Good weather forecast, but not many takers, in fact there was only me and Chris Gulden with Fast Eddie driving. It was unclear if we should use north or south launch. We picked south, but wind was still OTB, so we have to drive back to north launch, which also requires a short hike.
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| Pine north launch |
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| Chris Gulden |
I launched at 12:13 climbing right to 12K under the perfect cloud street. Launch was definitely at least 1 hour late, but I was glad to be in the air. Chris joined me shortly after, but we flew separately. Cloud street was south from Lockwood valley following Pine mountain ridge to Alamo mountain to Pyramid lake and probably all the way to Marshall and beyond.
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| Bad lands and Mt. Frazier in the middle |
I made mistake south of the Frazier Mountain by not following solid cloud street curving toward Pyramid lake and trying to use lonely cloud near Hungry valley. Cloud did not work and I encountered strong north wind feeding convergence. My motivation was absence of LZs under the solid cloud street and my general unfamiliarity with terrain in that direction. Another factor was our plan to fly toward Mojave. But in retrospective right choice was staying under the clouds and adjust the plans accordingly.
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| My LZ in Hungry valley |
Chris was more conservative and topped out higher 14K(?) near Frazier Mt., but it did not help him much and he also landed not far from me unable to get into Antelope valley. Crossing I-5 is the trickiest part of the flights from Pine Mt. Basically there are 3 air masses mixing in this spot. Air from the ocean (and Pine Mt.), air from Central valley and air from the desert.
My track:
https://www.paraglidingforum.com/leonardo/flight/3125697
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