A hot and quite windy day for Weekend 5 Day 1. Ambitious task north to a big circle around El Cajon, then all the way down range to a turnpoint on the ridge behind Yucaipa.
Photo: Nicole Popper
Launching Black Magic
Photo: Nicole Popper
Doing the Launch dance
Photo: Nicole Popper
I waiting a little long to launch, thinking the thermals might settle down a bit. Ended up to be quite a good strategy, as I was able to climb straight out from the house thermal on the spine and then take off through the start circle without having to wait around for the start, which I dislike. Over to Pine with great height a couple of minutes after the lead gaggle.
However I had programmed my GPS wrongly for the first turnpoint, misplacing the decimal point from 7km to 0.7km! I saw people turning around ahead and below me and wondered why I still had 6.2 km to go to the turnpoint. After two km extra distance up the ridge I realized what I had done so was now way behind having flown four extra kilometers!
Back to Marshall the climbs were really working with 2.6 m/s average from Cloud, and a nice lifty link toward Arrow let me fly right over Aaron and Joe popper without stopping to top up.
Over the 330 highway there was a lot of sink, and I ended up low on Mt Harrison watching Jeff Williams sink as well. Suddenly he turned straight at the hill and started climbing straight upslope without even thermalling! This beautiful thermal went up 3000 ft at a 2.5 m/s average up to top of lift around 7000 ft.
Nice thermal up and over Mt Harrison
A nice glide with Jeff took us to the dam. He slowed early and took a climb below the dam, I took a risk and dived over to the ridge where Aaron and I had climbed out last year. The climb worked perfectly although Jeff leapfrogged past me again, but then started sinking out towards the valley.
My mistake was not following the ridge around the back all the way to Morton Peak, and thinking the front of the hills would work. Didn't work for either Jeff or me, so we both landed on the road to Mountain Home after about 45km XC distance and 10km short of goal.
The Goal Crew...Russ, Len, Jai Pal and Mark.
Photo Credit: Nicole Popper
Click on image for Leonardo Tracklog
