How Low can You Go..

After watching the first two pilots struggle and then ultimately land shortly after their launches, I elected to wait until three o'clock to bail.. Turned out that even three was still a little early..

I spent quite a while down low.. Once, I got way low and had to hang on hard to stay up..

I felt like I was kicking like mad to keep my head above water with both hands tied behind my back..

Salvation..

I think that it was around four o'clock when things finally heated up enough to get a little breathing room.. Other pilots had taken off and used their altitude advantage to clear the cliffs and move in towards the big wall..

From my position of disadvantage though, I had to go deep down low to finally get up enough to clear the tops of the rocks..

Glass Pond..

The pond out front never really showed any sign of big lift in the valley.. It is my observation that when the pond shows significant air movement into Gold Creek valley, there can be good thermal all along the ridges as well as great climbs out over the middle of the valley..

There were long periods of glass smooth surface indications on the face of the pond..

Classic Rampart..

While today was not as good as it gets, the air was warm and smooth.. There must have been twenty pilots plying their wings at Rampart Ridge today..

And for the first time this year, there were a number of jelly bags floating around.. They launched at around five o'clock and just floated over to the wall without turning.. Yawn..

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