Yes, the last weekend of soaring in Truckee was absolutely incredible. I took Thursday and Friday off and made a long weekend of it including some mountain biking along with flying.
I had a wonderful flight with Larry Thursday which really built on what I've learned at Byron and in Truckee with Buzz a couple of weeks ago.
The air was terrific, and Larry and I had nearly a 2.5 hour lesson in the early afternoon. After Larry and Van returned from their late afternoon flight we went to the Fifty Cent Brewery to talk about flying, Larry's new Cessna 150, and other things that interest us pilots. Upon return to Soar Truckee I discovered a card game going on in the shed, and after trading some wine for chips I got in on a few hands and lots of laughs.
I was very fortunate Saturday. Even thought I wasn't scheduled to fly Larry kindly offered to take me up again in between other students, however Sergio also offered to let me join him on one of his famous epic cross country trips. We took off around 11:30 and found plenty of lift around Tahoe. We flew around Lake Tahoe, a first for me, and I learned where many important sources of lift can be found, as well as other airports and glider operations. I took photos until my camera battery died, and we continued north to Mount Lassen. Sergio modestly said that normally one would have to work much harder to find and climb thermals, but Saturday was an exceptional day. He made it look so easy, and it seemed like we hardly ever passed below 10 or 12K ft. I joking said that I'd probably be disappointed if I ever make the same flight and find the conditions more challenging. We flew to Mt. Lassen and circled looking down on the hikers. Sergio managed to capture a few shots with his camera. I couldn't help to wave my arm out the window at the hikers below who were looking up at us.
Between Mt Lassen and Sierraville we found a few of the same thermals we'd come up on, and Sergio found some air rising above dark coloured rock along a ridge. We flew beneath a line of clouds back to Truckee and it was downright hard to loose significant altitude. I flew us back straight along the cloud line, over Truckee and back out over Lake Tahoe. It seemed like we didn't loose significant altitude until Sergio applied the spoilers and made a landing just as beautiful as his takeoff.
Attached are photos of the trip around Tahoe and Lassen, as well as a couple of route maps that do not contain the last part of our trip due to technical problems. The first photo of the glider and tow plane was taken as I stumbled out of the Bunk House that morning around 05:00 when the moon was setting west over Donner Pass. Upon our returned to Truckee after 17:30 we saw the moon rising over the ridge to the east.....but unfortunately no photo...
After finding 81C mostly loaded onto the trailer by Larry, Van, Mang, and Stefanie, I merely assisted with hitching the trailer to Larry's camper van for the pull back to Byron. Out of slight guilt for missing most of the work, I did promise to attend the Nov club work day.
The Sat night BBQ was a relative small crowd but we made up for it by partying harder and later into the night than usual! There was food, campfire, music, cigars, and dancing in the shed to the rotating colours of disco lights. The next day the remaining Gypsies of Soar Truckee packed up to move away to their respective winter places. Some were heading down the mountain.....others to Florida. Overnight.....caravans, tow planes, and gliders were gone, and everything not attached to the ground was taken up and packed away. Had it not been such a wonderful weekend and fun season I would have felt sad but there are so many wonderful memories of flights and great company at Truckee. There are also upcoming soaring community events in the Bay Area to look forward to.
Maya
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