Today, Phil the groundhog saw his shadow. Legend has it, six more weeks of winter lie ahead. Because the National Weather Service's climate prediction super computers are about as accurate as Phil, I need to practice some weak winter soaring, for this is likely the future until mid-March. I launched Juniper and quickly scratched down the west side of Diablo finding myself low over the 1000 Footer LZ.
At about 500' AGL I felt a tug on my harness, which was not my zipper pull I was planning on opening in the near future. The vario spiked at almost 100 fpm up. It took a lot of work and several minutes but now I was 50' higher. I used my most unused skill, patience, and sure enough I was able to climb out to cloud base which was at 2600' here away from the mountain.
Sure days with fat lift and high bases are the flights legends are made of. However, a low save in weak conditions and being able to look back, about even with launch, are some of the biggest rewards in soaring.
After maintaining under these clouds for half an hour it was time to head somewhere. With the typical low winter cloud bases it would be a stretch, but they doted the way towards Blakes and Lime Ridge LZs. Unfortunately they were classic Cumulous Fakus and I quickly retreated for my trusty 1000 Footer bailout. Again at 500' the vario sang but this time after several minutes of hard work I was a little lower and it was time to to give the LZ the respect it deserves.
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