Andy Long
8/6/97 Walts' Point 5.75 hours 115 miles
I had decided the previous afternoon not to fly this day but Mike strongly suggested that I fly because the weather was getting better. I was tired from the previous four days in a row of flying but figured I would recover because of all the working out I had done at the gym. Felt good and relaxed at launch and in no hurry... in part to having spent the night up at Horseshoe Meadows.
Mike launched first at 10:30, went right but found nothing. He then (again) had to fly to the north over to the switchbacks and scratch, not gaining, just hanging on. I was next up but stepped aside, waiting for it to get better. Charley went in my place and headed immediately for the switchbacks, getting there with a few hundred over them. He found some lift immediately and slowly started to climb out. With Mike hanging on low further out front and Charley now working his second thermal, I figured there was enough out there for me so I launched at 11:00, pulled the VG and headed for the switchbacks.
I came in under Charley and immediately found decent lift. Climbed out and came up to Charley's level. Searched around over the spine after the first one died out and quickly found another one. This one I took to 13,000 right over the top of Wonoga, a good sign of the day to come. When this one topped out I thought there was no sense in hanging around so I headed north. In less than 10 minutes from the time I had launched I was on my way XC.
I decided again to try to stay high and over the crest. This worked for a while but after a few ridges I was down to the knee areas. I was leading our group north so I didn't have gliders to mark the lift ahead of me. But every time I pulled into a knee I would find a few bumps and then boom! Flew from 9,000 to 12,000 on up to Whitney Portal.
On the north side of Whitney Portal I pulled into the huge 2,000 foot vertical wall of granite where I had found lift the day before. It was incredible climbing out over it, looking almost straight down this wall with the Whitney Portal parking lot at the foot of it with teeny, tiny cars parked below. Somewhere around here I hit a good one and climbed to over 15,000. With this I headed northwest to intercept the Sierra crest.
Found some more lift there but not as strong. Shot some pictures but ran out of film after only 5 shot! After 20 miles I saw Leo and the others a few miles back heading north. So it went all the way up to Onion Valley, pull into a spine, find some lift, climb out, head north. When I got to the south side of Onion Valley I had been working lift further up towards the spine but now hit kind of a dead area and was only climbing slowly. I saw Leo a mile to the east low over one of the knees. He hit a good one and climbed out rapidly. This was where I met up with John Ryan. He climbed out past me in light lift and then headed north, calling for me to follow him. I really hadn't gained much of anything but headed north anyway.
John and Leo hooked up about a thousand higher than me and headed across Onion Valley. I could see that I was going to need to refuel so I headed for Independence Peak in the middle of canyon. Then I saw some smoke to the west from a forest fire at the head of the King's River Gorge. It was showing west wind that was coming our way. Not good. This was the one place that I didn't want to be low and be crossing because if the westerlies are pushing through you can hit the big flush. John even called to Leo and said that they should hurry out of there and keep moving north.
But just when you begin to worry something nice happens. Before I even got to Independence Peak I blundered into a mystery thermal that was between ridges. It was a nice one and took me to 16,000. With this I glided clear to the Lookout area. Now that I was closing in on Tinemaha and the crossing I began to look for the clouds that were forming more over the knees. When I saw one developing I would come in over the knee high, intercept the lift between the two and take it as high as I could. When the lift would begin to slow down near cloudbase I'd leave and continue on.
I was trying not to get excited but couldn't help it because to the northeast I could see clouds developing over the Whites. What was really nerve racking was that, unlike the previous two days where the clouds there at this time of day were looking like they would certainly overdevelop, today the clouds there were smaller and flat topped... probably from a mild inversion aloft keeping them small. I tried not to think about the possibility of a hundred miler.
About then I hooked up with Larry. We headed together over the last few ridges towards Tinemaha, spotting Leo who was now low right over the crest, several thousand feet lower. Interesting how we were all leap frogging each other. Larry and I pulled into Tinemaha about a thousand over the top and immediately hit a real boomer. I think it was this one that pushed me into a 90 degree wingover after a few 360s but I felt it coming and just rolled with it and pushed out, finishing off the wingover just as if I had done one in smooth air. Went around again and re-centered and continued on up. The cloud above us was just beginning to form so I figured this one would take us all the way to cloudbase.
