Tuesday, July 31, 2007
We had to really stick it out on Tuesday- it was dead as a doornail when we got up top. Scott said the flag at Mossy was blowing straight in when he went by but I set up my glider atop H-port hoping the forecast that I saw when I left work would materialize. PGs launched and sledded. Not a good sign. Scott left. Not a good sign. I went to retrieve everyone and we fit 6 people and all their HG/PG gear in the Subaru. No small feat! The PGs were trying to launch the lower slot when we got back up since now there was some wind. It was getting late- I had been here for a couple of hours. Alone at the upper launch, a cycle came through that I couldn't resist so off I went. It was solid though, and I got 50' over for a bit. Then I flew over the lower launch so they could see I was up. Fred the PG launched and we duked it out a bit. Not a lot of room for us both, but then it got good. I got a climb that proved worthy of some serious cranking up and got to 3000' over. Then the whole valley was my playground and I went up to the lake and hung out near the town there. Cruising around without losing much altitude and watching the bunch of gliders hang out over Mt Washington. What a blast. After 90 minutes I thought about landing but I didn't want to let this one PGer get the best of me. Whoever it was, he was the only one close to my altitude at 1700' over, and doing really well. Finally it looked like this huge wonderwind was going to shut down and I watched Bob go land on top. I followed and beaked my glider in pretty good in the tall weeds. But it didn't dampen how great that flight felt. Bare arms, no gloves- comfy even up high.... I asked Bob who the yellow and red PG was- some new hotshot? No.... .Karl Link! Kicking butt!
So.... just under 2 hours. 3K over, not really any miles but a nice cruise around the valley.