Elizabethville 4/26

Post by **XCanytime** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:05 am

Great day at Elizabethville today. Got there at 1:45P to find the local crowd of Bob Beck, Joe and Karen Gorrie, Shawn MacDuff, Jim Carroll, Dave Black, and Tom Gartlan. Later locals arriving were TR Johnson, Jesse Fulkersein, and Doug Rogers. Shawn led the charge into the cumie filled skies around 3PM and got up. Tom launched 20 minutes later and got up. I stepped up around 3:30 and launched into a good cycle and got up out in front of launch. Spent a good 15 minutes flying in ratty lift to get up to 1500' over (3000' MSL). Got in a good one to the right of launch and was climbing when I encountered some CAT again for the second week in a row. This time the whole glider went negative, the basetube fell out of my light grip, and the glider pitched down radically. Shook me up; I've never encountered that before. Once above this layer the climb smoothed out and I got to 6200' MSL, sharing the smooth lift with Tom Gartlan. By this time we had drifted back a good bit behind launch. Tom abandoned the area and headed out in front. After searching around for a while in some light lift back up to 6K' MSL, I tried to penetrate upwind to the front of the ridge. I could see two gliders low on the ridge so a flush was occurring. I encountered a stiff headwind and major sink. I lost 3K' of altitude quickly, and it was proving to be too exciting to see if I could make it back out in front of the ridge. I turned towards the south to over the valley where a private airstrip was. I spied the airstrip and spent 10 minutes trying to climb out in the ratty lift above it. After struggling in that chop, decided to land. Had a nice landing and carried over to the hangar where the owner's Cessna 150 and Kolb ultralight were stored. Raised Jesse on the radio to report that I had landed out at the airstrip. After packing up everything, set out along the road to walk back to the alternate LZ. An hour and a half later I arrived at the LZ and a big thanks to Doug Rogers for the ride back up to the top. And an even bigger thanks to TR and Jesse who fetched my glider and harness from the hangar. We all met at JoJos in Elizabethville for some chow. Doug got to 7400' over (8900' MSL)! Some pics should follow.

Bacil