Saturday, 11/23/03
Chief's to Koenigstein Road
We met at 7:30 for 3 hours of XC discussion starting at 8. Got to launch about 12:30. Last off from our group. Pilots were getting higher earlier, but a band of thicker high clouds was shutting off the heat. Dumped my water, but I couldn't climb up to Bo and Irene. The best I could do was even with launch up in the back.
Running out of time, I left for West Repeater from just short of Twin Peaks with about 42. Got there just over and back up to 36. We had a small crowd for the small cores. Topped out and ran across for East Repeater 500+ below minimum go altitude. Other pilots went with less. Scratched up a couple of hundred from below East Repeater but couldn't quite transition up to the top. Bill B had reported Convergence out front. We were running out of time as the day shut down, so I ran for it. The drift was from the west all the way. I wanted to fall off across the canyon for the plateau that runs out from the west end of Boyd's, but felt that if I hit too much sink crossing the I could end up in the bushes. Wanting a hundred more I held my line down the upwind side of the gully and didn't get lucky. Once out front I fell off more but got to the buoyant zone too low and landed on Koenigstein Road down near the 150.
Edward and Mike in John's truck had picked up Tom Source from The Summit and they grabbed me on the way back from collecting Bill off Pucker's plateau. We retrieved Art at the College and Irene just west of The Summit.
Pizza and beer at Bocclli's. Slide show of the seasonal routes back at Chad's