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Saturday, 9/25/04 Hi guys and gals! Tom Moock here, of Fran Sanfrisco area. I think I was third off on Saturday, and grabbed a good one just to the left of launch. That thermal topped out at 10,8 and I jumped to the next spine and waited. A while later I was joined by Steve Prairie in his Boom and Mitch from Tahoe in his Sigma-4 --both of whom I had met that morning -- and from there we went together. XC is so much nicer with gaggle buddies. With Steve setting the pace we made quite good time, and there was consistent lift for most of the way. At the 25 mile mark, around Independence, Steve decided he'd had enough (he wanted to keep his karma balance in the plus-column), and after that it was just Mitch and I. Perhaps I got greedy, I don't know, but at about the 40 mile mark I got down where the valley winds were shredding the thermals. So I struck out for the flats. In the middle was a red cinder cone pouring out smooth buttery lift, which with wind drift carried me to Big Pine, where we had stashed a truck. Most sweet: 46 miles and no hiking. Before I started I had all of 45 minutes on a new glider, so I was pretty pscyched about the whole affair. Mitch continued further along the range. But didn't get any valley lift, and landed in the desert somewhere without a radio or GPS. It took for friggin' ever to find him. On Sunday Steve and I went to a new launch area, Mt Tom, just north of Bishop. The day was quite stable and we weren't able to get above 9K. We didn't really go anywhere but I got another couple of hours on the glider in light lift. So that's two new launches in the Owens fer me. Nice to see Tom P and Chris again. You guys are the best! cheers -- Tom |
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