Wilson and halfway back. Thurs 10/3/07
A less than stellar post Santa Ana day with regard to altitude. Still a fun day. We pushed straight east given our late start. It was Ron Wiener, Andy Price check , Rob Burgis, and Vrezh Tumanyan and myself. We weren't getting over 5600ft until Lukens. The air was somewhat sinky and strange between lift. The lift wasn't all that pleasant either. Everyone had given up on Wilson except Vrezh and I. We hung around for about 10 minutes working a real slow thermal on the east side of Lukens. I got to 6900 and change and decided to check out points east and possibly go for Brown Mtn. ??? Vrezh had gotten a bit lower and decided not to go. I was a bit unsure about whether I was really going. I stopped in some lift just west of the Angeles Crest Highway.
Suddenly I realized. Hey I've cleared my schedule, I know where to land if I have to. Yeah it's on the late side but so what. My go altitude is 7K. OK I said to myself. I'm going across. Gulp. As soon as I hit the west side of Brown, I found lift and quickly got back up to 6500ft. I continued to the main Brown summit and again got back to 6600ft. Every high point on the ridge from Brown to Mt. Harvard was working and though I never got above 6600ft, I never got below 5300ft.
At Mt Harvard, I was on the deck/cliff and spinning right next to and then over the large circular antenna farm. It was intense but I was going up. I got to 6600 and headed home. Back at Mt Lowe, there was no lift so I kept going. A few burbles at Echo Pk but I kept going. The east side of Brown was worth stopping in. It's late, close to 4pm. Whose idea was this. I only get to about 5600ft so I head back to Brown and.... there's no lift. I keep going, into the arroyo. I pick a spot on the east ridge of Lukens to head for. Yeah, I'll be above that.
I pull in at 4,000ft. Ok, there's got to be some lift around here somewhere. I can't go west as the ridge goes higher. (no lift) I turn east and head down the ridge and arriving at the "teepee" I find a thermal. Long story short... I bounce up and down in this thermal for about 40minutes between 3500 and 4,000ft. I tried to go west a couple of times but never got above 4,000ft. I decided to land out and was thinking La Canada golf course only because it was Monday and I was under the impression it was closed. Turns out it's open to staff and "others" on Mondays.
As I was flying over the golf course I heard Joe Greblo's voice and he described his favorite fairway. I had a different one picked out, but decided Joe knows what he's doing. I did a left hand approach onto a dog legged fairway that rises up about 50 feet at the end of one's planned final. It worked fine, although in later talking to Joe, he recommended a right hand approach. That would allow one to get lower down into the slot than the hillside allowed doing a left hand approach. I extended my base feeling too high but turned to final and flared going uphill. I love uphill landings.
