Sylmar Hang Gliding Association

This past Sunday Ron Wienner & I were at MT Wilson & decided to land instead of trying to make it back to Kagel, our decision was not based on safety it was based on the fact that a couple of weeks ago one of our club members won $96,000.00 at a horse race, so we thought we would try our luck at Santa Anita, when we arived there we realized that there was not a car or horse in sight, so we both landed safetly went & purchased lottery tickets instead.
Heres the real story.
We did not think we could make it back safetly, we had a 8-14mph W/N/W wind that was not helping either. We heard on the radio that Vrez made it back by the skin of his teeth approaching E. Lukens not a good place to be low. We were goint to continue to San Dimas golf coarse but our instruments said no, so we saw the Santa Anita race track & golf coarse, when we arrived we had plenty of time to discuss on the radio, if we should put it down in the parking lot or this long West to East running fairway at the S/W corner of the golf coarse. There were little tiny men on the golf coarse, we did not want to interupt there game, so we focused on the North parking lot it was closest to the street & it looked like you could land a Cesna & you could drive your car right in, our decision was reinforsed when we saw Dana parked & giving us wind direction & pointing out this huge flag in the middle of the race coarse, the wind was 8-10mph W/N/W, Ron Landed first then I landed right in front of the car. Security did show up soon after, we told them are situation they were totaly cool Ron was the hangliding embassodor & invited one guy that was interested to come & visit the LZ he might do a tandem. We got out of there as fast as we could & everyting turned out fine.
When we arrived at the LZ & heard the stories of the return flight from Cutter arriving at East Luckens at 4300 the lowest he had ever been there & Vrez around the same area at 4,000, Ron & I felt better about our decission.
When comming out to land I saw some other possible LZs but they did not look as safe, it will be nice if & when we start marking bail out LZs with Google earth that we can use, as for our decission on where we landed I do not recommend it & do not incourage anyone unless it is the last resort. Politically it was not a good idea.