Written by Tony de Groot
Some times you just know that something good is going to happen. All weather reports were indicating great flying conditions for Santa Barbara. Cool temperatures, a clear day and light winds. I took precautions to fix all my gear including my push to talk which hasn’t worked good since, well, ever. I brought a back up radio and put water in my harness and even packed a camera for the first time. I was really pushing to get up there early to be all ready to go but my partner in crime, John Lyon, was on the lag patrol. I quickly hitched a ride with the always-entertaining Bob Ramey with Jeremiah in the back. As clouds were quickly forming by R&R and moving to the Thermal Factory I set up quick. I was happy because a lot of people were piling up the road to both Eliminator and Sky Port launches. After launching I climbed up and boated back and forth from Eliminator to R&R taking pictures of the beautiful snow covered backcountry. Paragliders were climbing out into beautiful clouds and we were hooting climbing up together.
The clouds started whiting out more and more but down the range it was still clear. I moved to Shadow Peak and waited for somebody to come along. I doubled back to Parkers before seeing Bob Anderson gliding to Shadow. The day seemed to be getting worse with cloud base lowering to 2800 feet. I doubled back to Shadow, then to Montecito Peak staying one peak behind Bob Anderson. Cloudbase was really low and I couldn’t see who was doing what on the nearest peak. Bob moved to Romero, but I still held back not wanting to commit. E.J. then came and joined me, actually climbed out over me and split as I lost the cycle. Bob was reporting lift in all the right places so I moved to Romero. Romero is usually the turning point as if you go on it is difficult to get back. I was just on top of Romero, E.J. was gone so I waited and took some pictures and waited for a guide. Scotty showed up and he led the way into the far beyond.
This was really great, as this was ALL new territory for me. I couldn’t believe we kept going as we were not that high. I tried to take it slow as we were only getting to 2900 before moving to the next peak. I tried to stay as high as possible working any lift I could and following a peak behind Scotty. Staying under the dark clouds was the trick. I also noticed that we were following right along with the cloud development. Some times I would just wait for clouds to start building in front and followed the street to get the best glide. At the wires I was nice and high, well 3700, as cloudbase was raising the further down range we got. I saw Scotty getting lower following the Chismahoo spine out. Since I was nice and high I thought this is where I leave Scotty in the dust. While he glides out I am going to glide under this cloud street to those nice big peaks. I could see Lake Casitas in the foreground but when I looked back on my way to these peaks I realized that this was a FULL commitment as I would not be able to glide back on to a nice sunlit spine. I also would not have a glide out anywhere. Still, the day had been consistent and how could those beautiful peaks not have lift? Very easily I found out. What a sinking feeling that is. I searched thoroughly and quickly but it wasn’t there. I started gliding toward the lake and that’s when it really hit me. I don’t have the glide to get out anywhere!! I totally blew it! I was going to land out in the middle of nowhere. I wouldn’t get injured as I saw some places I could set it down but the hike out, the hassle, and the thought of bumming out my potential future cross country friends was crossing my mind. I was feeling pretty stupid. Well, the only thing I could do was to glide as far in the direction towards a road as I could. Just then Scotty comes gliding by, nice and high. Dough!! He gets on the radio and goes dude you never want to get that low, ever. I didn’t really know what to say. Lake Casitas had disappeared behind the range and now it was just a matter of time before my feet hit the ground. I was in a very flat valley with no nice sunlit spines to go to. I glided over a small red mound with some rocks and it. For the first time in a while I heard a small faint up click on my vario. Oh my god don’t lose this oh so precious, oh so weak, oh so small thermal. It is very hard trying to push out as much as possible to climb yet keeping just enough speed in order to do a turn. There was a decent west drift in it too and so I was eking my way up, slowing down in the upwind as much as possible losing on the downwind but averaging up. This must be one of the best feelings ever climbing out of a hole like that. Go, baby go!! My day had just gone from misery to wonderful in one weak little thermal. Scotty was waiting and watching. What a guy! And was reporting that I was climbing in something. But when I got to the top of this mound the lift blew off and that was it. Still, I had climbed up 300 feet or so. I could now make a landing area by diving over the mound and down the canyon. Or, I could glide a little out of my way to a nice sunlit spine, and then I noticed a bird flying straight along the spine and getting lift. I want to fly on so to the spine I go! As I approach the spine I notice that now I can’t make the L.Z. anymore! Oh, maaaan!! But, sure enough the lift was solid on the spine and I worked my way back to cloudbase.
So Scotty was ahead of me. Bob Anderson had landed at Foxtail something or other, which was somewhere near Lake Casitas where I was heading. E.J. had raced a little too fast and decked it somewhere near Cate School or bates. Since I had been so low I stayed up very high and was cruising just below cloud base. I was getting a little whited out but thought I would keep gliding down as the cloud suck was very weak this day. Well, not for this cloud that is. Yes, it sucked me in!! First too low now too high!! I couldn’t see more than three feet in any direction. Then I heard my air speed go really loud followed by complete quietness this happened maybe two or three times. Trying to give input was useless, as I couldn’t tell what was up down left or right. Fortunately, I had read an article the day before about a pilot who had gone into the clouds. He said that he had focused on listening and tried to even out the sound of his airspeed. My eyes were taking up too much of my concentration as they were grasping for something that wasn’t there so I closed them. I lowered my head and backed off on any control bar input and let the glider fly itself and listened. This amazingly worked and in no time I was flying with an even sound of airspeed with no slips or dives. Luckily this thermal was not rough it was smooth and didn’t throw me off. I glanced in the direction of my vario and it was climbing steadily. I had a GPS and although I practiced with it when I first got it I hadn’t used it in a while and I couldn’t get a compass heading. Pretty weird being to be in a cloud and punching buttons. Well, that wasn’t working so I decided to focus on flying straight in the hopes of popping out the side of this thing. I had been in this thing for awhile and the whole time my vario kept going up up up. I thought of getting out of my harness to increase drag but it didn’t seem like it would help and I didn’t want to have my energy drained by getting cold.
Finally I heard my vario hit some sink so I gave what I thought was a gentle bank turn and followed the sink down. Down, down, down I went. What a beautiful sound that sink alarm can be!! As the ground started slowly unveiling itself it really was disorienting. I mean, really mind bending disorienting. So I looked away from the ground and concentrated on following the sink down. We had been topping out at 3700, which was next to cloudbase, and here I was popping out at 4700. The real trip was when I got home and checked my computer flight log. I had topped out at 6210!! Oh my god. The max lift I had for the day was 500 feet. I went in the cloud at 3900 to 4000 feet, time to climb up and descend, I must have been in there awhile.
By now Scotty was gone but I had a clear visual of Bob in a very nice field near the road. That looked fine for now. I flew around the lake taking pictures and then landed next to Bob. E.J. pulled up with the beers, and I was really, really stoked. This flight was really great not because of getting low or getting in the clouds, those were dangerous mistakes, but because the lift was so smooth and because of the gorgeous new scenery, flying with friends and enjoying a great adventure with them. Trying to pick your way through varying geography is a great mental challenge. Every pilot can relate to going that one extra peak further. This flight turns out to be only about 15 miles. So what is a 100-mile flight like?? If it is anything like the first 15 it must be really incredible!
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