Riding Giants

When wind blows over mountains, under specific atmospheric conditions, the air begins to form the largest waves found on, or rather above this planet. High performance sailplanes are the tool for catching these waves. I concentrate hard as I start my takeoff roll with a 10 knot tailwind aboard "Juliet Hotel," in search of giants.

After towing through rotor I release in the lee of Goat Mountain. Down low the wave is weak with a few holes. I work hard below the Lenticular Clouds as I head towards Snow Mountain with Hull Mountain barely visible beyond.
Once above the clouds, lift turns on. The view is spectacular with Snow Mountain clearly visible through a gap between wave clouds.
My GPS warns me I'm at 17,500' and approaching Class A Airspace. Time to race South, beyond the Mendocino Wave. With good altitude I cross Indian Valley Reservoir, Walker Ridge, Cache Creek, The Capay Valley and contact solid wave over Vaca Ridge. I get a good view of the dam at Lake Berryessa.
I ride the wave back North to Bear Valley, head out and tag the valley towns of Arbuckle and Colusa below, before returning to Williams, tired and content after 4 hours riding giants.
Below is a reminder to inhale through your nose while wearing a nasal cannula at altitude.

Staying Local

Punching off the Towers into a good, but not great spring day, meant our group of five would stay local, soaring the North side of Diablo. All except for Kevin, who believes the closest LZ to Diablo is in Livermore. I'm in happy air, hanging loose over Bald Ridge at 400 fpm up, in my first thermal of the day.

I top out even with the peak, to low to leave, but high enough to stay and play.
Over Bald I take a hard look at Robert's Atos as I have rarely seen its upper surface.
With a mix of up and down we all trade places in the stack. Maybe I'll move over and join Mike as he's climbing well.
After our predetermined golden hour we all head out. A little circling above Mount Zion with a nice view of todays playground in the distance.
The steep walls of the quarry immediately west of todays LZ, Mitchell Canyon, where we had nice landings after a fun day in familiar sky.

A Fortunate Change of Plans

A couple of days spent soaring high performance glass coupled with a stiff North wind meant today was for chores. Then the miraculous happened, the North wind just quit. With Teri's understanding of the importance maintaining currency in different aircraft we were off to Diablo for more soaring, Icarus style. Off the tower into smooth air until hitting the inversion just above Eagle where I tucked in close to the magnificent yet intimidating rocky walls.

Strong short climbs were found to barely above the peak.
With the low inversion I had little chance of breaking through and with a faint heart it was off to lower ground. Some bugs were doing an excellent job staying centered in the parking lot thermal as sparrows plucked them from the air. I decided to join in their fun.
OK, low enough, time to land at the adjacent Mitchell LZ.

Number One Hundred

My attempt at illustrating the indescribable experience of soaring, has been my motivation for this flog. Although I'm not one for box scores, flight 100 piloting a sailplane stands out. More importantly, it was amazing and beautiful. A long tow to the mountains in the ASW-27B "Juliet-Hotel" put me at Goat Ridge, which was producing light thermic lift.

Most climbs placed me between 7500' and 8000'. I then broke out my seldom practiced skill, patience. I saw 9000' and immediately attempted driving towards Snow Mountain.
With a 20 knot North-East headwind and big sink I bailed back for my sure thing at Goat. With light lift and moderate wind, I kept drifting onto the Westward side.
I decided to hunt for lift on the safe side of the mountain. I knocked at the house thermal near Lett's Lake.
No one was home, so down ridge to the Tree Farm where I found moderate lift to bring me back above Goat.
After a couple hours in the mountains I realized today was not the day for big distance. I moved out to the foothills for a change of venue in my circling adventure.
I worked ratty wind blown lift in the foothills, then the valley, before landing on three-four at Williams straight into a 15 knot headwind after my 3.1 hour, flight 100 in the log book.

Surfs Up

A wave prediction off the Mendocino Mountains tempted Clayton and me to strap into the Duo Discus for a try. Noticing severe obscurement of the range, while on tow, I requested a course change to place us under a roll cloud forming over Bear Valley for our release. After punching through rotor we contacted wave and climbed above the clouds just East of Walker Ridge and Indian Valley Reservoir.

After gaining altitude, we drove into the strong westerly headwind for a good view of Clear Lake.
Without O2 and with a constant risk of surface obscurement on this wet wave day we maintained below 13,000.' A foehn gap formed between wave clouds, so we decided to race Southbound.
The buoyant gap brought us to a beautiful and clear Capay Valley with the waters of Cache Creek meandering through.
We again decided to drive upwind, this time for the North West corner of Lake Berryessa.

With the foehn gap closed, our way home was to the valley and then North. We arrived high at Williams and although airborne for more than three hours we were having a blast. We decided to again drive West and try to close a large circular course.

After tagging Bear Valley it was a fast downwind final glide to Williams after a fun day, surfing the beautiful sky.

The Inversion Barrier

There was a demon that lived in the air. They said whoever challenged him would sink out. Their gliders would dive, their side wires would twang, and they would be decked. The demon lived at 3K on the meter, 3000 feet above sea level where the air could no longer move out of the thermals way. He lived beyond a barrier which they said no man could ever pass. They called it the inversion layer.


