June's Story from Task 3

Today was interesting. In the launch line, I overheard two of the excellent local pilots strategizng to go left off of launch. I looked around and decided that would be a good plan, too, although a bit trickier for me with my lesser skills. They both made it up high right away, but I struggled to join them. As my scratching took me over a clearing on the hill (clear of tall trees anyway), I contemplated my now limited landing options. Two verboten fields were in easy reach while other allowable LZ's were a long glide over numerous spines with tall trees. I decided I'd prefer to take my chances working the bare patch, and if I didn't go up from there, then do a sidehill landing and possibly hike back up to relaunch.

The sidehill landing went well, except that my glider was too entangled in the brush to be extracted in time before the task launch window closed. I was not the least bit concerned about the hike until I started to remember about the bears, cougars, and coyotes. And then there was the reminder on the radio about the poison oak -- which I've never seen before. So I hiked carefully, and when I got back to headquarters, I was ordered to take a cold shower with the abrasive "tecno" soap. Penance for not landing in a regular LZ by a road I suppose. BTW, both of those local pilots made goal, one in first place. So perhaps the plan wasn't so misguided, just poorly executed by me.