About 800 feet from cloudbase the lift really turned on so I did one more 360 and then straightened out, heading towards Black Mountain across the valley. Larry did the same and we both flew to the edge of the cloud, pulling on more and more speed as we approached the edge. We finally broke free from the lift just below cloudbase, topping out at 16,600. A few bumps, a pile of sink and then the air began to smooth out. An exit from the Sierras couldn't have been more perfect. We were now high and in a great position for starting the crossing to Black. And the best part was that the clouds over the Whites still looked excellent!
For the first 15 miles of the crossing we hit no lift at all. In spite of beginning the crossing at over 16 grand I was beginning to wonder if we were going to get back up because we were burning up all of our altitude just getting to Black. A couple of miles out we found a bump or two but it didn't produce anything. Then Larry headed more due east towards his famous alfalfa field where he has found lift before. I started to go with him but then thought that it would be better to use what altitude we had to at least get to Black, then scratch our way down it if we had to.
I turned and headed straight for Black. Then, right over the transition from the flats to the alluvial fan at the foot of Black I found some 200 up. A few circles showed that it was decent lift. I went VG loose, slowed way down and started a mellow climb. This was actually a nice contrast to the lift we had been working for the previous three hours. I was about to call Larry over but he saw me and came over under me low. I could clearly see his shadow on the fan but the lift had pretty good depth to it and he started climbing out as well. I was at about 7,000 when I found this thermal.
One of the toughest things to do when flying cross country is to realize when it is time to shift gears and change your strategy. This was a nice easy climb so I had a chance to look the conditions over and make a few decisions. I figured that if I could get high again, get back into the higher ground on the Whites under where the clouds were forming and then get up to the clouds, I'd have my hundred miler in the bag because the clouds over the Whites looked just perfect.
What was tempting was that just two miles away, right over the top of Black was this big, fat, juicy looking cloud. I was 99% sure that there would be a ton of lift under it. But from all the stories I've heard, you just never know what to expect when you arrive at Black. I heard that Mark Gibson flies right past Black when ever he can because it can be so nasty or have no lift on it. I was climbing where I was so I just decided to stay put, rest and see how high this thermal would go.
Larry and I rode this one to about 12,000 where Larry bailed and headed for Black. I was tempted to follow him but figured that with the rate that I was still climbing and the rate he was sinking, if he hit lift under that cloud I could just dive on him and come in right at his level. So I just kept on climbing and waited, expecting to see him hit the most awesome boomer in history as soon as he got under the cloud over Black. But, incredibly, unbelievably, he didn't encounter one shred of lift!! It was amazing. Eventually he just turned a bit more north and continued off into the distance getting lower and lower.
That was enough to convince me. I stayed where I was and rode my nice, mellow valley thermal all the way to over 15,000. Once I felt it beginning to finally peter out I left it and headed for the high ground. I was now high enough to totally bypass Black and easily make it way into the mountains. My patience had paid off! Right as I was passing over the northwest edges of Black I saw a white glider about 5,000 feet below pulling into Black. Leo. And even lower and further to the west over Big Ears I saw a tiny green glider. Charley! As a footnote, it turned out that Black was just taking a big breath as Larry flew over it because as I was heading into the hills to the northeast of Black, both Leo and Charley reported hooking up with a boomer over Black that took them all the way to 15,500. You just never know.
Like Larry, I too hit no lift all way into the hills. One of the reasons was that this area had been in shade for some time because of the cloud street that had been brewing overhead. When I got far enough in I turned north and began to head for some sunny ridges. I was getting pretty excited but then John Ryan came on the radio and reported that he was about 5 miles north of us, low and heading out to land because the air was the roughest he had felt in a long time on the Whites. Oh, great.
