Nuthouse Thu

[Chris G]

Sparky put out the word for the Nuthouse on Wed. He was pretty excited about a 40+º temp spread. I'm not sure "excited" was the word I would use but a bunch of decided to join in the fun just to see what a 40º spread would be like. For those who want a spoiler, it's a bit like jumping into shark infested waters in wetsuit filled with chum. Exciting! Pipkin, Brendan, Marty, Jeff, Victor and I made the march, and I think we all enjoyed the hike except for Victor. We may have fibbed a little about the length of the hike. I told him it was a 900 ft hike but failed to mention that it was vertical, not horizontal. Cycles on launch were STRONG by 11:15 and I didn't really want to hang around too long, waiting for it to get stronger. Definitely the strongest cycles I've ever seen up there. Brendan was the first off and he struggled for a few minutes, getting down nearly halfway to the road. Suddenly his wing rocked back, took a tip tuck, and those of us on launch witnessed one of the fastest climb-outs from the NH we've ever seen. I launched in a light cycle just as he passed launch on the way up and got the same boomer he had. Rocketed off launch to well over 3k in a few turns. Brendan had climbed well above ridgetop by now but I noticed my ground speed was shockingly low and wasn't stoked on getting any further back. I took the glide toward the front side of the Pyramid from the NH spine, and climbed at 1k fpm the whole way there. I don't think I actually did a turn the whole way over. It felt more like a ridge lift band than thermal, except for the massive amounts of turbulence. Arrived out front with more than 5k and a 6km/h ground speed. Too strong for me. I was flying one of the school trainer gliders, an Element 2 low end DHV 1, just because my Mentor 3 and Delta 2 haven't shown up yet. It would have been really nice to have a little more speed on bar because the next 45 minutes were spent pointed at the HS, creeping along at painfully low speed, and anywhere between a 0.7 and 4:1 glide. I wasn't sure I was going to make it right up until about 3 minutes before my feet touched ground. Nordhoff was gusting into the 20s at times and was very trashy. Jeff, who was right behind me, ended up peeling off at the last second and landing in the aptly named Rodeo field. The rest of the crew was somewhat pinned, high over the peaks, with little chance of being able to venture either East or West and so they all followed us out shortly thereafter, with the exception of Pipkin who went on a tour of Nordhoff ridge before being forced to the Windmill LZ. Victor made the right call and hiked down after hearing our stories.

On the up side, we flew a 40º spread and now when someone says "Hey! It's a 40º spread in Ojai tomorrow! Wanna fly the Nuthouse?" I know it's time to bust out the fishing gear. There is indeed such a thing as too big a lapse rate.

[Pegg_Brendan]

I agree with Chris that it was strong. Even frighteningly strong at times, but I would still take yesterday in the air over a day of fishing any time.

After my rocket ship ride up to the ridgeline, I continued to climb and even took the drift over the back for a ways. My instruments were showing wind at 7-8 from the south and I had no trouble penetrating, so I just played around on the back ridge waiting for the others to get up. We had discussed heading toward SB and I didn't want to push on too far ahead of the pack.

The highlight of the day for me was when Marty came over to join me and we both rode a boomer to around 6K. Standing it on a wingtip, cranked and banked with the vario screaming at 1200+ FPM. I just love that!

I stayed between 6 and 7K for a while waiting for Pipkin to get some altitude. Marty headed off east to explore a little, but when I saw him limping back from low behind Bruce's, I ruled out going east. I tried heading over to the Pyramid, but just hit lots of sink, so I went back to my sweet spot on the ridge behind Spine One. Pipkin was still working the terrain, so I just tried to max out my altitude. At 7K, I was looking down (and over) at Whiteledge and my instrument was showing wind at 1 MPH. Figured that meant I had to cross, so I headed west. Of course as soon as I got on course I plummeted. So I limped back to my spot and got yanked skyward for the umpteenth time and thought about my options some more.

Having ruled out both east and west, and beginning to tire of the rowdy conditions, I decided it was time to head out. About half way to the high school I looked back and saw Tom and Marty twisting it up together in my favorite spot and I quickly pulled a U-turn to go back. I was imagining them heading off to Santa Barbara while I was quitting just as the fun was starting. Didn't really work out that way though. By the time I got there, they were both gone in different directions. Pipkin repeated Marty's earlier eastward exploration, while Marty sniffed around to the west, and I took Pipkin's earlier spot looking for the boomer to get up and away from Spine One.

By the time I found it, it was sounding like it was time to land. The wind at altitude still wasn't bad, but Chris was reporting gusts to 20+ on the ground. I left with 52 something, and passed over the high school with 3600. My glide wasn't great, but there was lots of areas of lift on the way out and I had to work to stay out of it in order to get down. The field by the church was gusty, but I was lucky and came down softly just a couple minutes before Marty did the same thing.

Flight time was 1:40. I hadn't had a mountain flight in a few weeks so it felt great to be up there with some buddies getting some big air. Fun debrief at Sea Fresh afterwards as well. Pipkin reminded me that the debrief used to be a mandatory part of every flying day. I don't know why we let that tradition get away from us.

[Pipkin_Tom]

The air was crystal clear and the views from 7k over the Ojai Valley were spectacular . As with Brendan, Marty joined me over the back ridge near spine 1 just as I found the sweet spot in the NE/SW convergence. Always super fun climbing out with a flying bud.

I found security in the altitude. The wind and turb was manageable as long as we maintained a little more terrain clearance and avoided spots where we could get pinned in or blown over the back.

I had hoped that we could tag Chiefs for an out and return. The rest of the team wisely stayed back as I took a one way trip east bound and bailed into the propeller field. Just another land out.

Super fun day. Anybody up for Saturday?