Chief 2/22

From: Chris
Activity_Date:        
Remote Name: 209.144.103.212

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I was so missing the big gnarly air of last summer and fall. Last Wednesday at the Chief wasn't what I had been hoping for. A rather uneventful sledder. 20 minutes, tops. Thursday I passed because the weather looked 'ho hum' on paper and Claude had a great flight so I took him up on his offer to fly today. He had 3 tandems to toss off the top which left space for a few others. Brendan met up with me at Nordhoff but got a call back to work 3 minutes before Claude showed up. So it goes. We grabbed Eddy and headed up. Arrived at noon and the cycles looked perfect.

Claude took his first tandem off and got up well over launch half way down the spine. I bailed and found similar lift out front. He came back for a top-landing and I followed him back over the launch which is pretty much where I stayed for the next hour. The ceiling seemed to be at around 6350. Claude managed to top-land twice and get all his tandems done but the third got a few 360s into it and started to feel not so minty fresh. Claude was determined to make it home so off they went to Nordhoff ridge.

I left with 6k and had a nice tailwind to the first knob at the Nord. Top speed of about 31 at trim and very little sink. By far the easiest crossing I've ever done. Claude hit the ridge out front to avoid making his passenger sicker but I went right up the top. BOOMER thermals. The vario registered 1300fpm and I got up to just under 6k over the Nordhoff launch. Claude headed for home and found lots of lift on the way out so I bailed from the ridge just as he was over NHS. The cycles had seemed to shut down anyway.

I arrived over my house behind NHS with about 3k and figured I'd circle around a bit before putting down in a vacant lot 100 feet from my front door. Got down to around 1600 when claude gets on the radio and tells me to come on over to his place as there is lift everywhere. Approximately half way between NHS and Claude's I started hitting lift. No idea where it was coming from but it quickly took me back up to 3k before shutting down half an hour later. West wind seemed to be picking up so I set down across the street from NHS.

Beautiful flight, lots of lift and very minimal sink. Let's hope it keeps up for this weekend!!