Walt’s Point to southeast of Gabbs, Nev. 158 mi.

[Tony Deleo]

With the weather looking promising for Thursday and Friday 7/17 Fast Eddie and I headed to The Owens Valley to break Jonny Duran’s foot launch record of 321 miles. The weather looked better for Friday, but we opted to fly Thursday anyway. Taking off Thursday I immediately noticed that the glider wanted to trim at 55 mph instead of 45 mph, instead of thermalling at 25-27 mph the glider was flying at 35 mph. After flying down the Sierras in this configuration and with there being minimal cloud development on the White Mountains I opted to throw in the towel at Big Pine and fly Friday. Friday was all that was predicted. Taking off at 10:45 with clouds forming behind takeoff, unfortunately with the thermals drifting out of the northeast ,it took me 45 minutes to get away from Walt’s at 12,500’. Flying down the Sierras I was finally able to connect and went to 17,500’. The clouds were drifting out of the southwest so I gave Onion Valley wide berth. I was determined to fly as far north as possible on The Sierras and finally with cloud development branching to the northeast I was tempted to cut the corner to Tonopah(appx. 60 miles). I thought better of it and continued north bound at 17,500’ on the “streeted” Whites only stopping to turn on a handful of occasions. At White Mountain I again considered “cutting the corner” but opted to fly to Boundary Peak and go off there, it was now 2ish. I had made myself a promise not to panic if the first 100 miles was slow in as much as I had flown over 200 miles in slightly more than 4 hours. Turning northeast off of Boundary for 10 miles. It was there that the cloud street ended. T here were isolated clouds in the desert before me. Up ahead , apprx. 50 miles) I could see the clouds beginning to “street” again, I took this range to be The Toyaibe Range, so began to glide in towards the clouds 60 mph. I immediately encountered 2000’ per minute sink coming out of Fish Valley. I had Eddie holdup near Tonopah. Instead of The Toyabies I was at Pilot Peak where from 8k I slowly climbed out. At this point I was continually doing the math on what it would take to be at Elko within X hours. I would fly thru nice thermals but felt I could not make the additional 180 miles if I did so. Unfortunately I did not “tank up” on altitude seen southeast. I went on glide from 17,500’ and intersected the West side of The Paradise Range with no altitude. This range set atop a large alluvial fan which sloped off towards the south and west- southwest. I intersected the western most spine but due to my lack altitude(while I was descending the ground was coming up to me) a the wind direction out of being out the southeast. I couldn’t believe but I was now in the position of having to land on the alluvial fan down hill in light and variable conditions. My glide pretty much matched the slope of the terrain. I felt that continuing to glide over the terrain was folly so I decided to take my medicine and land near a mining road. It wasn’t a pretty landing! I had landed at 4:30 @ 6,200’ about 12 miles or so southeast of Gabbs. Eddie, with the help of Southside, SPOT and Jonathon, was there to pick me at dusk as I prepared for another night in the desert. The flying in the Owens was as good as I had seen it.

[NMERider]

removed by author

[Mark Miyahara]

How to convert decimal degrees to degrees minute second:
The whole units of degrees will remain the same (i.e. in 121.135° longitude, start with 121°).

Multiply the decimal by 60 (i.e. .135 * 60 = 8.1).

The whole number becomes the minutes (8').

Take the remaining decimal and multiply by 60. (i.e. .1 * 60 = 6).

The resulting number becomes the seconds (6"). Seconds can remain as a decimal.

Take your three sets of numbers and put them together, using the symbols for degrees (°), minutes (‘), and seconds (") (i.e. 121°8'6" longitude)