DIAMONDS IN THE ROUGH

Last Saturday Barry McGarraugh and Karl Sommer flew their Libelles diamond distance to Hurricane, Utah and Sean Eckstein came down 268 miles out, in Mesquite, NV.  Here's their report of that day's soaring adventure.Barry's report: Due to concerns about OD and headwinds in the Sierras, Sean, Karl and I flew toward Utah on Saturday. Clouds were starting to form in the mountains at 11AM, so I got away from Crystal at 11:40 and towed up to the middle ridge. 40 minutes later, I was pushing away from Mt Baldy at 12K under cu and heading for some clouds just east of Apple Valley. The clouds marked good lift that kept me between 8-13K’ all the way to Jean, NV, where I got a 10+kt thermal up to 16K. This got me on my way around/over the Vegas Bravo airspace and over to Echo Bay at 11K. Another 10-knotter got me up to 14K and on my way to Virgin Peak where I connected some ragged Cus with moderate lift that ran along the ridgetop toward St George and just to the south of Littlefield. At 10.5K, I headed for St George with an 11 kt quartering tailwind in some lite sink. Down to 7.5K about 4 miles from St George, I encountered a little thermal that got me up to 8.2K and well above glide to Hurricane. Just before I got to the St George airport, I got a call on the radio from Mike Koerner who was flying up to Hurricane with his mother in his LSA to attend a wedding. He was entering downwind just as I got over Hurricane, and landed about 10 minutes ahead of me. Mike and his family were waiting alongside the runway as I touched down about 6 hrs after launch. Mike caught my wing as I stopped, and helped push the ship off the runway. What service!Sean was unable to connect at Virgin Peak had to land at Mesquite about 11 minutes before I landed at Hurricane. Karl managed to hang on and get across the Virgin River George and land at Hurricane about 22 minutes after I had.Sue and Rose arrived at Hurricane about 45 minutes after Karl landed and we got the gliders back in the trailers and on the road by ~8. We headed back down to Mesquite and met Sean and Peter for a nice dinner at the Virgin River Casino.All in all it was a nice soaring flight, but challenging in that we had to deal with the new and improved Class Bravo airspace around Vegas. If it had not been for the clouds, I would have probably landed at Jean or Boulder. It also highlighted that timing is everything. Karl towed off about 10 minutes behind me, and Sean left about 10 minutes behind Karl. The thermals were cycling such that good lift that I found earlier was decaying about the time that Karl and Sean arrived. As such, they spent additional time down low working in scratchy lift around 031 dry lake and Virgin Peak.Also, If you have not seen the solar collectors near the California/ Nevada state line, I have attached some pictures that Sue took as we drove by them today. They are unbelievably bright, and probably a little hot too! I’ll bet you can see them for hundreds of miles at night...Karl’s report: Don't have to add much, the advantage to be the last one writing.Got up on Baden Powell to 12K and left on a straight line towards Baker thinking by the time I reach the clouds where Barry was they will be gone. Things went okay finding some marginal lift here and there, got low close to O31 but found a 400 footer up to 10K enough for Baker, another low point. Then Sean reported a good climb and I found the saving lift too, 5K to 12.7K. Thanks Sean. Easy flight to Clark Mtn, 14K with the 1st cloud, more clouds over Boulder but under them hard to find the sweet spot, saw Sean again but he did not have any lift under that one, so I turned around, went back, and lucked out yo 14.5K. Echo Bay here I come. Ran into a decent one short of it, took me to 14K, made it easy to Virgin Peak and got back to 12k tiptoeing along the ridge leaving for Hurricane. Flight is on OLC.Sean’s report: Well the X/C season has finally arrived. I landed at Mesquite, NV.The direction towards Las Vegas was chosen as the best direction for distance, good weather (no OD).The flight seemed to go pretty fast with clouds marking the lift, I left the Wrightwood area above 12k and glided towards the clouds NE of Apple Valley which took me to 10k. Following the cloud street and climbing above 12k again gave me an easy glide to 031 dry lake, the next alternate.The timing of arriving at a new area and climbing out in lift was obvious on this flight, Barry (01Q) who launched earlier and was out front relayed messages of good lift. As Karl (C3) and I arrived the cycle was dying and it took a little longer for the next cycle to start. Gliding SE of Boulder City was straight forward, the next challenge was getting high enough to cross above or around class B, and still have the altitude for the long glide to Echo Bay. It really helped having clouds mark the lift, or it might not have been possible.Climbing to 11.5k at Echo Bay gave me glide to the Virgin mountain range, which I needed to get above to continue N towards St. George, unfortunately I made a mistake by leaving choppy lift thinking the lift would be better just a little further down the ridge, I found myself too low to turn back, and sinking out.I landed at Mesquite, NV., then pilots and crew met up that evening for dinner.THANKS GUYS!