by andy dainsberg » Sun Jan 31, 2010 6:53 pm
my opinion of the potential was it looked great early then eased into not so good driving up. ron and i laid out and waited at skyport thru a couple scud cycles. soon after launching it looked great again cuz we were getting up, cummis were poppin and many alternator pilots were skying out. from the randr ron and i joined parmachris at tf. i got up fast to 43 and headed east. it was fun hearing everyone heading out to the beach but downrange just looked fantastic with huge cummis developing high over castle and whiteledge.
got to 46 at the powerlines and connected the upper ridge in steady lift. straightforward thermalling until the canyon west of whitleledge. there were high cummis forming everywhere but none of the lower lift seemed loaded. the spine west of this canyon was just weakly working but was enough to hang in. once i figured out where to plug in, i was coring quickly up to cloudbase at 6500. this was enough altitude to bypass whiteledge on a min sink glide and take the high ridge all the way thru the bumps past the 33 straight to the nuthouse.
connected nuthouse launch about 200 over and in 5 minutes i was past the pyramid in smokin lift. over bruces i saw the only hawk of the day and he led me up to @55. i caught the best thermal of my day off the small bump just west of twin peaks... this tight thermal took me up 2500 feet fast and got me all the way to the road by chief peak...
from over chief peak, i took the high road east past west repeater to the base of the topas where cummis were streeting. the sightseeing was awesome and probably did me in as i never really connected the topa's thermals and eventually fled down the spine to boyds-- got nothing and had to bail back to east repeater for help or land st.thomas aquinas. still hoping for piru, i backed up to e repeater but the scratching was obnoxious; rotor and switchy winds. thinking of battling my enemy santa paula ridge and my retrieve, i decided to try to get all the way back to nordhoff hs. the following hour was definately work but i did get back to nhs.
just stellar flying for lots of pilots today.
Hello Skyway