Woodstock, April 10, 2010

The early birds showed up at Woodstock starting around 9:45 under cobalt blue skies and straight in soarable conditions. The faithful included me, Bacil, Gary S, Steve K, and Bruce E. We got set up and decided to wait awhile for some heating because it had backed off a bit since we got there. As the wind continued to back off, Gary bagged it and opted to get some things done. Bruce finished getting set up and launched about 1:20 into a good cycle. We could see him through the trees and he found lift up North a little bit and got up over the ridge. Bacil went next with a very nice launch and hooked into some lift and was soon gaining as I went to get hooked in. Steve helped me down into the slot and once again there were no good cycles coming through. Actually no cycles at all. It was really light, just wafting in, but at least it was coming in. I stood there waiting for 10 minutes, just like Wed last week. Then Steve pointed out a turkey vulture cruising out front which then started to go up and began to turn. As Steve and I watched, he hooked into a nice thermal and was climbing fast. I decided to go for it. It was still just wafting in so I picked up, got level, and launched heading straight out to the vulture. I found what he was in and got up over the ridge and I could see Bacil and Bruce already a couple miles North of launch. I stuck with that thermal up to 750' over the ridge and found a little bit more lift here and there but not much that was very organized. I soon found myself at launch height and tried to tuck it in to the non-existent ridge lift. I tried the SW facing bowl on the first North finger, no dice. So I went out to land and was staging over the corner of the field at 400' AGL when I got a couple beeps. I decided to turn in it since I was right where I needed to be to land and for the next 10 turns I was basically averaging zero sink. Finally it started to turn on and I gained a couple hundred feet. About then Bruce had come back and was low, saw me climbing and came over to join me a few hundred feet below. Unfortunately, the ladder was coming up right underneath me so there wasn't much for him to work with. But I managed to climb 800' in that thermal back up to 100' over launch. My first genuine low save! But the fun didn't last long, I searched for more but didn't find it and had to go land. Had a nice landing after 30 minutes in the air. Bruce had just landed before me after getting an hour and 2,000' over and then we saw Steve launch. He found a few burbles and got an extendo and had a really nice landing.
http://vimeo.com/10857333