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Lake Pilsbury was fuller than it has been the past three years, with only a small patch of dry land in the regular LZ. We debated whether to try landing there. No-one wanted to land on the airfield - Memorial weekend and there were a lot of guys with guns down there blazing away at enemy propane canisters, buckets, and old TV sets, (yes I know it's fun!) - and the slot would be unpleasant if it was windy, and it was getting windy now. Ernie put a windsock in the slot and I put a streamer on the edge of the dry ground.

It was quite windy on launch, mostly coming straight in, but crossing from the left for long cycles. Clouds were forming overhead,and to the north were some pretty substantial looking cu's, ones I did not think I would want to be under. The cloud shadows indicated N or even NNE winds aloft.

Jon went first but flew out a ways and mostly just sunk out. I was on launch but was not impressed. Charley urged me to go left. As soon as I was off launch I turned left, to try to at least ridge soar the contours of the mountain. I found notheing until I was half way to red spot, then followed a small thermal eventually to 7500ft. At first the thermal drifted back over the mountain but as I got higher the direction changed to straight up, and I lost it after a while. With this height I flew towards the peak, but sunk all the way there and all the way back. The front of the mountain was not working at all.

Meantime Matt had taken off and climbed out in exactly the same place as I had. I arrived back below launch again as he skyed out. This time I found nothing until I was below Red Spot. Jon announced he had landed in the LZ. I thought I would be joining him soon, and Brian, Charley, and Ernie were en route there it seemed. But I got another small thermal and hung on to it. This time once I climbed past 7000ft I followed it out further from the mountain and it got better, until at 8500ft below the clouds the lift was pretty fat. I was soon climbing past 9000ft and Matt was at the same height a mile away over Windy Ridge heading for Sanhedrin, which also had some clouds over it. To the N and E the clouds looked good. It was cold, at 46F.

I watched Matt go, and climbed to near cloudbase at 9500ft. Matt didn't find much lift over on Sanhedrin so I didn't go much further than the middle of the valley where it was easy to stay at 9000ft under clouds. I flew back to the mountain in a 15 mph headwind and arrived back just above the top. then climbed back to over 9000ft again. Matt had headed out and after a while I was getting a bit cold and lonely up there so I headed out too. The air was very buoyant but there was a 20mph+ N wind. I flew over to the foothills above Soda Creek in zero sink, then found lift on the way back over the old resort on the W side of the lake, and hung out for about 15 minutes at 7- 75000ft, before taking the tour of the dam, and back. It was quite boaty, and not at all turbulent all the way down.

Apparently everyone had landed in the dry, well almost (at least no-one had had to swim) so I had no choice. It was an honorable challenge. I mean you really ought to be able to land there, or pretty close to it, and the penalty for not landing there, or landing pretty close to it, was merely getting a bit wet, with the possibility of huge entertainment if you got seriously wet.

Jon reported 15 - 20 in the LZ. Donna asked me to do a wingover. If I ever show off doing wingovers, firstly no-one ever sees them, and secondly, it's an almost guaranteed whack to follow. I did a wingover. I chickened out of the second one. When I go that fast in a hang glider I'm not sure if I'm really in control. I still had 1,500ft to burn off. I was tried hard to banish that sneaking, "Now I'm screwed", thought from my brain.

I had a great landing, right in the middle of the dry stuff. It up for my really crappy landing at St Helena last week, I said, but Jon erased my smugness with a deserved "well, if you can't land in a 20 mph wind...?" I wonder if I could do it 10 times in a row?

I think there was probably some pretty good convergence going on over the mountains, but there was little lift on the front of the mountain where we normally get up.

Maybe it's OK to do wingovers with no whacking consequences. if you only do them if someone asks you to. We could test this theory.

Leo