THE FAT LADY DOESN'T SING 'TILL SUNSET (part three)
Suddenly this entire sector of sky is falling. Have we gotten ahead of ourselves? Looks like it. Best choice now, ride this mountain wind east to wherever it undercuts warmer desert air, which should coincide with the foot of a shearline leading home. At the very least we need to keep Lone Pine in reach. Plan for the worst, play for the best.On down below timberline comes Whitney Portal, gargantuan funhouse of slabbed cliffs where so many hikers and climbers have met their match. From here it all opens into the wide, sweet Owens Valley. Alp and desert rubbing shoulders please the senses, but scary smooth air benumbs.And still we drift on down.Not two miles before the airport, confidence lost, we reach an incongruous outcrop of gnarled rock known as the Alabama Hills, location for all those imaginary gunfights in the early Westerns. Down close, it’s like dozens of vermeil elephants flowing over each other as if melted by the sun. Thermal sources? That’d be nice.Bloody-kneed low, we sniff over these Hills and along their edges, each unconsummated save allowing another, blurred into one interminable attempted save with no solution in sight. Shadows begin to slide off mountains and across the valley, cockpit quiet for thick chunks of time as endless, monotonous, possibly futile circles induce a peculiar hypnosis. Muscle memory guides the bird while we drift into daydreams. Inhaling deep, I stifle a yawn… Wait, really? Drink some water, fool.Come on now, pay attention. This could go on all afternoon but any moment we might find just the right chance to quickly rise away. Gotta be ready.
Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius.
Benjamin Disreali
Most of an hour later we’re still grinding around with no better option available. Only thing in our favor is grudging forbearance, vexing and tiresome, while right there beside us waits the runway, shade trees and a Coke machine…Wishing we could land — well we can if we want, but such thoughts might make that happen. No, think of how we’ll feel after digging ourselves out of here and soaring all the way home! Bad angel sneers yeah right. Good angel says have some more water.When finally a real climb does begin the first thousand feet come hard, but that’s as it should be. More time to watch those elephants melt into the valley floor. Eventually the thermal widens and accelerates as good ones always do and we revert in seconds to brainstorming what else we can get away with. If this is part of a shearline parallel with the mountains we’ll be back in bidness!At 9000 feet our climb slows and we widen out in search of more. The southwest quadrant is fatter so we sniff that way to see where it leads… into a lightish valley headwind but straight toward home, which is good. And shearlines generally strengthen to windward.Some are straightforward as a kiss on the lips and others play hard to get. This one wants it both ways. Good angel whispers more reason to try. Bad angel demurs.Whether it’s tepid at best or we just fail to locate the good stuff, we never get much above 6000 AGL. Even so, lovely miles of zero carry us along southbound to within range of a big spur pilots call the Switchbacks. Here at last we’ll have sun and wind working together again and climb back up in the game.We think.TO BE CONTINUED