Other Weekend [Flight Articles] and [Weather Archive]

Aaron LaPlante
Super Bowl Sunday, 2/5/12
The Alternator to El Capitan
Article Copied from http://scpa.info/bb/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2415

southeast sunday

two overfilled vans headed up the hill to altenator. faoro jumped out there and showed us it was soarable and easty(p.s. awesome write up yesterday faoro!). dainsberg and i flung off and ridge soared around a bit and accuvet took off west so i followed with 4200. got a nice one at vor to 4400 for my high of the day. came over andy at painted cave as he was scratchin for a bit on the bluffs before connecting. Didnt feel nuttin but a tailwind, so with 3800 crossed the pass. bumped along low way out front and below camino cielo in weird stuff on the flat terrain until andy and i hung up on a ridge just before lizards mouth for a bit. finally got one to 3800 and headed westbound. andy was lower and taking awesome bold lines in no mans land. floated up and down a bit to condor point where we just got lower and lower on the front ridge. i think i bailed to hunt for an lz at 2500 and andy hung in a bit longer and lower... on the way out got a dribbler back to 2500 with lots of east which got me to a nice big grassy field next to the 101 a few miles short of el capitan. beautiful spot! andy put it down safely west of winchester canyon area. once we landed we see albatross bo come in right where we flushed on condor point, beam out, glide to santa ynez peak then over the back AGAIN!!!. albotrosses are starting to piss me off, he is way too good. he landed in los olivos. thanks to chris mckeller for the retrieve after his killer flight over 6k all over town. heard that wasnt uncommon today! awesome adventure and day!! fun flying with you andy! and amazing flying once again bo(#@!$%^#!)