Today was not unlike yesterday, but which some breaks in the clouds we were more hopefully of a valid task.

The task committee, concerned about thunderstorms, set an early launch, an early land-by and individual start, so we could launch and head out on course immediately.

Abe Laguna bravely launched first—taking the risk of sinking out. We saw him glide around the first ridge fairly low, but we didn't see him heading to the LZ.

Bruno Berti, making a special appearance on the last day, launched next and I followed him out.

There was lift, but it was light. We couldn't see Abe—he was either well down range on course or dirted.

Bruno and I worked the very light lift together, chasing what sunny patches crossed the ridges.

I was able to hang on until a good pack launched including Will, Keith, Gavin, Greg, and Nicole. Bruno couldn't hang on and sunk out early.

The rest of us worked 50fpm up lift together. It was slow, but a lot of fun scratching as a pack. As Nicole put it, we felt confident in everyone else's skills so we could form tight patterns, scratch close, and help each other out.

At one point I surprised myself by hanging out _patiently_ in light lift while the rest of the crew pushed forward into no lift.

My patience put me a few hundred feet above the pack and I was able to continue on a bit after Keith led pretty much everyone out on a death glide. They weren't going to make goal, so they were just going for as much distance as the could.

Will held on, not ready to give up. I came in a little over his head and we worked some more light stuff together. Unfortunately, it was beyond my skill to hang on, and I had to bail on glide as well.

Looking back over my shoulder I thought Will had pulled it off, reaching the top of the ridge, but when he went on glide he sunk as well.

In the end I made it a few kilometers past the main pack, Will made it a few past me, and Keith with the amazing glide on his Boomerang 4 actually landed 200 meters past me.

But the story of the day was Bill Hughes. Bill managed to hang on longer than the rest of us—long enough for the clouds to part, the hill to heat up, and the air to start rising. He, Amir (who launched late) and Peter skyed out and reached goal.

Nice flying guys!

I ended up 8th I think, but aside from Bill, Amir and Peter, we all scored pretty much the same. In the end I held on to my 6th place overall standing.

Today was far less exciting than yesterday. Forecasts called for overdevelopment and thunderstorms in the evening so we went up the hill early.

Unfortunately high cloud kept the sun away and hopes for an early task were dashed as several non-competitor pilots launched and glided down to the LZ.

There was a bunch of waiting and much jaw-boning about whether to cancel the day or not. Greg Babush felt strongly that we should wait in the hopes of a clearing. I thought it was dumb, we should call the day and get in a free flight—probably a sledder to the LZ.

The launch window opened, but no one wanted to fly without some evidence that there was a chance of going up.

The debate continued until Greg and I came up with a good solution—we'd just huck and see what happened.

When we announced that we where going to break to stalemate and launch, several other top 10 pilots joined in. Either we'd all go, find some lift and have a race, or we'd all sink out together.

Abe Laguna, suited up and ready to go from the start, was the first of the pack to launch. I came right after him (good launch, zero incidents—at least 5 helpful people had check my straps for me :-).

To our surprise we found light but workable light right off of launch. Working together, and thermalling gently, we rose a few hundred feet above launch and the rest of the field quickly hucked.

Unfortunately, the thermal we'd found was pretty much all the lift there was, and when it petered out, Abe and I found ourselves scratching ridges, then hillsides, then trees looking for something, anything to get us up.

On the bright side, winds were exceptionally light so we could fly safely very close to trees and rock. I felt close enough to the trees to start giving them names, though my interest waned after about 20 minutes of that.

I was also low enough that I started paying close attention to my 'glide to goal'—I'd set my GPS to show me the glide-ratio I needed to make the LZ, there was no way any of us were going out on-course.

About this time scratch-master-Gavin Zahner, who really likes naming trees, pulled away from the hillside, threw a few wing-overs and headed to the LZ.

It was a perfect signal and within a minute, the rest of us were following.

