Monday after work looked great, so my boyfriend and I decided to burn over to our closest flying site (Bridal Falls) and if nothing else, get a short end-of-day flight in. We met at the landing field at 5:30pm and by the time we got in the air it was after 6, so really we weren't expecting much.
George had gone first, so after my take off I looked around and saw him already about 100 metres over launch. Yippee! I zipped over towards him and found a very light but continuous thermal, and slowwwwly made my way up to the old "upper" launch. Back in the day before we would fly for points (most pilots submit gps track logs to online contests for fun and glory), we would used to fly to Upper (which is twice the height of the lower launch) and top land. First pilot of the season to do it was the bravest because you never knew how deep the snow was - if it was too deep you may not be able to relaunch and have a long hike down. But if it was packed enough to run off again, then a whole gaggle of pilots would land there and soak up some sun and just hang out for fun.
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| Upper Launch…where the cool kids used to hang out. |
At this point George had ridden the thermals up to 1900 metres and had flown over the valley to do some sight seeing. I flew over to the end of the ridge to a point we call "Gloria", and was about to go join George on his valley tour when I saw Mia coming to join me. It's always fun to fly with another girl, so I waited and am glad I did…she found a great thermal for us! After topping out we parted ways - Mia flew across the gap to Elk Mountain, and I thought I'd see if I could retrace my steps and headed towards Mt Cheam.
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| Mia is that tiny dot next to the red sunspot. |
At the end of the day, I didn't make it to Cheam but did get about an hour of flying, 1600 metres maximum height and some points on our online contest for flying a triangle task. Best end to a workday ever. Thank you karma!
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| Flying into the sunset. |
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