Late Starting.

Well it seems summer has arrived in Golden. The Forecast was for 30c light winds and high cloud base. Finally they got it right. Turned into a great day!

A few hang glider pilots on launch and we all got a very late start on the day. I was the first to launch at 4:00. Down low the lift was strong enough but broken and disorganized. Getting high at the start was a challange. Leif launched a bit after me and was working to get up as well. I headed over MT7 and finally hooked up with some good lift and climbed out to 13 000'. I search to find Leif but just couldn't spot him. The top sail is really hard to spot from a distance. I headed back to launch and spotted him still working his way up. Not finding any lift I headed back to MT7 and still had trouble finding lift.

Instead of Leif climbing up to me I sunk out to him. As this was the highest he had been he headed off for pagliaro. I just lost 5000' so I wanted to get up before making the crossing. After struggling for a bit I finally got back to base before heading out. Once at cloud base It was easy going. Good glides under the cloud street. I hit the core of a good thermal at Pagliaro and climbed back to 13 000' From there I never made a turn until I spotted Leif at Harrogate. I was climbing above him and still managed to loose track of him.

From there I had a couple more climbs before a long glide into Edgewater. This was the first time from leaving Mt7 that I got below 10 000'. Again the lift was broken down lower but I seemed to be getting the hang of it and made my way back up with out taking too long.

Stopped to climb a couple times on the way to Invermere. The plan was to fly to Invermere but I was in orbit and it was a fast trip down. I figured I'd fly to Fairmont and make a new plan there. I got high at Fairmont and I thought it was still early enough to keep going. I didn't realize my insturment had the wrong time on it. I found a bit of lift on the way to Canal flats but didn't gain much. The low hills at Canal flats were buoyant but not producing much n the way of lift. It's about 30km to the next landing Field so going any further was out of question. I burned off the height I had and landed in a large Field south of the high way.

I was desperate for some food but it was 8:30 and the streets roll up here 7:00. I found a pub in town that was open and they were kind enough to find me some left overs to eat.

Leif stuck with the plan and landed the airport in Invermere. Then had to suffer through retrieving me. Thanks to Lauren for coming to get us!! Looks like another good day.