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Andy Palmer
Saturday, 2/18
Skyport to Parma x2

Went to the Skyport with 5 others and found snow on the launch.  We were commenting on the drive up about the absurdity of shoveling snow onto your vehicle and proceeding back to town to show your neighbors.  Anyway at launch Ron was off and went straight up.  I was trying to get some warm clothes on to prevent the frostbite that happened on Thursday.  Then came the commentary as I was laying out - oh my god look at him sink - oh Jesus he's not going to make the lines - did you see his wing, so needless to say I was anxious to get off  After a huge pluck - starfish - dump, I reset with help and was off.

The lift was good at launch, at about 300 over I headed to the west and got to base at the tit, then tried going to Cathedral but after getting in the down elevator I turned tail and went back to the tit and recharged.  I felt the draw going uphill but didn't want to enter the white room that close to the R&R, so I went across the gap to the Round house mostly at base until almost there, then HUGE sink and was only about 500 over when I arrived, but was able to get a little out front.  It seemed pretty unlikely that I could go anywhere and nobody else was moving so I went for Parma.  On the way there it was sink alarm city and found myself approaching the monastery at about 12 mph ground speed and going down.  Finally found a little joy at the decision point and made it to Parma.  Pauly had been having some of the same and reported that he to thought Parma might be hard until he found that last bit.

We did go back up for round two after seeing the hangies and cloud base going up.  Greg Brown took us back up in a d-ride with his HG and we relaunched to a little better flight but still lots-o-sink.  Went out and got a nice thermal east of launch which Pauly had just taken to base, but I decided to fly out of because of the strong south push.   Just after I landed a hangie reported the west pushing through, he had made glide from West Bowl to Montecito, losing only a couple hundred feet.  As he was riding the convergence eastward the clouds were also evaporating into the warmer air and the whole range opened up.  Oh well.

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