The Devil Shows His Teeth

If you fly Mount Diablo in varying conditions, often enough, you may end up downwind of a large mass of earth, allowing the Devil to reveal himself. Hopefully you don't get bit, instead just walk away with a little more respect as I did today.


With a brand new set of side wires and over eagerness I headed to Diablo. My wife and driver Teri, laughed aloud as I set up my Sport 2 in fog with the wind blowing lightly down at the Tower. I explained it would be OK as I had a new set of side wires. Soon the sun shined and cycles came up. The Tower often crosses 90 degrees right, but today it was gusty and occasionally would blow down. Having only flown 14 of the first 40 days this year, my eagerness was understandable and I did have new side wires. Once prone off launch the Devil came out of the mountain. I worked to keep it level as I rolled through 60 degrees of uncoordinated turns in big sink. I was on the lee side of Ransom Peak and headed for Bald Ridge unable to take pictures or zip up my harness. I cleared Bald by 100 feet and the air smoothed out, but I was low and unsure if I had the glide out. The first bailout was the Crossroads with absolutely nothing in front as shown below.
Fortunately, in clean air I found lift and worked cautiously to give myself breathing room. Once high enough to allow for sink I drifted downwind towards the ridge between Eagle and Twin Peaks. I anticipated the last bowl of this ridge shown below on the left, would provide lift as it faced into the wind.
The air was too textured to work in tight, but the ridge lift extended far enough out and provided a good thermal collector for soaring.
I was able to rise high enough to look back at the gnarly canyon on the North side of Bald Ridge and contemplate my over zealous attitude of the day.
The landing options on this side of the mountain are poor in east wind. I made a plan. The east side of Mount Zion known as the "Quarry," could provide enough lift for the tailwind to push me to Blake's with an uphill landing option. I headed to the "Quarry" which incidentally only works in east wind. With vertical rock walls the "Quarry" is a stimulating amphitheater of work trucks moving stone about. Unfortunately the lift went slightly higher than the summit before being blown apart. With enough lee side adventure for today, time for plan B, landing crosswind at Mitchell Canyon. The air was relatively smooth until the last 200 feet down near the Oak Trees, allowing the Devil to say his final goodbye as I ran out a bumpy crosswind landing dragging my right wing tip. I called the wind talker, 12 gusting from 8-20 East-North-East. Note to self for the future, DON'T FLY IN MODERATE LEE SIDE WIND WITH A STRONG LAPSE RATE.