Nice day and conditions for the second race of the SoCal XCLeage first weekend of the year. I'd missed the first day due to visiting parents, but managed to get out on Sunday.
I had my best flight in a long time - not particularly long in either distance or time at 2hrs 23mins, but simply rewarding because I did everything right for once! I've been in a bit of a flying funk for the last few years, not really pushing myself or achieving any great increases in skill, so this was a nice change to fly as well as I possibly can.
The conditions were a bit overcast, so we had to pick our launch window carefully. I picked a nice cycle and climbed straight out over Marshall Peak to about 5500 ft. First turnpoint was Towers, then over to Pine. Pine was tricky due to stronger winds lower down. When the cores punched through the wind, they were true spring thermals and really rocked. I zoomed up all the way the face at Pine, tagging the turnpoint while thermalling, and then kept going up!
I climbed high enough to make the transition to Billboard and arrive above the Crestline ridge. Aaron Price climbed out behind me and took the thermal even higher, and then flew faster to catch me. We surfed along past the Crestline launch and then pushed against the 18km/hr wind over to Arrow. It has hard work pushing crosswind but lifty all the way, so we arrived at Arrow over the summit.
Then across to the tricky ridges above the Casino. This area can be both turbulent or a huge sink hole, but today the spring thermals were popping off and everyone climbed out. Aaron, Patrick Joyce and Russ Detweiller climbed out up ahead, but I missed their thermal and had to scratch around waiting for the next cycle to trigger. Fortunately I found a great thermal up to 5400 ft, enough to get to Mckinley mountain on a single glide.
Between Mckinley and Harrison mountain our field was swapping places constantly, with some staying lower and struggling a little, and those that stayed high having to work less hard and fly straighter lines. From Harrison the winds dropped somewhat and another booming thermal over the Mentone launch took me high enough to tag the last turnpoint. It was a big turnpoint circle right across the Redlands valley, which made it tempting for some pilots to tag it on the Mentone side. Unfortunately that meant they then had 6km final glide into 15-20 km/h wind, which put a few on the ground.
As I had lots of height, so I opted to fly direct across the valley, which meant the valley crossing would be longer, but the upwind leg to goal shorter. I got lucky and flew right into a huge thermal right in the middle of the valley, which had triggered somewhere in the rocky dry riverbed below. In four or five turns I was up to my high point of the day at 6400ft. I didn't even need any of the height to get to goal, but it was so strong I didn't want to get out until it calmed down a bit! My tracklog later confirmed it as peaking at 7.6 m/s.
After that it was full speed to goal for second place after Russ Detweiler. I arrived at goal with 3000ft of altitude to spare. I don't think I ever arrived at goal in a paragliding race with that much altitude to spare!
I had my best flight in a long time - not particularly long in either distance or time at 2hrs 23mins, but simply rewarding because I did everything right for once! I've been in a bit of a flying funk for the last few years, not really pushing myself or achieving any great increases in skill, so this was a nice change to fly as well as I possibly can.
The conditions were a bit overcast, so we had to pick our launch window carefully. I picked a nice cycle and climbed straight out over Marshall Peak to about 5500 ft. First turnpoint was Towers, then over to Pine. Pine was tricky due to stronger winds lower down. When the cores punched through the wind, they were true spring thermals and really rocked. I zoomed up all the way the face at Pine, tagging the turnpoint while thermalling, and then kept going up!
I climbed high enough to make the transition to Billboard and arrive above the Crestline ridge. Aaron Price climbed out behind me and took the thermal even higher, and then flew faster to catch me. We surfed along past the Crestline launch and then pushed against the 18km/hr wind over to Arrow. It has hard work pushing crosswind but lifty all the way, so we arrived at Arrow over the summit.
Then across to the tricky ridges above the Casino. This area can be both turbulent or a huge sink hole, but today the spring thermals were popping off and everyone climbed out. Aaron, Patrick Joyce and Russ Detweiller climbed out up ahead, but I missed their thermal and had to scratch around waiting for the next cycle to trigger. Fortunately I found a great thermal up to 5400 ft, enough to get to Mckinley mountain on a single glide.
Between Mckinley and Harrison mountain our field was swapping places constantly, with some staying lower and struggling a little, and those that stayed high having to work less hard and fly straighter lines. From Harrison the winds dropped somewhat and another booming thermal over the Mentone launch took me high enough to tag the last turnpoint. It was a big turnpoint circle right across the Redlands valley, which made it tempting for some pilots to tag it on the Mentone side. Unfortunately that meant they then had 6km final glide into 15-20 km/h wind, which put a few on the ground.
As I had lots of height, so I opted to fly direct across the valley, which meant the valley crossing would be longer, but the upwind leg to goal shorter. I got lucky and flew right into a huge thermal right in the middle of the valley, which had triggered somewhere in the rocky dry riverbed below. In four or five turns I was up to my high point of the day at 6400ft. I didn't even need any of the height to get to goal, but it was so strong I didn't want to get out until it calmed down a bit! My tracklog later confirmed it as peaking at 7.6 m/s.
After that it was full speed to goal for second place after Russ Detweiler. I arrived at goal with 3000ft of altitude to spare. I don't think I ever arrived at goal in a paragliding race with that much altitude to spare!
Todays Task
Screaming 7.6m/s thermal over the Redlands flats
Arriving at Goal with over 3000ft to spare
Live Music and Beer at Hanger 24
Uploading Tracklogs - Ross Detweiller (l) and Gregory Hunter (behind)
