Bo Criss
Saturday, 3/3/12
About 25 miles

Article copied from http://scpa.info/bb/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2452

EJ Bowl to Ojai

Decent day with strong lift at every spine but not getting above the ridge the whole way down.

Met at Parma at 10:15 and was at EJ Bowl by 11. Andy D. showed it was working modestly on the main spine out front. Strapped in and launched around 11:30. The spine produced enough to maintain but not elevate and Andy was climbing well at the RR, so I pushed on. Good climb at RR and caught up with Andy at the Thermal Factory. We were able to get up but not by much. I left with maybe 100 over the spine. Shadow and Montecito worked nice with strong climbs, but not good altitudes. It seemed to agree with the vandenberg lapse rate we had seen in the morning - showing an inversion at 3500. I figured as long as it produced I'd keep bopping along. Every spine was the same so when I reached the powerlines and could see a sliver of Lake Casitas it was reasonable to push on for Ojai.

The light east headwind I felt before the powerlines strengthened after crossing the powerlines. Climbs were still strong but now I was getting more sink on every glide. Thermals got stronger, headwind got stronger, sink got stronger as I pushed in towards Whiteledge. The western shoulder of Whiteledge produced extremely strong lift with a good helping of turbulence, and I thought hang on, altitude is your friend. As I pushed around the corner the east wind strengthened and the glide to ojai was somewhat questionable. The cycle of more headwind, strong lift and strong sink continued all the way into ojai. I opted to fly directly towards the high school as apposed to trying to connect on the other side of hwy 33. There was some lift in the flats but not enough to make the high school. I landed on a big green field near a massive horse stable about a half mile short of nordoff high school at 2:00.

A couple blocks down I ran into the The farmer and the cook organic market. Plenty of granola going down as I was cornered by a free range hottie granola girl into signing a petition asking for proper labelling when genetically modified food is used. I obliged and ordered up the best damn veggie burger with almond cheese and a slab of chocolate raspberry cake. I'd recommend it highly.

Now I'm on the gold transit bus to Ventura - $1.50. There's a bus stop right where I landed at the corner of La Luna and El Roblar.

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