[Amigo] > [Andy Palmer flight index]

Flight Articles from the Weekend of Sat 7/15 & Sun 7/16 (in order of posting time stamp)
Sat [OJ] [Hammer] [Andy Palmer] [Tom P] [BobA]

Andy Palmer

Saturday, 7/15/06
Pine to Nenanche ~ 42 miles

The Pine Mnt. that I have heard so much about about revealed itself.  Launched between some really strong cycles and got up to 9,500 on my first climb, then it was down to about 6 grand and a real potential for flushing out toward the Sand Pile when I reconnected and worked it up to 9,300 over launch with Diablo and Milley.  The lead Gaggle of OJ, Deano, Tom, Randall, and mini-Mike were into Lockwood skying out under the developing clouds with bases upwards of 15-16k.  Robb and I were making our first OTB push and Diablo was way out front so we were left to our own devices to find lift.  We connected close to where the dry canyon road starts into the badlands up to 12.5, then I head for the clouds.  I connected south of Pinos and went up to base in STRONG lift then I pissed it off going north to Pinos and ended up starting the cross to Frazier relatively low.

I ended up coming into Frazier only about 200 over and didn't want to scratch over the trees in uncharted territory so I worked it back down to the west towards the ranger station resigned to my fate when I started felling the love just over the heli-port, about 200 over.  This little nasty bubble took me back up to 9k and I headed toward Frazier which had been reported by Dean to be booming a little earlier.  Well as I was on glide I could see a cloud starting to build over the top of the peak so I headed for the front of the development.  This was my climb of the day, a ripper that took a lot of acro-avoidance while climbing through 11k, then it was just really big and strong up to base at 15.5.  Despite the 100 plus temps on the deck I was damn glad I wasn't in shorts and t-shirt at cloud base.

Then it was long glide out past Quail Lake along the highway to the town that rhymes with Biaatch (Nenanche).  Seriously that's all I could get out of Deans radio transmission of where he had landed-- "I'm a about a mile past biaatch" -- that was good for a laugh while on glide to my record length, about 42 miles, record alt. 15.5k, and duration 3'42" without using my diaper, although I did experiment with it on the ground = good absorbsion, but not good skin moisture barrier.

On the way home Dean, and Tom officially opened the Pine Mnt. season as we were ducking down in Milley's rig while the highway patrol passed by our well loaded vehicle.