Tobacco Row to Lasker NC : 135 mi : Nelson L April 29 2007

[chgpa]

[Posted on behalf of Nelson L and Pete L]

Sunday 29 April 2007 Tobacco Row NW 135mi., 7,800'msl, 5hrs.

The day promised to be good as John Harper had called to say that he had early cumies in Lynchburg near the Tobacco Row site. However, the surface forecast was all over the place between west 10-15 and northwest 15-25 depending on the source. I arrived at launch before noon and set up quickly.

Unfortunately, the cus had spread over the mountain and were shading both the mountain and the valley in front. Still, there were good cu over the back. As I got ready to launch the cu over launch dissipated and it began to cycle up. It was gusting in the 20's within minutes of the sky clearing. I watched it build and thought it was blown out. John Harper showed up late after first having tuned a turn out of his new (to him) Litespeed. Steve Kepler, Greg Mick, Rich Lawrence, Claude Hall and Richard (?) also showed up to watch it blow.

After about half an hour the winds backed off to 5-10. Steve got off and I followed around 1:30pm. We worked a cu to the north of launch but I never got over 4k. Then I got to 5k around launch, but came back out front as the cu were much higher still and thermal I had been working was broken and weak. I wanted something better to leave with.

Steve had already left when John and I took the next train out of town together. I left with 7k and John hung out until 7,700'. I caught Steve or got stuck in the same place at around 4k. We slowly worked broken lift together as John flew overhead. Steve and I finally worked it out and got high (7,800') under a cu. John got stuck low but also worked it out and followed. I pushed on to the next cu which was big but a bit ragged. Few of the cu had hard bottoms and the climbs, while strong (700up), were broken. I had a couple of climbs and looked out ahead to see John ~40mi. He saw me climbing hard and came back. I pushed on and never again saw John or Steve. However, they stayed together to the 80 mile point. Fortunately for me the cu were always in reach and I got away with flying alone. As the day went on I got progressively lower and lower in each climb, all the way to the ground. I never really got a final glide. It was still working when I landed in a cotton field near Lasker North Carolina with cu still in the skies at 6:30 .

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Greg Mick sacrificed himself, landed and chased.

Nelson