Hotter than yesterday, windy in different places. Great result for me flying 37km in 1 hour 45 minutes for 3rd in goal and 6th place in the Sprint Race.
As usual the race pros took off first, climbing straight out above launch in their tight little gaggle. It always looks more dramatic from underneath because you can't see the third dimension of height.
We had an out and back, and out again course today, building on yesterdays route up the Rabies Ridge to Sugarloaf.
However the wind picked up by 1:30pm when the Sprint pilots started, shredding the thermals and making it hard to get out over 1500m. Eventually I gave up after the start and went to Burnt and fought with the thermals for 15minutes until I got lucky and found one that went all the up to 2300m. Fantastic view with Mt Shasta 125km to the south.
At least half the field was still milling around launch. I heard later that the wind picked up stronger and stronger, even dragging someone right across the parking lot... The wind made it very difficult for many people to even get established above launch as Woodrat mountain is a sharp spine where the wind creates quite dangerous turbulence over the spine of the mountain once it strengthens.
However, I was far above all the drama, heading off on full speedbar through the choppy convergence over to Rabies. The lift was scrappy but abundant, there were walls of air, switching winds and wacky thermals. It was never hard to stay up once I was high, but it was a roller coaster the whole way for the next 30km.
I did manage to eat a Cliff bar at one point as our mentoring guru's had told us you have to eat and drink) if you are flying more than a couple of hours. Right, like trying to eat and drink driving a car along a windy mountain road, no hands. I managed to spill my drink bottle after squirting it towards my mouth under the full face helmet. Next helmet I buy will be open!
I managed to get even higher above Rabies peak on the way back from Sugarloaf, right up to 8500ft. That gave me a full speed glide all the way back to launch, and halfway back to the Rabies ridge, where just to be sure I had a nice safety margin, I topped up height another four times before the final glide to the goal at Red Lily Vineyard.
As I reached the goal line with height to spare I got out my phone out to make some video. As I was filming their was an announcement that someone had tossed their reserve just over the area I had flown a couple of minutes earlier. You can actually see the reserve in the video - it's the tiny white spec in the middle of the picture at 0:45. It will be uploaded just as soon as I can figure out why videos from my phone do not upload correctly! I flew around in a couple of circles until we got a report from a closer pilot circling above him that he was OK.
Red Lily was in a rather strong valley flow. It must have been 95 degrees with 25km/h wind, so I landed at walking speed with extreme care, then went straight over to the shade! Thanks to Jeff Huey who was keeping a watchful eye on the safety of pilots landing at Red Lily.
As usual the race pros took off first, climbing straight out above launch in their tight little gaggle. It always looks more dramatic from underneath because you can't see the third dimension of height.
We had an out and back, and out again course today, building on yesterdays route up the Rabies Ridge to Sugarloaf.
However the wind picked up by 1:30pm when the Sprint pilots started, shredding the thermals and making it hard to get out over 1500m. Eventually I gave up after the start and went to Burnt and fought with the thermals for 15minutes until I got lucky and found one that went all the up to 2300m. Fantastic view with Mt Shasta 125km to the south.
At least half the field was still milling around launch. I heard later that the wind picked up stronger and stronger, even dragging someone right across the parking lot... The wind made it very difficult for many people to even get established above launch as Woodrat mountain is a sharp spine where the wind creates quite dangerous turbulence over the spine of the mountain once it strengthens.
However, I was far above all the drama, heading off on full speedbar through the choppy convergence over to Rabies. The lift was scrappy but abundant, there were walls of air, switching winds and wacky thermals. It was never hard to stay up once I was high, but it was a roller coaster the whole way for the next 30km.
I did manage to eat a Cliff bar at one point as our mentoring guru's had told us you have to eat and drink) if you are flying more than a couple of hours. Right, like trying to eat and drink driving a car along a windy mountain road, no hands. I managed to spill my drink bottle after squirting it towards my mouth under the full face helmet. Next helmet I buy will be open!
I managed to get even higher above Rabies peak on the way back from Sugarloaf, right up to 8500ft. That gave me a full speed glide all the way back to launch, and halfway back to the Rabies ridge, where just to be sure I had a nice safety margin, I topped up height another four times before the final glide to the goal at Red Lily Vineyard.
As I reached the goal line with height to spare I got out my phone out to make some video. As I was filming their was an announcement that someone had tossed their reserve just over the area I had flown a couple of minutes earlier. You can actually see the reserve in the video - it's the tiny white spec in the middle of the picture at 0:45. It will be uploaded just as soon as I can figure out why videos from my phone do not upload correctly! I flew around in a couple of circles until we got a report from a closer pilot circling above him that he was OK.
Red Lily was in a rather strong valley flow. It must have been 95 degrees with 25km/h wind, so I landed at walking speed with extreme care, then went straight over to the shade! Thanks to Jeff Huey who was keeping a watchful eye on the safety of pilots landing at Red Lily.
Tracklog
Animated 3-D Race Video (from Iain Frew)
Todays Results
Cumulative Result
Super exciting day flying and felt I had earnt the beers back at Rat Race HQ at Gail and Mike Haley's house. They put in an amazing effort to this competition, coordinating 200 pilots and about 60 volunteers. It takes a village to run a paragliding comp, and Mike and Gail coordinate the villagers...