bounced through the pass between 5 and 6(the info people have shared lately worked like a charm, thanks!). i must say i was pretty stressed out through the pass, dont know how often my brain can handle that. good times, and pretty easy going this time. i was stress beat by the time we got to the bump near the 33 so headed to the high school with bob a and howser. super fun flying with friends. finally got through that dam abyss on my pg. you guys are gnarly that go through that thing all the time. speaking of which, andy and chris paul were way ahead up us where chris made santa paula, and andy got up at sulfur mt, then glided across the valley back to nordoff high school. i hope they post their tales. lots of awesome flights,,, j blake went almost to the power lines and out to padaro(in his words because he got 'bitch slapped' back there,,,lol!), master bader flew to carp, lompoc joel went la cumbre to monticito peak and back to parma, doug probably made an out and return to the powerlines, tons of people high and to the beach. thanks so much to jon blake for the retrieve and to chris paul and howser for fetching the van. i forgot my camera today so only have a tracklog

https://docs.google.com/folder/d/0B78Qf ... o1MTQ/edit

for me the day turned out much like it looked on paper - good lapse with a chance of NE high and especially late. was quick off launch and had 49 at la cumbre easy. led east over the sb points to the powerlines with chris p. close. it was NE up top but lower it was SW .// noon was smokin and was the first clue that the pass would be pretty easy. -.. i pushed quarter bar for most of the glides, especially from noon and from divide. past whiteledge i had a nice lift sequence over the rack and bump 3(7k) and took the glide over to nord ridge. pimped of chris's thermal @ nord peak and clocked 8k. glided over to east repeater. had some variety thermaling- with chris and i climbing close @ the topas. at santa paula ridge the game changed dramatically with a huge NE component spilling in. Chris took a convergence south toward Santa Paula. i was kindof stuck- either wanting to proceed into rotor along sp ridge to make fillmore and/or landing at st. thomas aquinas in all that northeast or waiting for something to show up so i could follow chris. i spent at least 30 minutes just hovering between 58 and 62 @ santa paula ridge with no penny- finally found a nice pusher-took it SW over Sulpher Mountain in a decent convergence that led me back toward ojai with plenty of lift. fun to fly back along the other side of the valley i came up on, cruising up and back to ojai at @ 30-35mph. left Sulpher Mt above the dish - found an easy cruise over the valley back to the high school football field. thanx jon b for retrieving us all! cracker found himself some more crazies!

That was one of the most fun days flying I've had. There was pretty strong NE above 5k, but other than that the lift was wide and smooth. I flew through Santa Barbara with Doug, trying to catch up to Andy, who was one point ahead showing us where the lift was. We weren't much higher than the ridge line on Castle and Power line ridges, but all the spines through the pass, even east divide, were good for 6k+. It was nice being able to look around and enjoy the view from the pass while Andy hunted out the lift ahead . The crossing to Ojai was easy...went straight to Spine 1, then got a boomer from Nordhoff to 78. I expected to push into Fillmore, but on the glide to Pucker's hit a wall of NE. At that point the air also got pretty bumpy. Changed from coordinated circle mode into managing the turbulence, but even with the sloppy turns and pitching went to 7k...all while getting pushed out of the mountains (topped out over Thomas Aquinas). The NE was stiff enough that Fillmore didn't seem possible, even with 7k (wind report for Fillmore at 2:50pm says ENE 25G35). I've seen SD push South across across the NE/SW convergence seem and thought that may be possible, so aimed for South Mountain. Only lost 2k on the glide, but NE drift caused me to intersect on the SW tip of the ridge. Not much organized lift there. Camarillo looked possible...but would have been near the airport. Decided to go down the Santa Clara river toward Ventura, hoping to either bump into the seam or get close to the 101. I soon realized this was not a good place to be due to air traffic and spiralled down to the riverbed on outskirts of Ventura.

Jeezzzus Chris! Seeing that track is ridiculous! Killer flight mahn!

Thanks Aaron! Congrats on making it through.

So SSSIIIICCCKKKKK!