With high pressure well established my best bet at challenging the inversion layer was to glide straight for Eagle Peak after launching the Tower atop Diablo. Arriving low at Eagle requires good situational awareness working high pressure bullets close to the steep rocky faces.
Eagle Peak was letting off its typical strong, small cores which meant keeping the glider on a wing tip to prevent getting spit out.
The thermals would mushroom like a nuclear explosion at about 3000' as I knocked up against the inversion's lid.
After 45 minutes and pure desire, I finally found a core to drive through. Above the inversion the air was smooth and buoyant as I boated about. Being above the inversion, I decided to cross over Juniper Ridge towards Alamo. After a smooth crossing of Mitchell Canyon I pulled the bar in for lee side sink above Pine Canyon, now on the west side of the Mountain.
Crossing over the mountain can only be done in light winds and although technically local, it sure feels like XC, requiring similar decisions and similar rewards. It's like arriving at a completely new flying site with new terrain, vegetation, often a different air mass and even much bigger houses.
After enjoying some west side flying I put in at Macedo Ranch through a big wind gradient. Below is the clip of, The Breaking of the Inversion Barrier which allowed this rewarding hop to Alamo.

OH NO Cirrus

Would the unseasonable mid-March heat overcome a stable atmosphere for soaring at Mount Diablo? There is only one way to find out, so I planned a late afternoon launch from Juniper. Unfortunately, Mr. Cirrus was on my same schedule and planned to take away ground heating, fun and ambiguity to the soaring question.

With the sun's energy thwarted I did what soaring pilots do in this situation. I scratched like mad.
I planned on landing at Mecedo Ranch however, my relentless scratching put me to low for crossing Pine Canyon so it was going to be a 1000 Footer day. One thing Mr. Cirrus did do for me, mellow out the typical turbulence and allowed a fun slipping turn to final through the oak trees on my Sport 2.

Spring Fever?

The air is getting warmer, the days longer and I, well, unofficially declared spring in this blog yesterday. With the fever spreading, five of us were at Williams Soaring on a Thursday with big XC dreams, despite a mediocre forecast. I towed second in "Delta Romeo" and dropped my downwind wing hard on a crossing tailwind takeoff just to get my adrenaline spiked for the 20 mile tow to Walker Ridge just east of Indian Valley Reservoir.
At only 3500' elevation it was surprising to see snow speckled in the vegetation at Walker.
Maybe it was the snowy ground, or maybe spring doesn't know its unofficially hear, but the lift was way to light for any attempts into the beautiful mountains north and any hope of big XC.
Back to the valley for ratty wind blown lift. Thank you Highway 5 for your consistent thermal triggers.
After one, much too short hour I redeemed my takeoff by greasing a bumpy crosswind landing on one-six at Williams.

Spring has Sprung

Punxsutawney Phil insists on one more week of winter. A group of "astronomers" want to wait for the "vernal equinox" on March 20th to start spring based on "science." Due to popular demand amongst soaring pilots I have evidence to the contrary. Six consecutive soaring flights, 5000' msl and my side wires went "spring" after getting tossed from a thermal today. Mike launched first and radioed "it is a little bumpy." Translation "HOLD ON TIGHT." As soon as I left the Tower atop Diablo I knew it was a crank and bank kind of day.

The cumies were ragged just like the thermals below. Their bases were at 5000' where the air was bitterly cold.
If we weren't in lift we were in sink, so Mike and I worked together to stay airborne.
After 1 1/2 hours I had enough of this punchy fun. We topped off at Eagle, drove through big sink crossing Mitchell Canyon, refueled near Mount Zion, glided to Blakes and worked our first smooth lift of the day before landing at Lime Ridge for some cattle rustling.
Mike may be one hell of a pilot but he sure needs practice herding cattle with his hang glider as I had to drive them all myself.

Fast Sky Over Diablo

When the west wind blows at altitude, with enough velocity, ridge lift can be found on the footsteps leaving Juniper Launch at Diablo. With UFO shaped clouds high in the air I knew the sky was fast enough for orographic enhanced lift.

I worked launch and then benched up Moses Rock Ridge behind.
I circled instinctively and unsuccessfully in thermals drifting through. I found only S-Turns worked in these wind blown thermals and also found they rose high above Juniper Launch. I noticed a couple of Red Tail Hawks mimicking this technique later in the day.
With a little over 4000' I ventured slightly over Moses Rock Ridge to the north side and had a stare down with the Devil, which I lost unfortunately.
Lack of lift or lack of skill usually drives me from the air. Today it was a lack of being able to feel my fingertips after 1 1/4 hours in this frozen air. My GPS indicated an 8 mph ground speed, bar to chest as I attempted Blakes LZ. It also indicated my respective glide ratio diminished as I thermaled with the drift, NEAT. Too late to change gliders, I'm on a Sport 2 with decent west wind; it's a 1000 Footer day. I set up high and wide putting me close to an overshoot but avoiding the worst rotor. Don't worry, I still got to wrestle a demon just before touchdown. Glad I didn't change gliders.

Practicing Patience

Two hours of weight shift thermaling yesterday made me awake with the sweetest soreness I've felt since fall. With just enough energy to move my wrist and toes I was off to the gliderport for more soaring. A thick cirrus layer prevented any XC opportunities so I decided to take a low tow for a some cloud hopping around the airport.
The ASW-27B "Juliet Hotel" with a 48:1 glide ratio on this short course should be like a bazooka at a fist fight however, I needed all the help I could get in these challenging conditions. It took concentration and patience just to achieve a positive number on the averager.
I made it about 3/4 of the way around before two Cumulous Fakus decided to team up and deck me. With a 50 minute flight I got my full money out the 2500' tow.