As I had my glider already assembled and tied down, awaiting Saturday, I decided that I would try to launch as early as possible and try for a long flight.In the morning I got up early, checked the weather prediction (favorable) and worked for three hours to catch up on my Friday's deficit when in the afternoon I went soaring.

I called the towpilot, Larry Tobiska, at 8 am and shared with him my plans. I caught him at an inopportune time - he was in the middle of home remodeling. He was very kind to agree that he would tear himself loose for an hour and come give me a tow. We agreed on 10:30 am.

Looking outside from my office from time to time, I was getting increasingly annoyed because unlike the day before, no early clouds were appearing. At 10 am there were only a few whiffs forming and again dissolving above Mission Ridge, and over Chumstick mountain. Nothing was seen to the north or east at all. I called Larry, he was just heading to Home Depot to buy a door, and rescheduled to 10:45. In fifteen minutes I was at the airport, washed the glider, put in all the necessary gear, and pulled the tow plane out of the hangar. Larry pulled in at 10:50 and at 11:09 we were airborne.

Initially, I was hoping to tow east and then continue onto the plateaus, but since I still did not see any sign of clouds there, I decided on a gamble, and towed to Jumpoff instead. Occasionally small puffs were forming and quickly dissolving there; I figured that at least they might give me a chance to hang on to my release altitude and wait until conditions improved - even if it might take an hour or two. I did not want to disappoint Larry by beating him back to the ground, since he made a sacrifice to his plans already.

I told Larry to tow me to the Lookout tower atop Jumpoff Ridge; this required a higher tow since the ridge there is already close to 5,000' and I wanted to be at least 500' above it to connect to a thermal exiting from the ridge. While towing there, we passed through a few bumpy areas, and in a third one, under some cu's, at 11:18 AM, I pulled the release. The altimeter was indicating 5,400'.

I very gingerly centered the thermal so as not to immediately lose it. Surprisingly, seven minutes after the release the altimeter was showing 7,600', and so I knew then that the day would be a success.

There was a line of cu's forming along the spine of the main Mission Ridge, extending to the northwest and to the southeast. I glided the remaining 4 miles along Jumpoff towards the main ridge until I was under the cloudstreet. In the meantime, I surveyed the conditions over the plateau across the Columbia River. Still nothing; only a few whisps were forming over Badger mountain. I decided that for the interim, I would then go as far south as I could get towards Vantage, turn around and then head northwest, and if conditions allow, then jump the river.

I started my run southeast, stopping only once to thermal, for about 14 miles where the clouds quit. I was twelve miles northwest from Vantage then.

I turned around and this time without stopping to turn, went northwest for 19 miles all the way to the Mission Ridge ski area. The view in the photo is looking into Ellensburg valley. Mt. Rainier was showing in the distance. Above the ski area, I gained extra three hundred feet and continued on toward Blewett Pass.

I was disappointed to discover that cloud bases there were substantially lower; by the order of several thousand feet. This meant that I came to a dead end of this street and had to take some strategic decision.

To the southwest, there was still a line of cu's at my present altitude, but behind them I could also see the "staircase drop" in cloud bases. That direction was obviously not the one to be taken. What about the direction towards Mt. Stewart?

That path was also blocked. It seemed that marine air intrusion with its cooler and moister air mass invaded as far east as Blewett Pass, in the foreground with Highway 97 snaking through. I was thinking of Emily, how she at that very moment enjoyed her outing in the area under the clouds with her friend Chris Rader. They chose to hike in the Ingalls Creek valley. (Later I learned, they had a great time, and saw many beautiful wild flowers blooming.)

About two miles from Blewett Pass Highway I turned away from the main ridge and headed north-northeast, directly towards Burch Mountain. A cumulus cloud started to develop nicely from its top; and more were lining themselves up on Chumstick Mountain and further along the Entiat ridge on the way to Lake Wenatchee. At the same time, some well-developed cu's popped over Badger Mountain. They were the only major clouds visible towards Waterville, though, still not enough of them for any faster cruising. This was the deciding point. Head north, or east. I chose to go north. After climbing up over Burch, I headed to Chumstick, and continued on. The picture above is from over Chumstick, looking west. Eagle Creek drainage is in the middle of the picture, and Leavenworth in the upper left. Cloud bases at this point were about 8,500'. I was evaluating what would be the most optimal route to the nice line of clouds that ran along the mountains lining the north shore of Lake Chelan. I was not thinking at this time that I would go as far north into the mountains as I eventually did. I thought that once I'd cross Lake Chelan, I'd go east and to the Mansfield area. Having that plan in place made my apprehension level drop, and I could better concentrate on tackling the subtask of crossing one minor and two major deep valleys, first the Mud River, and then the Entiat, and Chelan. In the meantime, I admired the beautiful vistas looking west into the Lake Wenatchee basin. The emergency airstrip was clearly visible to the right of Lake Wenatchee, and to the left of the smaller Fish Lake.

