When the Bough Breaks

From: RF
Activity_Date: 5/24/02
Remote Name: 165.247.243.238

Comments

Dan Keyser, Bill Bailey, Pete and I grabbed Fast Eddie and headed to Pine on Friday. We were late getting there and it was blowing in hard, 15+, at the south launch at noon. We thought it was over for the day, but five minutes later it lulled to about 10 and we decided to give it a go. I pulled up while it was less than ballistic and got yanked off my feet. I didn't turn for five minutes and went up to 8,300 in the strong ridge lift. The wind was southeast and I drifted to the knob. There the ridge lift faded and I decided to try a 360. It turned out to work all right and I circled over the campsite waiting for the others to get airborne. Unfortunately, it was blistering again at launch and I decided to get away from the hill in the extremely unpredictable air. With 8,500 I drifted west over the spine and turned north at Hwy 33. There were high cirrus clouds and the day was not shaping up as expected. (Light and variable at 9 and 12,000 with 9 degree lapse rate?) Between Ozena Station and the Halfway Cafe I finally found the convergence and took it from 5,300 up to 9,000. I was doing 40 mph north making lazy circles letting the drift take me for 15 minutes. But I lost it and could not find it again on excursions east and west of the highway. My glide took me to the Cuyama Plain. The twenty mph tail wind turned into a 15 mph headwind in four or five miles and I very carefully put it down in the riverbed and killed it with the C's. Much to my surprise, I wasn't drug back to Ozena. Pete got some Pine under his belt but otherwise we'll just have to save it for a later day at unpredictable Pine.