The rain has finally stopped and this morning dawned partly cloudy with drying out to occur through the day. Yesterday (Wednesday) turned out to be a long day. We had rain and drizzle through the morning and then intermittent drizzle through the afternoon. By 3 o'clock clouds started to dissipate somewhat, but the cloud base was just 300 feet to 500 feet over launch. The Rat Race crew decided on trying to get a task in, but we new it would be difficult with such a low cloud base.

The task was an elapsed time with 3 start times that the pilot could choose to leave for the task. I launched about 5 pm and had a slow climb with about 15 other pilots to cloud base. I got the first start time and slowly made it to the first turn point. You couldn't really race hard and had to be patient as the thermals where sporadic, broken, and light. Made the first turn point and then flew toward the second turn point. I found a great climb to cloud base and since cloud base was so low it was difficult to stay out of the clouds. At times clouds would began to form around you and slightly below you as you climbed. Once the second turn point was made, I began to fly toward number 3. Interestingly, there was no sun and just a low dark cloud 500 feet over launch between the 2nd and 3rd turn point. Flying over to a ridge (Burnt) I got low and had to follow the ridge toward Ruch as I was too low to climb over the ridge. I continued to look for some lift, but there was none. I thought I was going to dirt at the bailout LZ, but found a light thermal that got me high enough to get over Burnt and toward the 3rd turn point. I was with two other pilots. But, as thought, there was no lift and we ended up landing in one of the few fields on the back side of Burnt.

I got a big 17 K, but there were many pilots dropping out. It turned out to be a low valid day. Today looks great with top of thermals forecast to be around 8K. Let's hope for a good day.