Wednesday wane

[timobarker]

After the high of Tuesday, New Years, I awoke with high expectations for such a gloriously sunny day. But, the wind up high, the lapse rate, etc... kept things much tamer. Andy, Chad and I launched right around 11 (probably the biggest mistake of the day). Andy, got up a bit over launch and cruised west toward the tit and RR. I launched and sunk out toward the antennae farm. I got up there, but couldn't get more than 2 hundred over that ridge. I tried bumping back toward thermal factory a couple of times, but couldn't swing it. Then I made a mistake. I was working the ridge out front of the rock and saw Chad getting better lift over the Monastery. I left the rock ridge and went to the monastery, dumping all my altitude in the crossing (rookie move). I ended up 100 or so over the monastary and opted for a saint mary's landing rather than sweating over the glide to Parma. After packing up, I noticed that many of the pilots in our crew were climbing out over launch and getting much higher over the round house and antennas. I think the call would have been to wait for a bit more heating. Oh well, it was a glorious day to pack up in the green field at Saint Mary's, to the sound of the trickling creek nearby. Thanks Andy for the pick up at Saint Mary's.