LOW AND SLOW, AND HE STILL GOT THERE FIRST

Last Saturday was a tough one for Crystal Squadron pilots soaring cross-country, but persistence as usual made it worth the effort. Dave Raspet had the day's longest flight, 256 miles to Seligman, AZ. Here's his story of that flight and his decisions made.We debated direction and decided to head for Las Vegas since Dr. Jack showed critical heights around 7K all the way past Inyokern on the northern route. Winds were from the NNW across the Antelope Valley.The second ridge worked to only 8500 but Peter (6Pack) was reporting lift on the desert so I went. Good lift to about 9K and even the valley east of Barstow worked well. 031 dry Lake to the pass south of Clark Mt. was fine. We were only getting around 10K, so we decided to head east towards Kingman and hopefully Williams, AZ. Got up to around 10K and set out from Clark Mt towards Searchlight. By the time I got to the hills around Searchlight, lift was good to about 9K. Across the Colorado River the heights weren't as good, only about 8K, so the trip to Kingman meant working some 2-knot lift just to stay high enough. At Kingman, the high ground south of town worked to 12K and I went on oxygen for the first time. Had to work 2 knot lift to be sure of reaching Seligman. The last 20 miles I saw nothing workable and went to some high ground SE of town, but found nothing there. Turned back for Seligman and landed just before 7:00 P.M.This was my third try at this direction and I've made Seligman twice and Kingman once, but with the new bigger Class B airspace at Las Vegas I expect to keep trying this route when the conditions favor going NE.