Harris hill was pretty awesome yesterday- Tuesday. I've been missing the decent days lately so I made my mind up (with Ron's help) early enough to do something about it. I scrambled through some work and headed home to pick up Ron and my "good" glider. We got to Harris around 1:45 and Jack was just taking Louis and Ed up from the LZ. On top it looked pretty light but there were tons of hawks around so I set up the Litespeed.... slowly.. I didn't want to be the wind dummy and watch everyone soar from the LZ.... Ron launched first, sledded, then Jack sledded, then I launched. I had two hawks just in front of launch and one to the right on the ridge but hardly any wind blowing in so it was tough for me to make the decision to go- plus with Jack landing right then, it sorta seemed stupid. But I had a nice run, got out of the slot, and turned right, and started sinking. Shit! I went towards the saddle and started to get some beepings so I did a 360 below the ridge and gained 20 feet, then another, and another, and soon I was 600' over! I didn't drift towards the ridge at all, and I had a 2mph wind speed reading on my vario, and I struggled some to stay with this thing. I thought it was going to be over with soon so I went looking for the big cheese at 1000' over. I found it right over the sailport and linked some climbs together to get to cloudbase. On my way up I saw that Dan had launched and was having no luck. I got to 4600' over in a solid 600fpm climb trying to get zipped up the whole time. I tried with both hands over and over again, but things were just stuck firm. The funny thing was I put my glider in a turn to thermal while I worked on the zipper, and my glider just stayed right in that climb. Very cool! When I made a decision to go way to the ridge to the west, it was for fear of getting in the way of the airport runway. It looked so good out there, live clouds and close together.... but where I went instead, it was just not good and I lost 3K trying to find another good climb. A big sweeping circle to the NW and back over the cliffs and Harris launch still no luck. Back in front of the sailport I had a little bit but now I was low, too low. So I set upon landing for a 48 minute flight. But short as it was, it was way way sweet. I fall in love with my glider's handling every time I fly it. Dan was broke down and driving back up so I caught a ride right away. I figured I'd get the Sting put together in case it got nice. But I wasn't seeing anyone soaring so when Jack was talking about setting up his tandem, I asked for a ride. He said he would and while he was giving me the low-down, I found myself getting really nervous. Steve Houser had launched and got 100 feet over or so-briefly, but Jack said there was no way we'd soar, and no way he's let us launch in no wind. But we got ready anyways and after Louis backed off launch, we got into the slot. At this point I was gripping the handles on Jack's harness pretty hard, and remembering the first time I ever saw hang gliding. It was 1995 at Mingus Mountain and my sister was doing a side-by-side tandem with Rob. I have never done a foot launch tandem and even though Jamie and I were talking about it a few weeks ago, I never actually thought for real that I would be doing it. I was more afraid of screwing stuff up than anything else. Jack mentioned his girlfriend's 8 yr old taking a tandem this way and I figured if SHE could do it..... So he yells "clear" and I start running and off we go. Piece of cake! He tried the ridge but we were sinking like a stone and it went just fine until the very end when he went to flare. I guess I got a little freaked about how high I was in relation to the ground when he pushed out HARD. But I think it's just that I am used to a super-low final in ground effect- lower than most people. So it just felt like all that weight was going to come crashing down on me but that wasn't the case at all. We just stopped on a dime and that was that! So thanks to Jack for that, and thanks Ron for driving and being the wind dummy. Bob and Dave Perry flew too. Doug S and Ed didn't. I heard that Scott G was on launch but I never saw him. I think that's everyone.... Lots of pilots, sunshine, clouds....Way fun day for me. A great first flight and a great "first" of a flight!

