...I have a dream...

[Aaron]

only a handful of pg danglers and and handful of hg danglers showed up for MLK day. took the eagle bus up and tried to exercise patience today after my last handful of fails. watched newbie nick launch his ragged out koyote at skyport, climb out, and head to RR where he did the same. enough of this patience stuff, its on! soon i was more then 100 below launch and that is how the first part of my flight kept going. i was looking up to see what the hell was wrong with my glider. so i started slapping myself in the face so hard that the picture on my drivers license swelled up. well that seemed to do the trick, finally got some slow climbs and eventually dove back to the flat spine below ej bowl. nice climb there over the top and to la cumbre.. i hooked into an eeriely smooth 300 up or so climb that sent me through 4k, then 4.5k, then 5k, then 5.5k, then 6 frickin K! and i was still directly over the peak. i havent been that high in years. started to leave and hooked the smoothness again. this time with a touch of east in it. 6.5k, then 7k!! lost it over the altenator just shy of 7100. i must admit i was a bit gripped and breathing heavy as i dont like to be that high. the fear of height thing kicks in and my face was still stinging. i know, poor me ;) the views were amazing and 'i had a dream' that i could make it to the islands. reality kicked in so i took the east push and crossed san marcos pass. definately a west component once i got below five grand. didnt hit a bump before sliding into lizards mouth about 3400. fished around and found a slow tadpole fart that eventually got me to 4300 drifting out of the west. condor point looked far to the west with the headwind. didnt know if i should fish around more to try to get above 5k and find that east flow or what. the redtail that climbed with me took off west and didnt make another turn. so i figured i could slide back into painted cave from 4300 and a tailwind. i was wrong. got a horrid glide back and ended up at 2000 just east of windemere ranch. landing options were a bit slim there. saw a redtail circling below me over by the trout club, so chased him down and got back to 2400 which made things way more comfortable. crossed the 154 and a few ridges and landed at the big fields behind tuckers grove park near my house. thanks a million to timmayy! for ride back to parma. ole howe made it to painted cave and back and hammer was out there lapping it up with ease as usual. lucky day! i havent had too much success between 154 and lizards mouth as it is flat and hard to read where lift might come from. maybe someone with more experience there can chime in on where to aim for. hands up!

[cortfly]

7100....nice...I would like to see that view Very surprised you could get that high based on how the day looked, just goes to show....

[JimmyZ]

Nice!!! I was trying to climb out and join hammer after launching Eliminator. Couldn't get a decent bubble at the house thermal nor anything much at the antennae farm. Ended up having an enjoyable flight to the beach then watching hammer and all of you para's sky out. Oh well... not bad when you are grounded enjoying the nice day at the beach.

Thank you MLK!