Dry Canyon x2

From: Hesham
Activity_Date: 5/18/02
Remote Name: 66.51.204.241

Comments

A pretty good day at Pine. Randall and myself made it OTB to Dry Canyon (5.6 miles).

Checking the conditions in the morning, the winds aloft were lighter than what was predicted the night before. Deep marine layer and onshore conditions plus not much heating at the surface. There were also multiple inversions and last night's NE winds aloft prediction for Santa Barbara was gone from the morning forecast.

I met up with Randall in Ojai. We found that most people had made other plans for the day. Given the light wind, I proposed we try Pine to escape the overcast conditions in Ojai. We called up Eddie and he was very enthusiastic as always.

Stopped at the Sand Pile to check the wind. There was none or maybe a light trickle. We stopped at the north launch and light cycles were coming up. We continued to the south launch and there were light to moderate cycles coming up on that side as well with a significant base component (south). The top of the haze layer was very high on the horizon and it was pretty warm on launch. In the air at 12:15, got to about 100 over launch ridge soaring then intercepted the main spine. At first, there was disorganized lift over the knob. Headed further out and hooked a good one and started drifting back with it, eventually reaching 9K west of launch.

Rather than heading OTB (which is what I should have done), I tried to transition to Reyes but soon was back down to 7K. Headed back out front and found lift back to 8K. Couldn't get any higher and headed out towards the road where the drift was from the east. I set up for a roadside landing near TJ's. Facing east, I encountered some rotor off the small hills on the north side of the road and took a collapse 100 feet above the deck. It came out right away though and I landed on the road.

Eddie picked me up and then we went to chase Randall OTB and eventually picked him up at Dry Canyon. This was a good chance for me to see that LZ and put it in my GPS.

Back to launch hoping for a nice late day glass off. We were hoping the northwest wind on the back side would push in against the south wind and setup a convergence over launch. This did not happen but I launched anyway. The first part was almost a replay of the first flight, except this time I went OTB when I hit 9K. Couldn't get much higher than 9K though. Over the back there was initially a lot of sink and soon I was back down to 7500 but further out on the north side there was good lift. I pushed on due north east. My ground speed reached 33 mph, arriving at the point where the river diverges from Lockwood Valley Road (the river continues to the north and the road goes east) with 6K.

There is a large cleared brown field on the south side of the road where I boated around in very buoyant air. The wind was stiff from the NW coming over the bad lands north of the road. It was 4:30 by then. I landed there a little while later very pleased with my first Pine OTB XC. Straight line distance was 5.6 miles. This spot seems to be a good starting point to head east towards Lockwood Valley which is another 8 miles from Dry Canyon.

A big thank you to Fast Eddie for coaching me today. He is a fountain of knowledge on flying this area. And thanks to Randall for being a great flying buddy. We had the mountain all to ourselves being the only pilots in the air the whole day.