The gremlin had raised it's ugly head and was about to put an end to our hopes of a hundred miler. John suggested that the best thing to do would be to try to ride the spine way back in and get up to the clouds. Well, that's good because that was exactly what I was doing. I kept going, somewhat comforted in the fact that I could now see Larry about a mile in front of me and 4,000 feet lower. At least he would get pounded before I did. I arrived at the sunny area just under 12,000 and finally find some up air. But the air here was different, not really turbulent, just kind of mildly choppy. I rode this one up to about 13,000 before it died out. I kept heading north but now noticed that I was hardly loosing any altitude. I suddenly realized to my delight that I was now making contact with the bottom of the lift from the cloud street. I slowed down and kept flying north, now spending most of my time looking at the clouds.
I came under a big area of clouds and kept stopping to circle when I got stronger lift in the hopes of zeroing in on a good core. Finally I found one and rapidly climbed to over 15,000. The western edge of this cloud, which I decided would be my escape route, was a ways off but cloud base appeared to still be much higher so I kept circling. But then the lift suddenly pegged my vario so I headed west and pulled on some speed. I was still climbing like crazy and so I stuffed the bar. Cloud suck. After a few hundred yards I was beginning to wonder if I had made a serious error because I was still climbing fast and the edge of the cloud was coming down fast. But the lift finally dropped off so I slowed down, made a big circle to make sure I was in the clear and then headed north again to the next cloud. Only then did I think to look at my altimeter. Just under 17,000.
After my little scare I realized that I had actually been playing it safe enough because I still had plenty of room to make it to the western edge of the last cloud. But I decided to pick smaller clouds to work up under from now on. I got a good look at the next one and sped on over to it. I came in under it but it wasn't pulling so I just proceeded to the next one. This one produced mild lift so I slowed down and flew straight, climbing back up to just under 17,000 again before leaving it. The next one looked pretty mellow so I stopped to work up under it to see if I could get a better idea as to how high cloudbase actually was. As I was approaching 17,000 I saw a glider about half a mile to the south. It was Leo. I had been monitoring his progress on the radio and decided to wait so we could hook up.
I've had a lot of incredible memories over years of flying and one of them was hooking up with Leo over the Whites. Here we were again climbing out to cloudbase together like we had done so many times at Hull and St. Johns. Yet this time we were at 17,500 over the Whites and zeroing in on our first hundred mile flights. I was glad to have his company because I was beginning to feel a bit drained from the whole experience. The cloud began to pull harder so we headed north again with the bars stuffed. So it went for the next 30 miles. Fly straight and fast in the medium lift, stop to climb if we got under 15,000. True dolphin flying. For the next hour we cruised between 15,000 and 18,000 feet. Sheep Mountain, Bancroft, White Mountain, Pellisier Flats. They all passed by below one by one. Most of our attention was spent on the clouds, with the mountains and the ground below only as an occasional reference, looking like some beautiful background painting for this wild virtual reality ride we were on.
At the north end of Pellisier flats Leo commented that he was just going to follow me. I didn't sound hypoxic, just a bit burned out and ready to land like I was. In fact, I remember clearly thinking to myself that I wish someone could just step in and finish this off for me as the whole thing was getting a bit draining. I think it was the whole climax to my goal of wanting to fly 100 miles. We kept doing what we had been for the last two hours all the way up to the south of Boundary Peak. About 5 miles south of there I remember seeing the green patch at the head of the valley near Montgomery Pass where the ranch was. I knew that the ranch was just over 100 miles and I could see that we would soon have it on a glide.
There were nice clouds over Boundary as well when we arrived so I figured that it would be one more climb to 17,500 or so then an easy glide out to Basalt for 108 miles. But for some reason Boundary wasn't working. I figured that we should just keep going, rather than hanging out and risking getting a flush cycle and having to land at the ranch. So we flew right over Boundary at just under 16,000 and pointed for Basalt.
As we headed off over the high ground to the north of the Whites I wasn't sure whether we were going to make Basalt on a glide. One minute we'd be in just light sink and I'd see that we were going to make it. The next we'd fly through stronger sink and it would seem we weren't going to make it. Fortunately, at about a 3 to 1 drop to our northwest was the ranch, so I decided that if it looked like we weren't going to make it, we could just turn left and bail for the ranch. I wanted to keep going though because I could see some tiny clouds and their shadows just a few miles further to the northeast so I was pretty sure that we would at least hit some zero sink which would be enough to get us to Basalt.
