Pine Mountain, Wednesday, April 22

[faoro]

Although Tony Deleo takes the honors for the best flight of the week (see his post below), I thought Pine Mountain had one more good day to squeeze out of the recent unusual weather. Bob Peloquin took his Suzuki with me and an unnamed paraglider pilot - who may be a yellow-bellied coward, but who was unafraid to fly the backcountry in the face of towering thunderheads - as driver up to check out Pine for the inaugural flight of the year. The weather page had 9900's all the way up through 12,000 feet with a stellar lapse rate. The only problem might be the below-zero temperatures we would feel if we ascended to the BLIPMAPS' predictions of 16K. Well, the monster anvil-cloud that rose up over Lockwood Valley at 10 AM led to some pointed debate and hyperbole in the vehicle as we wound our way back up the 33 toward launch. Mammatus clouds added to the excitement. The aforementioned unnamed pilot demonstrated no fear as he calmly related stories of unbelievable horror that befell earlier, naive pilots in similar situations.

The thunderhead had dissipated to a wide, black overcast blotting out the sun by the time we arrived at the 7,000 foot launch. Someone had kindly put up lots of streamers and the cycles were blowing in a bit on the weak side due to overdevelopment. It was quite dark out toward Lockwood with visible virga below the clouds. But the sun popped out a few minutes later and the cycles seemed adequate for laying out a wing, and so I did. I launched at 12:30 PM, too late for any hope of the elusive hundred miler, but adventure was in the air. Unfortunately, the lift was anemic, despite the big cumulus to the west and north of Pine. To the east, there was no sunshine all the way to the Antelope Valley, except for a little bit leaking into Dry Canyon from the west. But the west and south were in sunshine, if a bit hazy with some cirrus streaks. I climbed at a few hundred feet a minute, gazing down at the remaining snow on the north side of Pine, expecting to get yanked skyward at any moment as I drifted west down the spine. (By the time Bob P. landed on the 33, there was booming thunder and lightning as the whole west end of Pine went off.) It never happened. I almost reached 11K, a few thousand below cloudbase, before the thermals petered out - despite being beneath the large cumis. The clouds stretched out a mile toward Santa Barbara and northwest a few miles toward Plowshares. Before I knew it, I had squandered two thousand feet looking for another thermal. At 9,700 I decided it was time to bolt for Ojai. By now, I was way west over the 33, but I was getting a nice 15 mph tailwind with my GPS saying I had a 7:1 glide to reach Ojai. Looked good in theory, so I flew over Ortega Ridge and was below seven thousand feet when I had crossed Dry Lakes Ridge. Ojai was shaded in and I swung in from the west, seeing Matilija off to my right hand side.

Cleared the ridge over the Nuthouse launch west of Nordhoff Peak with minimal altitude, around 4K. I thought I could catch some lift off Spine One, but there was nothing working in the dark in Ojai. Now, I had lost hope for the high school, so I settled for Pipkin's Meadow, about 800 yards short of a decent LZ. But I didn't make that either and ended up landing in Reese Witherspoon's back yard. Nice house, nice LZ. No one home for a tandem, so I packed up and walked back toward my car at the high school.

One hour flight.

[Kabir]

Well...
I was scratching and kicking bushes round 11ish at westbowl when I heard a faint transmision that sounded like Ron
I wondered if it was THEM flying over there.
could almost recognize the voice, but when they said something about being 10500 over something or other....

Well.
IM glad you guys scored!
And Im glad that the cummis did not swallowed you all!

The sky looked awesome around noon.
But by 4ish... MAN!!!
NUCULAR!!!

See the pics below
They look over towards Pineland.

[Chris G]

Why, when I was a young whipperschnapper those were *prime* Pine conditions! In fact, if there weren't golfball sized hailstones, lightning 200ft away, and tornadoes in Lockwood Valley we didn't even bother to launch!

It's also amazing that we lived through it but that's another story. Gonna find some time to run down there on a prime Pine weekend to play with you guys..;)

[Leeside]

Hey faoro, nice flight and nice report, I must say when I took the following photo I was glad not to be anywhere near Pine. Thanks for letting me experience it from a safe distance. This shot is from over ventura looking towards pine/pinos at 12:30pm.

[pengoquin]

Wow, let's go to Pine, the call came from a giddy Ron Faoro. Things looked great until I got on the 101 N/B and saw a huge thunder head climbing up from some where behind Pine. Maybe I'll launch, maybe not. We met at Nordoff HS and now the clouds formed a big anvil head, good incentive to go flying (tomorrow). A quick drive to launch. The cycles were light and steady. The clouds backed off and the cycles picked up a bit and Faoro was off. Ron was working his way up towards a developing cummi, in what looked like some decent lift. I got off about 15 minutes later and followed straight to the ridge on the right. The lift was getting lighter and my climbs were short lived. Slid down to the Bonsai Tree, not a single pop. As I'm sinking out, I hear Ron on the radio saying he's at 11,200. The drift was to the north and just as I reached the 33, hooked a good one and made it back to about 6k. Back in the game, started S/B towards Cal Trans. I heard Ron leaving dry lake with 7200. A strong north flow slowed my progress to a crawl, back to being a goat. Turned N/B and in no time I jammed into the Sand Pile LZ. Thanks Ron for the call, thanks OJ for the recovery and thank you Pine Mountain for letting us fly there.

The thunder in the clouds over launch reminded me that sometimes it's better to be on the ground looking up.