Chris Garcia
Thursday 4/25/2019

See Also: additional 4/25/2019 Flight Articles by:
[Sarah] [Jason] [Brian K] [Chris Garcia] [Logan]

No IGC file found for Chris's 4/25 flight

Pine North Side to Lockwood Valley
by Chris Garcia / copied from email chain

Knowing that this day was going to be big I did my best to prepare the evening before and on the walk to launch.  Of the 7 I was 6th to launch.  I saw Brian and Logan get a nice climb out front and I went right to that trigger.  I found the climb and it was fairly light.  As I slowly climbed out I saw Logan and Brian push for Reyes.

I eventually got to Sarah’s height and we worked the light lift together.  Having Neal below us we were in a good position to jump on any big climbs.  He never found a boomer and Sarah and I went into search mode.  I eventually pushed out front and further to the West and found a climb that got me to 11k.  From there I saw Brian and Jason low on the South side of Reyes.  I made the call to fly out to the badlands and search for lift near the road leading in to Lockwood Valley.

I found a nice 2m/s climb at 6000k.  My first mistake was getting complacent in the climb, thinking that it was smooth and enjoyable and that when I got to 11 I would either go to Pinos or try and cut the corner to meet up with Logan on his way to Frazier.

At 10k was thermaling to the right, took a roughly 80% asymmetric deflation on the left side.  I locked my elbow and shifted right.  (After having talked to Dilan B, I should have tried to not throw so much of my body to the right) by doing so I fully loaded a small portion of my wing and had a very dynamic surge.  Fully upside down at this point and a little over half the right side open, I checked the glider with whatever brake pressure I could find.  Left side was totally slack as I came under the wing again.  I had a large cravat on the left and it came out cleanly with some brake pumps.

I was then ready for the flight to be over.
Since I was in a convergence area, getting down became a challenge.  I delt with some turbulent air all the way to the ground.  At 10k I wanted to be on the ground, at 5k I wanted to be at 10k.  I should have stayed in the air after my deflation and kept going.  Most likely the smarter thing to do.  However about 30 minutes after landing the sky exploded with development.  I would have to make quicker moves to get out of the Lockwood Valley.

Big takeaways for me are continued mental training and being deliberate with moves when flying xc on big days in the high desert.

Chris Garcia

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