From: Chris
Activity_Date:
Remote Name: 209.144.103.171
Monday looked somewhat like Sunday. Still some high winds at launch but not as intense and more time between gusts. Bill Bailey and Zvi were the first off and I lost track of them. Bruce Wallace launched just before I did and had a beautiful climb to 6k down the spine. I quickly followed with similar results. An ideal thermal! I started the glide out to Stooges at 6k and was followed by Bruce. By the time we hit stooges I was at about 3500 and he was easily 500 over that. I thought I'd be able to make it to nordhoff with enough alt to catch a thermal up but i ran into strong headwinds and came to a near standstill over a nasty looking canyon. Speedbar'd out but i lost alot of valuable altitude. Bruce looked like had made it up and i lost sight of him over the top. Just like sunday i started looking for an LZ and in an attempt to avoid the coffee berry tree of the day before i put down in a postage stamp sized field 200 yards short of it. 3 Minute hike to the end of Gridley road.
Wednesday it was just Tom P. and I and conditions at launch were refreshingly mellow. Tom launched sometime just after noon and got a respctable thermal out on the spine. I followed and was able to top out at 4750. For 20 minutes or so it was smooth and just enough to stay at about 4500. After that things started going awry. It got very turbulent and I got my world rocked a few times. Enough to make me want to head for an LZ. It was amazingly turbed all the way out to the Boccali's LZ. There wasnt a single second that my wing wasnt twitching in some new and creative way. Below 3k I ran into an unexpected headwind from the West which had me questioning my ability to reach the LZ at all. And with all the turb I was nervous about being able to put down in a field which has some natural turb on a mellow day. Oh yeah, the fact that the owners put in a pond and a river on the plot made me a bit nervous too. With the headwind and turb i was able to put down right in the middle but my groundspeed was nil. It was like riding an elevator straight down from 200 feet. Only stayed up 35 minutes but it was certainly educational.
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