Sure enough, just as I was about to call Leo and head for the ranch we hit some broken lift. This didn't produce but a hundred feet so we kept heading northeast. But I could feel that the air was changing and soon we found some decent lift which we worked for a thousand feet. I left what I was in early because I thought that if the lift was this good here it must be far better further on where the clouds were beginning to form. Plus, there was a nice looking cloud sitting right over Miller Mountain to the northeast of Basalt.
I arrived at Basalt at about 12,000 and could see Annie our driver pulling in. As I was gliding over she was giving ground wind reports that were showing that the wind was light and variable. I could see some more landable area to the north that I remembered driving past the week before and decided to head that way as I was still very high above the ground. I headed towards Miller mountain because of the cloud there but hit some lift on the way. I worked it from about 11,000 back up to 12,000 and realized I could make the new LZ easily so I left the lift and headed further north. There were little clouds forming here and there and while flying in a straight line I was still climbing. There was lift all over the place.
Soon I was passing through 13,000 then 14,000 still flying straight! I went to turn on my O2 and there was nothing left. I must have run out coming off Boundary. At 15,000 I began to worry a bit, remembering the guy at Lakeview who couldn't get down during a monster glass off and eventually pancaked in exhausted well after dark. I headed for an area about a mile away where there were no clouds, pulling on more and more speed. About this time the fatigue, the anxiety of hot, switchy landing conditions, the big cloud dumping virga to the west and all of this lift flipped the, "Ok, I just want to be on the ground now" switch in my brain. I had had enough for one day. It was time to land.
During this whole episode, Leo had been calling for my location but we couldn't find each other. I thought he was lower and to the south but then I saw him just a few hundred yards away to the north at my altitude. He didn't sound too anxious to land first so I agreed to be the guinea pig and began to look for some down air while he agreed to float around in lift. After a few minutes I checked on him and it looked as if he was 360ing in sink because I was getting higher than him rather than the other way around! Our plan wasn't working too well so I suggested we trade positions. I finally found some down air, put it on a wing tip and began a tight spiral. It took me over 10 minutes to burn up 7,500 feet.
At about 500 feet I was interested to see what it was doing on the ground and, having two smoke bombs, I pulled one. It dropped away but no smoke emerged. A dud!! Now I remembered why I carried two. At about 75 feet I threw the other one and prayed. This one produced smoke and showed just a trickle of wind from the south west. I came in towards the smoke but realized that I was going to overshoot and might land downhill going into a slight gully. As I leveled out over the ground going like a 747 I remembered how Mike and John had noted that I seemed to flare late on a landing I had a few days before in no wind. Like an idiot I decided to try to flare a bit early.
The glider seemed to begin to settle so I started to push out but began to balloon up. I was now in a bit of a turn and I knew I was screwed. I held it for another second or two then flared, ran about 4 steps, let go and dove threw the control bar, plowing face first into a nice little prickly desert bush. I knew there wasn't any glider damage but my nose stung a bit from scratching the bush. I touched it with a finger and it was bleeding. Great. Right then Leo comes on the radio and says, "That didn't look so bad". Yah, right! Leo floated in a minute or two later and flared a bit late but his landing was much prettier than mine. Although a nice landing would have been the perfect ending to my flight I was still a happy camper. I had gotten my hundred miler and was down safe and sound.
And as if to give me a final reminder that I should always respect what this area can deliver in the way of conditions, while I was walking my glider towards the road I felt suddenly as if someone was lifting the keel of my glider from behind. Then in an instant I felt the whole glider lifting off my shoulders. I had to actually begin pulling down with all my weight to keep the glider from lifting off without me! It turned out that a sneaky little dust devil had come creeping up silently behind me and was now doing its best to pry a juicy hang glider from it's unsuspecting and totally exhausted pilot. Just about when I was beginning to seriously wonder if I was going to have to let go, the dust devil exited off my right tip and wondered off in search of other prey.
I radioed to Leo what had just happened. As I turned to look at him he stopped, put his glider down and started fiddling with his harness. He told me later that after considering my message he thought that it might be a good idea to unhook as well. Ah yes, such are the experiences that are thrown at you during a day of flying cross country in the Owens.