Another wintery day that matched the forecast, with high cloud cover and stronger winds aloft predicted and delivered.

Did a final check of the morning conditions, and since they were already getting close to “strong-ish,” decided to drive up to Crestline instead of taking the Uber express (giving me an easy ride down if I decided not to launch). Conditions on launch were near perfect for easy launching so set up and launched at 8:45. I was greeted with ultra-smooth ridge lift, with winds increasing with altitude, and had a slow, easy climb up over 6k while crabbing around the back ridge. Higher I got, the more parked I was, so decided to push out forward. On speedbar, I made slow but easy progress forward, climbing most of the way. Was one of those where you could have just sat back with your legs stretched out on the speedbar and sipped a coffee for 20 minutes. Flew for an hour and maxed out around 6100′.

Before the shuttle launched, we saw a helicopter doing water drops on Cloud. Assume it was a training session?

Back up to Crestline on the 11:30 Sandy Van and saw one mini wing in the air once we arrived. They didn’t stick around long and looked like even the birds were getting tossed around. Bit spicy for full size PGs. Light conditions at Marshall and winds with an east component, but also meant no ridge lift, so with the very light thermal activity there, almost everyone went straight to the LZ. Some of us reloaded back up to Regionals to get a little more flying in with only slightly better results. With all the rain recently, most were happy to be in the air, even if it was short-lived.

After packing up shortly before sunset, I looked up and saw TONS of PGs in the air – don’t think I’ve ever seen so many here at one time. Hopefully someone got a photo of that.