First Task Day

Today was a tough day with an unusual north wind direction. The thermals were rough and rotory and capped with an inversion. I launched early and got high a few times but then got flushed to the LZ soon after the start gate opened. June launched late, flew a few legs of the task, but got flushed on her way to the fifth turnpoint. Nick launched late too, and managed to eke his way along the courseline in a slow and steady way, getting low at times but never giving up, finally coming into goal, last pilot to make it, after almost three hours in the air. What a hero! I wanna be like Nick. Tomorrow is another day. I will post some pictures soon. Maybe I can convince Nick and June to write a few words here too.

Nickspeak:

Today was a 43km task with north wind conditions which apparently produce some confusing valley winds scenarios. My goal today was to get high and stay high. Nothing else mattered. I ended up launching only 5 minutes before the race started. Conditions seemed to get better the later you launched so I took the time penalty since I knew I wasn't going to win...I think you need a pod harness to win. :) I just plodding along course never bypassing a turn opportunity to keep my vario singing. In a couple of instances, I ventured way off course to tank up in some "comfortable" areas. Today felt relatively comfortable, since I never got super low, kicking the trees, like I did last Rat Race. At one point Sandy and I shared a few turns in the same thermal. To bad it wasn't a screamer! The Mustang 2 performed solidly.

Having participated in yesterday's practice session paid huge dividends for my bump confidence. I got in two flights yesterday. The first one was just a 30 minute bomb-out session with just one notable climb. The second flight was much much better, I probably could have gone far on course if it hadn't been so late in the day. Since I arrived just minutes before the shuttle up to launch, Alex was a great help in helping me get my waypoints loaded.

Back to today, I tanked up for the final glide using Ray's compass page technique of setting final glide of 5:1 or so to final. Today I settled for 7:1 since I knew I'd have a tailwind. It felt weird doing one big 7km leg on final glide since I was traveling way deep in a valley. Being so used to ridge lift you can't help but to think of rotary air along the many spines along the valley. I arrived with plenty of attitude and scored one for HPA! I was last to goal, but I'll take it! 2 hours 47 minutes, 983 turns and 197 thermals. At least the last two stats felt that ways. On the way to goal, I spotted a yellow reserve canopy in the trees...little did I know I'll spend the next 3 hours helping Reaper rescue the pilot.

Reaper and his trusty Bronco was on mission today to rescue the downed pilot. I met up with him as he was trying a different technique to get closer to the pilot. The access from below was a bit difficult, so we tried to access the site from above. The pilot was okay, but the glider and reserve was hopelessly tangled in some significant trees. Cherry flight on a Niviuk Peak at that! So we were prepared to cut down some trees if necessary. It turned out that the upper roads were worst than the lower road so we opted to go the lower route again. We had the pilot hike down and meet us halfway. Sun was setting so no time to fish out the glider...tomorrow morning?!? Got to brush up on map/gps skills. Every Comp needs a Reaper! The trails were so bad, we lost our radio antenna and had to fold in the mirrors! Reaper scored a few cases of beer for his troubles, however I think he spent $50 in gas on that mountain!

Tomorrow, I think I'll take more risk and try to factor in time. I'll try to stay with the "B" team gaggle perhaps?!?

End Nickspeak.