I took Monday 9/9/24 off because the forecast looked great for going over the back.  I heard about two pilots getting high the previous day.  Luckily, Steve Clark was available to chase.

I launched a little before 1:00 in somewhat switchy conditions, struggled a little bit, and then climbed to about 7,400 behind launch.  A big fluffy cloud over Magic Mountain invited me back there and took me to around 12K.  It was the easiest trip over the back that I’ve ever had.

The desert was partially shaded by some clouds and some high haze and smoke from the fires to the SE.  The ground was wet in places from the weather the day before.  Two big fire-bombing jets passed me (not close) going toward the fires and then again coming away from them.

The shade and humidity made the air somewhat mellow.  None of the climbs were especially fast, but the air was friendly.  I took some slow climbs thinking that they would speed up with altitude and they kind of did.  There was a tailwind push averaging about 10 mph.

My radio battery died enough that I could only receive.  Steve reported that he was staying under me with some GPS tracking provided by Chippy and Jonathan.  Thank you all for that.

I got to near 15K near Barstow.  Unlike four days earlier, it wasn’t cold.  Even my hands didn’t really get cold.  I used the bar mitts anyway.  I also never got low.

After Barstow, the lift got lighter even though there was kind of a cloud street.  As I approached Baker, I realized that any more climbing would result in a landing after sunset.  I glided to the mountains NE of Baker to check out a possible future XC route and then turned back to land at Baker airport.  I had been in the air about 6 hours.

I whacked, but the ground was soft enough that my nose cone is still pristine.  Steve was there within minutes.  The distance from launch to the turn-around point was 151 miles.

https://www.xcontest.org/world/en/flights/detail:g_kendall/9.09.2024/19:52