Crestline Soaring Society

Pretty fun day with lots of hang gliders and a few paragliders launching from Marhsall. I got an hour and 40 minutes after sweating out the first 15 min at 500 below launch along the spine that extends south from Marshall. While I scratched about I looked up at a train of hang gliders that had formed on launch, apparently watching me in disgust. When I finally got a couple hundred feet higher than Marshall the waiting gliders started launching. They were probably thinking “If that moron is up it must be good now.”
Dave said he found lift everywhere but I was struggling a lot of the time. I would see gliders high at Cloud but when I got there they were high at Marshall. When I'd go to Marshall they were high at Cloud. I was forced to abandon my theory that soaring is largely luck based, and that instead there is skill involved after all. This was very distressing.
Mark and Stan got back to Billboard and then to Pine. And Dusty went to Billboard in a paraglider. Dusty and I were pretty low below Regionals and got into a big moderate moving thermal together that took us up above 5000. I briefly thought of floating back to Billboard myself but soon gave it up. I watched in humiliation as Dusty was still 200 ft. below me but half way there already. He doesn't even use a vario. Once there he worked his way up nicely. At one point he turned around and did the "Nah, Nah Nah, Nah Nah" thing, you know, where you stick your thumbs in your ears and wiggle your fingers in an effort to look like a mocking moose. But the joke was on him because I was so far a way I could pretend not to see it. Probably stuck his tongue out too. "Look ma, no vairo!"
I felt it was time to end the flight.
There was gentle warm soft air in the LZ and a nice sea breeze to land in. Happy pilots seemed oblivious to my tribulations.
Mike Z