I followed the Entiat Ridge (in the photo foreground), a great aerial "freeway" providing the access to the Glacier Peak wilderness area. The grey patches on the ridge were remnants of the most recent large-scale forest fire. The only living trees were in the dark green sections.

I did not take a photo crossing the Entiat valley, I was too busy concentrating on making sure I'd arrive high enough on the other side to connect and climb over the Fourmile Ridge west of Stormy Peak.. but once I cleared that hurdle and set out to cross Lake Chelan, I took the picture, looking northwest.

I was heading then due north, to the nearest tall peak, called Big Goat Mountain, 7,100' high. On its southern flanks I connected to a good thermal marked by a cloud that hoisted me to 9,400'. I was pleased to discover that the cloud bases kept rising as I was climbing over taller mountains, thereby the gap between their peaks and cloud bases remained constant, leaving about 2,000' of vertical maneuvering space - comfortable enough for me. Still - as I looked into the distance, that gap seemed awfully narrow.

The clouds further into the mountains seemed consistent enough for me to overrule my earlier plan to "hang a right" and get out of the mountains by way of Chelan airport and on to Mansfield. Instead, I turned northwest and continued deeper into the rising terrain. A little farther I was passing by Holden Valley, across Lake Chelan in the right part of the picture. The view is to the west.

A little past Holden I looked across the lake at the rock walls where an eagle rescued me on my first successful flight to Stehekin. That time I was looking up at the peaks (was down below 7,000') and seriously considered landing at Stehekin. I wrote another travel log from that flight. On the horizon in the picture are Mt. Fernow and Glacier Peak.

I continued on my northwest heading; this time I was abreast of the Stehekin airport, just six miles to the west, and 8,000' feet below me. That airport is a great security. It has one drawback though - you can't get there with a glider trailer. So, instead I was using as an alternate the Methow airport, at this time 20 miles to the east. The mountains on the horizon are within the North Cascades National Park.

This is my most favorite photo of the trip. It captures the openness of the landscape, with valleys leading the visitors in, inviting him or her deeper, closer, higher...

This photo also contains Mt. Baker, in the middle of the picture on the horizon, among the closer peaks of the North Cascades. Those are twenty, while Baker is sixty miles away. The mountain peaks in the foreground are - I believe (with the help of street Atlas and some other topo maps) - from left Reynolds Peak 8,384', Rennie Peak 7,742' and McAlester Mountain 7,928'. But I could be wrong. Someone correct me, please.

Moving on still heading northwest, this is the scenery to the right of the previous picture.

One day I will be able to identify which peak is which; this day I was soaking in their collective power and beauty; rugged appearance and colorful trimmings.

While I was flying, I had a good sense where I was; reviewing the photos later not. It is strange. There must be a discontinuity in photos while in flight the scenery is one continuous flow. The photo is taken to the west, from about four miles south of the North Cascades Highway near Rainy Pass. Bridge Creek flows through the valley, away from the viewer.

Rainy Pass and the North Cascades Highway. The mountain on the horizon at the end of the valley is Crater Mountain, 8,128'. The taller peaks on the right are likely Golden Horn 8,366' and Tower Mountain 8,444'.

Another view of the Rainy Pass from a little closer in, showing in the foreground stands of virgin forest.

After the last picture I turned my back on Rainy Pass, but still wanted to record Liberty Bell Mountain. It is in the center of the photo, not very obvious because of overlaps. I added a yellow dotted line to highlight it. The valley to the right of it leads to Mazama and eventually to Winthrop. It would be also the escape route to the Lost River Resort airport if one were getting uncomfortably low. That airport is 15 miles from here, at an elevation of 2,415'.

After this picture I minded my flying again, concentrating on picking up some speed and heading in the direction which I could stretch as far as I could, being mindful of the OLC rules. It does not discount the distance of the first four legs, but it does the fifth and sixth ones.

Instead of meandering from one peak to another, this time I flew in a straight line, dolphining whenever I could and covered distance much quicker than on the way north. Before too long I was at the point where I crossed Lake Chelan. This time, however, I stayed on the north side and continued towards Chelan airport. I crossed the Columbia River just south of the airport, and headed for a series of high clouds sprinkled conveniently at about ten mile intervals at the extension of my course line.

I thought I would go again to Beezley, then turn north. I did not go that far; the nice clouds seemed to quit past Rimrock. In the meantime I heard a lot of chitchat from the Ephrata folk, who while I was at Stehekin, started heading north and on towards Omak. The one who got the farthest was - guess who? - Nelson Funston who flew close to the Canadian border, until 12 miles northeast of Tonasket.

