Spring Flying at Sollie

A good forecast for Friday and a poor outlook for the weekend encouraged a whole group of pilots to head to Sollie. Mark, Pat, Cleo (my dog) and I headed through and met Jim, Gail, Rob, Jay, Casey (or KC), Steve M and Jacques. Up on launch there were nice cycles and as soon as we saw some birds soaring, Rob was getting ready. He was off first, followed by Jim and Jay (I think).

There was lift out there, but people were struggling to stay up. After 5 minutes effort Jim got well above launch, so that encouraged everyone to launch. I was second last off and never really got anything near launch, so I headed over to Sugar. I arrived there just behind Mark and managed to turn figures of 8 in weak thermals and slowly climb. After a few hundred feet things became easier and I got up to around 2,800, pushed out front and got a second thermal up to 3,300 feet. Jim was below me at this point, and I think everyone else had landed; it was time to decide what to do with this altitude.

I could see the tree farm around milepost 8 in the Wilson valley and considered heading in that direction. But heading S looked so much less stressful! So that's where I headed; there was a lot of sink + wind around at the start; I didn't go deep into the terrain so I could get back to Sugar if things didn't improve and fortunately they did. I worked some weak lift a couple of times, thermalling around 600ft above the Trask. The lift wasn't really organized enough to get high again but it extended my flight nicely. I landed out near the Aviation Museum, happy to get even a mini-XC so early in the year.

Rob came and got me in his rig and we went back to the LZ. The others had all gone back up for a second flight and were in the air; Jay appeared with his wing and Rob took us back to launch. I had a nice second flight; the sea breeze was quite a bit stronger and it was easier to stay up but less interesting. I mostly stayed in front of Sugar, flying with Jacques at the end of the day, and had a nice little excursion over the valley (which was very boaty) at the end of my flight.

Great day!!! Everyone else enjoyed it too. A nice sunny day with plenty of flying for all. On his second flight Jacques got to 4,600 feet! Thanks to Rob for the driving!

Photos -> http://picasaweb.google.com/DMMullin/Sollie06March2009#

Tracklogs -> http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/165588 and http://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/165589

CPC Post -> http://groups.google.com/group/cpcl/browse_thread/thread/b1871829b3ffc6ff where Jacques got some photos of me at the end of the day.