Crestline Soaring Society

Wow! I wasn't even expecting it to be flyable today - maybe a small launchable window before sunset. I got word in the morning that there was going to be a 13:45 shuttle to Crestline, so I signed on.

It was blowing like 18 when we got there to find a trio of PG pilots evaluating conditions and getting their gear ready and Rebar Dan with some topless wing mostly setup. We parked our HGs carefully for setup due tot he wind. Gene launched his PG and was inching around and the PG pilots wisely decided to head down to Marshall.

Dan launched and went up. Rob McKenzie launched with Trish Kells tandem and went up. John D. was getting readings in the low 20s standing on the ramp. I launched a Sport 2 155 and went up, very glad to have Di on the nose wires for the walk to the ramp. I was boating around 500-800 over and watched John D. launch a Falcon, and then Kim Floyd launched a Falcon. Rob took Trish over to BB and Devil Canyon, then Regionals. I went more or less straight to Marshall and then around a little and did some wingovers and couldn't spin it from the basetube, but had a solid one from the downtubes, then dove Dakota on the 750 with his PG and then skimmed the bluffs and landed into breezy WSW for a 25 minute flight. Got a good bump at 250 AGL over the parking lot heading into my left-hand approach. I had another glider to fly and had checked out the 750 and the bluffs because I wanted to fly it from the 750.

Dakota and I went to the 750, with Trish to drive my truck back down. Thanks Trish! It was quite west and I launched the Sport 2 175 going about 45 degrees cross-slope at 16:25. Got over the spine to the west without much rotor and a thermal was being driven right up that draw. It didn't really get stronger and I bailed from it ENE of the 750 and went west, but the western faces of the main spine weren't working back in the canyon. I was soon over the draw again and another core came through, stronger, and I stuck with it. Up and up 200-500 FPM and eventually I took it to 6,850 just north of Marshall, for a 4,400 foot gain in one thermal.

There were lots of PGs and HGs parked at various altitudes in the Marshall vicinity.

I was in shirtsleeves and light gloves and it wasn't uncomfortable up there, unlike Tuesday when I was freezing at 5000 MSL. Went across Regionals and over to Pine "the front way", but it wasn't really happening there - the grass on the spines wasn't even moving. I arrived at 4,600 and thought I'd really like some altitude before crossing back to Regionals. A 150 FPM core invited me back to its lair in Devil Canyon, and I strung it along to 5k before bailing out to the Afterbay and across to Last Chance. It was now about 17:00 and there were lots of shadows on the ground from high distant cloud sheets.

Got above the 750 again and it was still real west and another thermal came
up from that draw SW of the 750. Milked and milked it up to east of Cloud and then did lots of passes on the west face of Marshall to finally get over the top. Dove for the LZ again and found it west with a dash of north there, probably blowing 12-15. Did a wide left-hand approach from the EENE and even yawed it a little more right as I neared the HG cone. Had a gentle one-stepper in the breeze for a solid one hour flight.

It sounded like most of the crowd had fun in the air, and I really had fun, especially considering I'd written the day off for flying.