Big air...

Well, as predicted, the conditions were prime for a big cross-country (XC) day at Sugar. The winds were reasonably light so the lift went straight up. Big fat cumulus clouds lined the hills at around 17,000 ft. There was a good chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon, so we needed to be in the air fairly early to avoid the overdevelopment, which shuts down the lift by preventing the sunlight from heating the ground.

Mike called a long task today, also as predicted. It was a 90-miler from Sugar to a turnpoint north of Lakeview, then across the valley toward the town of Paisley, and then back to Lakeview. Since the first turnpoint was 39 miles from launch, I figured that I'd just see how close to Lakeview I could get (27 miles from launch) and be happy with bettering my best flight from a few weeks earlier of 18 miles.

It was pretty darn cool to see those 30-plus gliders virtually covering the mountaintop. The downside, of course, is that soon they'd all be in the air scrambling for the same thermals, and among them would be a newbie pilot from Grants Pass in the second comp of his life. Thankfully though, I was one of the last few off the hill, and the hot dogs had since left and were well on their way to the first waypoint.

I'd teamed up with a pilot from New York, David Koehn, whom I'd flown with last year in Hang On, and we had Mark Forbes, the Regional Director for the USHPA and Safety Director for this comp as a driver. We'd agreed upon a common radio frequency to organize retrievals.

David launched first and eventually found something over the lookout that was giving him a pretty respectable climb. He radioed to me to join him, but I was working a pretty strong core of my own. We discovered that we were working different regions of the same thermal, so both of us climbed from launch at 7,150 ft. above sea level to 16,000-plus ft. At this point it occurred to me that I could suffer from hypoxia at this altitude without an oxygen system if I were there for an extended period, so I took several deep breaths to compensate. David radioed that he was heading for the edge of the start cylinder, so I responded that I was right behind him. He headed for the heart of a large dark-bottomed cloud downwind, and I chased him for awhile until I lost sight of him.

Crossing Fandango Valley I lost maybe 1,500 ft, so I still had plenty to work with. Remembering my last flight and how I'd failed to push far enough back into the hills, I eased my way deeper and deeper over 'dinosour country'. Along the way I found a couple of nice cores that took me back up high enough that I could make Lakeview on glide. I passed over Black Cap, which overlooks Lakeview, at around 9,000 ft and continued about 5 miles beyond town and landed in a large field about 6 miles short of the first turnpoint. David continued on, reaching the turnpoint and landing in a field just to the south.

This flight represents several bests for me. It's the most altitude I've ever gained in a single climb (over 9,000 ft), the highest I've ever been above sea level (16,400 ft), and my longest cross-country flight (32-1/2 miles). Mark told me that he saw at least ten other gliders scattered along the route between launch and Lakeview, so I'm curious as to how I stand overall and in Sport Class. Not that it really matters though -- if I drove home right now I'd be smiling all the way...