It was a beautiful day in the Owens Valley. Not an offical training day, but almost every pilot, many who had never flown here, headed up to Gunters launch in The White Mountains. There was no task really, just personal flight plans were the norm. My goal was to get high and go north to White Mountain which is a 14,000 foot peak and fly back to my car at the "offical" Gunter LZ.
Other pilots flew to the end of the ridge which is Boundary Peak in Nevada, and flew back to town. Some pilots were in the air for 4 or more hours. I enjoyed a two hour flight with a relaxing pace, about 25 miles.
The climbs were well spaced and fairly consistent above the ridges. Some pilots went to the top of the range to get some height. I stayed about 3/4ths the way up the range which was nice. I didn't get too cold. Some pilots complained of numb hands. My highest point was about 14,500 msl, and some pilots made it to the 17,999 msl threshold.
Some pilots flew from Walts Launch which is on the Sierras and east facing. About 6 pilots flew 100 miles. So the Owens valley shined big.
Tomorrow is the first day of the comp. Conditions look similar to today. We will be using a different launch then we did today. It's called Flynns. Gunter launch is almost an hour 4 wheel drive road. So logistically it takes quite some time to get up there and organized. Plus there really isn't a good turn around up there, and you can only lay out 2 to 3 gliders to launch. Not very friendly when it you need to get 80 pilots off the hill in a about an hour.
Stay tuned for updates. Cheers!
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