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There are low clouds in the morning, below the top of Sugar Hill and below the tops of the Warner Range east of Lakeview. It is supposed to be blue late in the day. Winds 16 knots up at 10,000'. West northwest.

The task committee and the meet director sent us to Black Cap given the west winds and the possibility that it might go to the west northwest later. It must have been blowing 10 to 15 mph at launch so it looked like it would be ridge soarable at first, giving pilots the opportunity to wait for a thermal to come threw. There were plenty of cu's over head and in the area, but they were getting thinner. There was a dry air mass above and as cloud base rose the clouds would begin to thin out.

The task was 192 km to the east into Nevada. We were just to follow along highway 140 and to make sure that we did they put in a bunch of 400 meter waypoints (not really turnpoints).

Jeff O'Brien was off first, just taking off off the road side right behind where I was getting into my glider. I moved further down to the north to get more into the west wind to take off and was third off. Apparently folks were taking off from any where. I was under the apparently mistaken impression that the launch was where Mark, the safety director, was, which looked to me to be the best launch facing into the wind. That was also where the tandem wind tech took off earlier.

Jeff climbed out to cloud base (over 10,000') immediately. I and those who launched before and after me weren't so fortunate or perhaps skilled and had to wait around a while for a thermal to come through before we climbed out. I found one and noticed that Jeff came over and joined me. He had lost a lot of altitude.

It was early yet, so we had to wait around for the second or third start clock. We'd get high then have to come back over launch as the start circle was only 1 KM. I wonder why that was? We'd get down to 2,000' over launch and then find another thermal to get back to cloud base.

Almost all the pilots were down low. Only Zippy, Jeff and I got up high and played this back and forth game. With no one to go with and so many people still on launch it was soon clear that we would have to take the third start time. We were high again but had to push forward to get back in the start circle as we had drifted a few kilometers out of it as the wind was 20 mph out of the west. This meant that of course we were going to lose all our nice altitude once again.

I headed off to the north side of the launch (we had been getting up on the south side of it) while Zippy and Jeff headed south to get under the few remaining cu's. The sky had turned blue as forecast. I headed for some pilots who were turning, while many other pilots were low on the hillside not getting up at all.

After climbing out with a couple of pilots I headed over the back toward the east and into the Warner Range. There was a nice big open area to the east so it was pretty mellow looking and we were plenty high. Jeff and Zippy were struggling to the south.

After getting over the back and feeling that the air was in pretty good shape in spite of the twenty mph wind and the fact that we were behind the front of the Warner Range, I decided to head south to get under the thin cu's, in the line that Jeff and Zippy were working on the west facing side of the range. It was 900 to 1000 fpm down to get to them but once I got over there there was reasonable if not strong lift. Better than going down.

The two pilots I went back over with didn't head south but went east along the road and up against a south facing hill side. I couldn't see what the point of that was. They landed shortly after I left them.

I just kept hanging on to the broken and light lift trying to get up high enough (about 11,000') to feel good about flying over these hills. There were plenty of plateaus to the east so it looked reasonably safe, but the higher the better. Four pilots who had been low in front of launch came and joined me in my thermal and we started working together. Jeff and Zippy and another pilot were now to my southwest, quite a bit lower but working lift and getting up.

We drifted and worked lift toward Adel which is just past the mountain range. Another pilot and I were the highest and at cloud base so we went on glide toward Adel. I took the northern route going to the lip of the canyon going into Adel and the other pilot tried the south side. We were high above the canyon but hoping for lift off the edges. I flew through a little bit of lift after a long glide then started working some light stuff just coming off the lip. The other pilot got lower and went out to the valley to the east.

Jeff stopped to work the lift that I had flown through 1 km behind me and reported 400 fpm. This was better than I was getting but it was hard to get back to it. I kept working weak stuff along the plateau at the eastern end of the range before Adel then just jumped over to the waypoint as Jeff said there was weak lift there.

I saw a couple of pilots low east of Adel climbing over a field that was being irrigated, and while the lift was weak it was attractive enough to bring in all the pilots other than Jeff. He started working will Bill in a much better lift 5 km to the east across 140 on a ridge line. I finally made it over there based on his story, but didn't find the 1,100 fpm that he had been in.  Still it was better there than in the valley.

Another pilot came in below me and we got back to over 11,000'. Trying to catch Jeff, I went on glide toward Dougherty slide. My ground speeds were almost 70 mph. There wasn't much, if any, lift until I almost got to the wall of rock that makes up the slide and I worked some weak lift back to 8,500'. I was thinking that there should be better lift, Jeff and Bill were 5 km in front of me. Bill was working the rock face, but I didn't see him. Jeff had turned downwind past the slide.

I jumped over onto the plateau searching for the next thermal on my own but just didn't find any lift. Jeff was on his own about 10 km in front of me and working thermals that were moving very quickly to the east. I had to land after not finding anything. Jeff hung on in weak and broken lift for the next 50 km until things got better.

After Jeff approached Denio he found good lift that got him to 12,000' as he approached a high mountain range that was between him and goal. The course changes at this point and went to the southeast. There would not longer be a direct tail wind on this last leg.

Jeff jumped over the mountain and had no trouble making into goal. Zippy was next and after we got Jeff all packed up, Bill landed.

Three made goal. Three more landed out near me, two landed just behind the launch. Most every one else landed in the bomb out field.