Cloudbase with Mission Ridge in background...The conditions Sunday seemed most promising for Mission Ridge, so that is where we all headed. We met at the parking lot, loaded up gliders, and headed for the top. The birds were circling in the air here and there as we stuffed battens into our gliders...a few paragliders launched first and appeared to be doing well.
I was about 4th or 5th in the air behind the first round of hanggliders. The air was buoyant, but one still had to be aggressive to stay in the lift. I was getting a little low just below launch when I found a nice bubble to work for a while. The core was elusive at first, but within a few minutes I was circling nicely almost up to cloudbase. Once above launch, the thermals seemed better developed and widened quite a bit which made it easier to stay up.
There was a fair amount of development, but nothing too intimidating. I made it up to cloudbase, then cruised around the perimeter of the development out toward the LZ meandering back and forth.
After about 45 minutes, I thought I'd head back to launch and top land, but that was not going to happen...there appeared to be a significant flush cycle and my attempt at a cold beer while breaking down the glider was dashed by Mother Nature.
I cruised down to RC Hill and thought I'd have a low save back up to launch, but couldn't pull it off...I opted to land in the LZ for a beer-free breakdown of the glider. I'll take a nice flight and a beer-free breakdown any day!
Flight Time: 51 minutes
Altitude: 3251' MSL