Thursday the small crowd was heading to Harriet Hollister, and when I finally extracted myself from work, I drove in to see a sight I rarely encounter: someone was soaring the ridge. At Harriet. Go figure.... I drove to the lookout and Karl was in the slot, Lon and Todd were in various stages of setting up. Another unusual sight: it was blowing in nicely! Todd said it was his second set up, he flew earlier and got around 15 minutes, then it had been dead for hours but Scott R had finally launched a short time ago. That's who I had seen on the ridge. When I was scratching my head wondering why Karl wasn't diving in, Scott makes an appearance in the bowl, getting drilled by sink all the way out to the ridge and below, disappearing out of sight again. Well, not very encouraging..... So while I set up I looked at conditions more closely. I figured maybe it was crossing SE but it really didn't matter because by the time I finished setting up, it was totally dead. Gee, like THAT's never happened at Harriet before.... I pushed Todd and Karl out of the way and got into the slot. I had the Sting so I was confident about a dead wind launch. Too bad it was a wind-shadow launch..... I started my run and the glider just didn't want to fly. I leaned forward and ran harder, but the glider got in front of me and I was having a tough time catching up to it. Just before I ran out of room, I hear Todd yelling RUN! but all I could do was just jump forward into the glider, just clearing the trees, and proceeding to skim the tops of the trees all the way across the bowl. I actually think I had to steer AROUND some of the taller trees. I looked at my vario when I got to the point and I was 200' below launch. not good. So I turned right and headed along the ridge to land in the big field, hoping to catch something along the way. When I passed where Scott landed, I kept going south, and saw now that I was almost 400' below launch, but I did hear a beep or two so I turned back for it. I did a 360 out a ways over the road, and lost only 20 more feet. Encouraged, I did another. And another and pretty soon I was actually level with the ridge. Holy crap! I climbed on up to 600' over in this burble of air and my vario read 1mph wind speed, sometimes 4mph... not exactly rocking... so I topped it out there and figured I would give a look-see at my buddies on launch and let them know I saved it. I knew they wouldn't believe I actually got up after that launch and sink through the bowl... When I left that tiny SE facing area, I got drilled so bad I aborted my "gloat mission" and headed back to that spot. Oh well, it was no longer going up there and I made a rapid descent to the LZ where Scott had been. I was pretty sure I had him as a witness to my incredible save. I did set up a great landing, with my eye on the gully that runs right through the middle of the field, and you know that target fixation is a very true thing because I planted my feet right in the middle of the 5' wide mucky trench. Oh well, at least Scott was not a witness to THAT! But he got back in time to help me carry my glider to the road. So Todd calls and he is not believing my story of how I soared Harriet in totally dead air for 20 minutes. He says he'll come get me but it's Karl who appears with my car so the part that Todd didn't believe was the Totally Dead Air part because he unpacked his glider after we spoke and launched again. Bonehead. Well so that's the story of how I soared Harriet (a rare occurence). Maybe Todd can get the video working of my run through the bowl.
Friday I had some errands in the morning but got my butt to the Flight Park to fly my pretty new Litespeed with the the hurricane nay-sayers. It was totally overcast but there were dark ugly cu's underneath and the rigids were sticking pretty well. So I got behind Marty and he towed me up high to a nasty cloud to the east. When I got off I took a few turns and was surprised to find myself getting misty. I ran to the SE and assessed the situation: widespread areas of light lift, tons of sink, 2900' cloudbase, mostly just rigids staying up. Hmmmm , not too great. But I found some light stuff to waffle in and with the VG mostly all on, I could maintain or climb some. There was a cool convergence line to the N and that was fun to drive around in. I flew for around an hour, figured it was just about over with when I got down to 1200', but there was a little something left at the southwest end of the park that got me back to the clouds and suddenly Joel and Bob G and Doug A were my bestest friends.... I landed a short time later (no wheels!) and then Mikey and I got going on a problem I was having with my harness. Once we started, there seemed to be no end to the things that needed fixing..... Just like Tom Lanning says- you don't buy a harness nowadays, you buy a harness KIT. But Mikey labored tirelessly over the thing and solved a few big issues for me.
So two days in a row of flying. Lots of rare faces at the Flight Park (including mine). Today were having our little hurricane, tomorrow maybe it will be okay. And Monday looks better. So stay tuned......