Chelan XC Classic 2010: Day 2

The forecast improved dramatically for today. Light NE winds and good lift. Chris and I set up early again and got ready for the day. Most of the launches were trickling down, with occasional cycles coming up. One the dust devils started to appear I decided it was time to go and suited up. I was the first off of the “Thru The Rocks” launch. I wanted to launch early because there were a ton of gliders set up and I was afraid of ending up in a long launch line with dust devils ripping through.
-Dozens of gliders on launch. I was glad to be off early

The early launch paid off. I got to wait and pick my cycle, had a solid launch, and immediately climbed out. The lift was smooth and fairly wide and I soon found myself nearing 8,000’. The first task is to get across the large gorge of the Columbia River, and out onto the flats. A couple gliders around me headed over the gorge and I went too, eager to have some help finding lift once we got to the flats.

-First challenge is to cross this gorge and get out onto the flats beyond

The crossing was long with a lot of sink. Once out onto the flats I was in need of a climb. I saw one glider racing to the North and spotted circling glider which was drawing him there. I raced that direction and found nothing. The cloud I was flying toward dissipated and I found myself struggling in a blue hole with not cumulus activity. It was a stupid move and I went into survival mode waiting for something to get me up.

I slowly climbed high enough to make a run further East were some dust devils were marking the lift. The climbs were strong and reliable as I headed towards Farmers turnpoint. About half way there I ran into a solid layer of cloud. I decided to detour to Withrow and tag that waypoint. Turning back to Farmers I found myself now in a heavily shaded area with light lift.

-At cloudbase on the flats

I worked my way to the edge of the clouds and slowly found my way to Farmers. It seemed I was constantly either in a blue hole, or in a completely shaded area. I had planned to try and make Mansfield or Sims, but the route that direction was no completely blue. So I opted to cut it short and work my way back to the soccer field LZ. It was tough going in an increasingly solid cloud cover.

Passing Withrow I hit a huge climb. My vario screamed, and I threw it in a bank and held on. My 15 second averager was showing 1,400 fpm up. The analog vario was peaking over 2,000 fpm. I stayed in the climb, afraid of stumbling across the edge of this column. Within a few minutes it had dumped me back up at 8,000’. Now it was an easy glide back to the LZ where I could break down my glider in the shade on mowed grass…

-Coming back to Chelan

It was an interesting day. I had to constantly strategize about how to get where I was going. Sometime veering off course to a dust devil, sometimes veering off course to skirt the edge of large shadows, and having to just stay off the ground in a few places.

There were not a lot of gliders making it back to the soccer field. It will be interesting to see where others made it. But I think it will be a low scoring day for everyone.

CRV dominated it on his sport 2 as usual. He could have easily flown 100 miles, but he decided that was just not enough for him so landed just on the other side of the gorge, about 8 miles out. To learn more about CRV and how super duper cool he is, visit his blog here http://aerochris.blogspot.com/

Tomorrow looks to be a similar forecast to today. Light winds, this time out of the east, with climbs to 8-9k. 4 more days!

-Soccer Field LZ. Nice!

Flight Time: 2:30
XC Miles: 34 Out and Return