I arrived high enough to chuck a quick 2 rotation SAT and some light wing-overs before landing.

No one made it out of the 'bomb-out' cylinder and on course, so the day was void. But we gave it a shot and got down in time to update our blogs!

What makes competing so interesting to me is how much I learn every time I fly. The lessons can fun, frustrating, and even embarrassing, but they are almost always useful.

And sometimes it's the same lesson again and again, beating itself into my head.

Hoping to avoid learning anything new, I strategized a bit this morning—telling myself that I should fly conservatively; aim for making goal with the lead gaggle, but not taking risks. If the opportunity presented itself to race, I would, but in general, I entered the day in excellent position and didn't want to lose it.

Then, I got flustered. Here is what happened: launch was strong and people were a bit hesitant to huck. To get things going, Will Gadd launched. It was strong, but he handled it well and flew straight into excellent lift.

I think Keith McCollough launched next, and then I was up. It was a strong A's/C's kind of day, and not one to dally. Pop the glider, turn and go. Avoid strong brake (that would just result in being snapped into the air and pulled back), and run hard to keep in front of the accelerating glider.

I performed a decent high-wind launch, as described above, but didn't have time to fully inspect the glider on inflation. I knew there weren't any major issues, but as I flew away from launch and started turning in lift toward the right (it was a right-turn day) I discovered the worst compression knot I've ever had.

My brake line on the right was knotted to the C's and D's just below the highest divide, middle of the right wing. I flicked the lines a bit—tugging won't help a compression know—and briefly considered an ill-advised stall, and idea I quickly discarded given my height, the blustery wind and the low likelihood that it would work.

So I decided to live with it. Unfortunately, this meant:

• Right-hand turns (the direction of the day) were sloppy and slow.


• I couldn't pressurize the right tip very well.


• The glider flew like a car out of alignment, pulling right on straight glide.

This (Len warning, bad words ahead) fucked my concentration and put me in a lousy frame of mind to fly gusty conditions.

I told myself to pull it together and fly the course. But I was less confident, and less aggressive, in strong and blustery lift (with my right tip's deflation tendency) so I left thermals early that I could have topped out, and I chose not to scratch the rock faces as close as I could have.

On glide, I was able to press 1/4 to 1/2 speed on the right side only and lean a bit to the left to hold a straight line.

This all worked reasonably well and 1/2hr or 45 minutes into the flight I had my focus back and realized that I was behind the leads (Keith and Will) but holding fast to 3rd place—wounded glider and all.

My first lesson was simply this: the mental game, though probably not as much a factor in Paragliding as say Chess, matters. No matter what happens, you have to find a way to stay calm and focused. I let the knot disconcert me and flew timidly as a result.

My second lesson, well, it's one I've written about before. Patience. Yeah, I know, I did it again.

The course was a double triangle (same three points twice, and then to goal) and one point of the triangle was out in the valley away from lift. Hitting it the first time involved getting high, gliding out (sinking the whole way), gliding back (sinking the whole way) and scratching back up the face to launch (another one of the points).

My second time around I could see that the valley was shading in, and it was getting late—probably around 8pm. I knew that I needed maximum altitude to pass through the valley turn, back to launch, and into goal in a single glide.

Fully aware, I hooked a booming thermal, riding it to around 8000ft, at which point I knew what I had to do was top out the lift but I saw chance to leave early and catch Will and Keith, so I left.

You can probably guess the result: I made it back from the valley turn-point lower than the previous pass. It was later in the day, and the lift I was expecting was gone.

Abe Laguna followed me into the sink fest (why Abe??) and we scratched for a while before bailing to the landing field having missed the final turn-point.

Ouch. That dropped me from 2nd to 5th, and even worse, let Greg Babush pass me in the standings.

Lesson summary:

• Keep the mental focus, not matter glitches.


• Patience, patience, patience. Or less succinctly, there is a time to race, and there is a time to lock in one's lead over Greg Babush!