Crestline Soaring Society

Nice warm day with good onshore, some haze in the air, scattered cirrus very high and thin. Launched my Falcon 225 at 13:45 from the top in a brief WSW cycle - it had been mostly SSW. Got a thermal shortly after launch and circled up with a gaggle of PGs working several nearby cores. Drifted back behind Marshall with Kim Floyd - I was following the spine, he was more E into the canyon. Climbed 300-400 FPM, briefly losing it at 5200 MSL, but found it again and hung on till 6130. Back to Crestline at 5400 about 13:57 and it was windy there - I did a rather slow crab along the ridge to Billboard, was working little bumps at ridge top level for a while.

Finally popped up to 5800 in some 450+ FPM then cruised to where the road crosses the spine o' Pine. One bump there and then I headed out the spine all the way to the Afterbay, down to 3600 MSL, thinking I might actually not make the LZ at this rate. Drifted with a little elusive <100 FPM core to 3800 and hopped SW to Last Chance and worked quickly to Regionals vicinity, but only briefly got 3900 MSL. Worked Regionals for a while, but couldn't get much more than 200 AGL. It was weird - lots of teeny pockets of ridge lift, but no thermals close to the hill. Scratched below Cloud for a while with similar results.

I wanted to top land, so I dove for the front of Marshall, thinking I might work up the faces. Got there low, at 3400 MSL and headed out the spine to the front complex. Got a little core going NE fast; gained 100 feet in 5 turns, but was well downwind of the spine and didn't like the headwind I'd have to fight if I got dumped.

Took a slow upwind glide to the far E end of the bluffs below the 750, arriving at 2800 MSL at 14:45. Scratched all of the SW faces for about 15 minutes, getting as high as 3000 MSL, but finally got into the canyon below the 750 and sank to 600 above the LZ by the time I got to the bluffs, so I went for the LZ.

It was switchy in the LZ, and I actually approached the HG spot from the E side of the LZ, landing at 15:00.

Wayne, Kim, Dusty, Hoffbrow and other usual suspects all had good PG flights, some top landing at least once, but they stayed pretty close to Marshall, it looked like. Tom Swanson gave me a ride back to my truck, and Hoffbrow flew again. McKenzie's student Derek had his first PG solo (BIG guy, so no tandems) and did really well, grinned broadly after landing.

After Mark's second flight I even did a few PG inflations in the LZ with his rig. The wind was fading fast, so only the first one was any good. Haven't flown one in over a year, so it was cool.

So it was quite a change from what we've been getting. I had a lot of fun scratching in close, even though I didn't get up to land by my truck. Knowing it'd be easy to get a ride back up helped :)

I was perfectly comfortable in a windbreaker and no gloves, even at 6k. Tomorrow should be cooler, with some marine layer clouds in the AM, but it ought to be decent mid-afternoon.