Low cloud base didn't give us much hope for the first day of the SoCal XCLeague
Waiting for the low cloud to lift
I would have easily made goal except for two mistakes - the first was not climbing back up to cloudbase over launch before the second to last turnpoint at Towers. The second mistake was not flying straight out over the flats once I was the turnpoint and realized I was lower than needed to reach the last turnpoint and still reach goal. Instead I flew closer in to the spines which usually work lower down. For some reason they weren't working, perhaps because the cloud cover was preventing the ground heating up. I ended up being able to jump from spine back to the landing field, but 2km short of goal after missing the last turnpoint.
Event organizer Aaron Price flew the course in a blistering 41 minutes, and said he flew straight out from the Bend turnpoint and got lift over the valley and around the observatory. The last turnpoint had a big circle so when I looked as his tracklog, he left the Bend turnpoint no higher than me, just used a little more local knowledge to glide out and get a good enough line to reach the turnpoint and drift downwind back to the landing field.
Ended up 4th out of a small field of 12.