[Amigo] > [Sharon's flight index] [Sunday's Article Set]

Sharon Sweeney
Sunday, 8/7/05
Pine Past California City
~ 91 miles ~ 5 hours
Tandem with Tom Truax
Bantoo

Congrats to Tom, Bo, Dean, and Mark on such great flights!  It was not easy by any means.  I was so impressed with the determination of everyone.  We experienced some low saves and I saw some fancy paragliding by the other guys.

I decided to go Tandem because I wanted to go over Old Man Mountain to the beach.  Thought it would be lots of fun.  But Pine being Pine, all bets were off on that scenario.

The story and pictures are best described by Bo and Tom T.’s accounts.  I’ll just put in a little flavor.

Flight started going east along the ridge.  I’m always amazed at how big Pine Mountain looks from the air and how vast the landscape appears.  When you reach the top of the ridge and look over the back it is worth a few seconds of awe and wonder.

Clouds were setting up and we got on course to the East of Guiermo and to the South of Frazier.  One moment we were stacked with Tony and Dean in a thermal and then we were flying alone.  We flew for a while in somewhat low visibility.  It is really beautiful to see the blues and whispy whites of the clouds contrasted against the starkness of the rocks and brown landscapes beneath.  We approached Hungry Valley and couldn’t see anyone else although there were reports of pilots at Frazier Mountain.

It was clear where we were but there were clouds and rain behind us.  I could hear some of Ron Meyer’s descriptions on the radio.  I thought he must have been near some of the rain.  We were on sink glide and expecting to land any minute.  Then we experienced some awful turbulence.  I looked up and thought that Tom didn’t have his hands on the brakes.  I screamed one big TOMMMMMMMMMM, then looked and saw his hands holding the brakes down and with great strength – you know, the holding on for dear life strategy.  But that didn’t shut me up because the next thing I know I’m letting out an involuntary SCREAMMMMMMM!  I decided then and there I’m going to fly only very mild sloping hills with green grass and birds singing with the Sound of Music playing in the background.  But it all settled down and we got on with the flight.  I’m a wimp at heart.

We took the ride up in a very nice thermal and crossed the I-5 heading for some flat land flying.  I was really excited to be doing that part of the trip.  It’s so unique that it’s very intriguing.  Looking back, the other pilots had flown around to Hungry Valley as well.  It looked to me like they had stopped their crossing to the I-5 and came back to where we were to stay in the game.  That was the last I saw of them in the air until we got to California City.

We traveled over to the alfalfa fields where we had landed last time.  Looked like we were going to land again.  I was bummed because I wanted to keep on going and see what it would be like to explore new territory.  But at the last second we started going up.  Then I saw the dust devils.  Immediately I’m thinking about the Owens Valley and Kari Castle’s stories of their danger to pilots.  But I could tell from Eddie’s voice that this was a good thing.  Tom seemed good with it too.  Tom seemed to be concentrating and focused on where the seam was and which direction the wind was going.  He was looking to cross the Valley to get to the Tehachapi side.  He needed to know at what point to do this.  He really seemed “in the zone”.  That’s like in tennis when you are just hitting out and everything seems to flow and you’ve forgotten about all the nit picky stuff and you’re just there….doing your thing and doing it well.  Well, that was Tom, the seam, the wind drift and the thermals.

We got to the other side to the mine and caught another thermal from a low spot.  Up ahead it looked like it was going to be all grey skies and we were going to get shut down.  We traveled past California City, an empty race track and a prison.  Somehow I was hoping we were going to keep going but we ran out of sun and blue skies.  Very sweet landing and could hear on the radio the other guys were going to get some sun and keep flying.  I was very glad for them.

It was a heck of a trip.  If I had been solo I would have been stuck on the other side of the rain so I was grateful for the longer and much more exciting trip.  I’m still in awe for everyone that flew so well that day.