After I turned north I figured I might as well follow the Ephrata bunch, and decided to head to Omak. Clouds were nicely lined up in that direction, and lift under them was strong. I've discovered, however, that even a better strategy than cloudhopping was to charge straight ahead at a very high McCready speed setting; I succeeded to stumble into two very powerful thermals which averaged close to nine knots; I maintained this mode for sixty miles until Okanogan. There the going suddenly got softer; and I had to quickly switch gears or else I might be on the ground before I knew it. I flew as far north until I was west of Omak airport, then veered over the high ground to the southwest. I started to get uncomfortably close to the terrain below me - after a long time of staying high I got to below six thousand feet. It was also getting later in the day; I rounded Omak at four o'clock. Thermals now were farther apart, and clouds were diminishing in size. Luckily for my psyche there still were cu's; and even though locating lift under them became more difficult, I was able to find it. Perhaps if I went back the same route to Mansfield area, there the ground would still be more "cooking" than over the lower mountains between the Okanogan and Methow valleys. But I don't like to backtrack if I have a choice, and decided to head towards the mountains west of Chelan. On the way I flew past a fire on a mountain top between Brewster and Twisp; I could not tell if it was a natural fire or if loggers were burning off brush. Certainly it was a good indicator to tell in which direction the wind was blowing.

While looking at the fire I could not help noticing that over the mountains there were still very nice streets of cumulus clouds, while when I looked left, over the plateau southeast of Brewster, clouds were quickly disappearing. Perhaps it was a good decision not to go there.

A couple of clouds further south of the fire I entered into the mountains some four miles west of Alta Lake. There I found a good thermal to almost ten thousand feet; dialing in the distance to Pangborn at that point, I had still 45 miles to go. There were some very nice looking cumulus clouds over the Badger Mountain south of Waterville; so I relaxed, knowing that path home was to be without problems. In one long glide I flew to a monstrous dust devil west of Waterville, which quickly lifted me from seven to nine and a half thousand feet. Ahead was the Badger Mountain cloud cluster. Further southeast there were isolated cu's, about fifteen miles apart, of which the last one appeared to be over where Moses Coulee meets Columbia. There were better-looking clouds over Mission Ridge, and all the way to Mount Stuart. So, I decided to chance a long crossing from Badger to Mission Ridge. The air was dead still for 21 miles, until I arrived over the north-facing cliffs of the ridge extending from Mission Ridge to Blewett Pass. There was a very dark cloud overhead, and I was hoping that underneath there would be still a strong thermal feeding it. If the clouds were still working, I would then turn west and try for Mt. Stuart.

The clouds toward Stuart (the tallest peak on the horizon, on the left) looked like they could be working. Maybe somewhere they were but not for me where I was. I decided to turn my back to Stuart, and instead pursue another way to get as far south as I could, again to extend my OLC mileage. I was not certain what shape would the legs have, once I would ask the SeeYou program to optimize the flight. I assumed that once I made a kink in my route, I'd be moved to the legs which do not produce as many points. (This indeed happened, once I turned southeast, and started "hugging" the lower slopes of Mission Ridge, now no longer being able to ride the spine. I kept getting lower and lower. I overflew the ski area and checked on the progress the new management was making with installing the huge yellow pipes for the snow making system. It looked like they started burying some of the pipes already. I hopped over to the Stemilt Basin, sampled slowly some promising sun-lit areas, but found nothing which would hoist me back up. I thought that my flight came to an end at this point. I arrived over the Jumpoff Lookout tower at exactly the same height and spot where six and a half hours earlier I released and started this flight. To my surprise, the same thermal was still there! (Talking about a reliable house thermal.) With much less vigor, the thermal lifted me for the second time, to 7,500'. My strategy now was to fly this altitude off in as long a final glide, kinked as far south as I'd dare, before coming home. Everything was in the shade from the high cirrus which looked as though it was a lenticular. There was still some sunlit area around Crescent Bar / Trinidad with one dying lone cumulus. I decided to head for it; I had the altitude to glide to Pangborn if I did not find anything any more. I arrived there at 6,600' and was 14 miles from Pangborn. Still quite high. The cloud died but not the thermal below it yet. It lifted me to 8,500', and then I spotted another whisp a short way to the southwest, moved there and gained another 500'. That was the very last thermal of my day.

I had 9,000' to my disposal, was 14 miles from Pangborn, and wanted to stretch my flight as far as possible. I pulled out my map to see where would be the imaginary line stretched from Omak along the route of my flight southward. (I wanted to stretch that fourth leg to as long as possible). I found that I was too far east of that line, and that I had to move southwest to maximize the distance from Omak to a southernmost point. While fumbling with the map and unfolding it wide I became IFR for a minute; luckily the atmosphere was very still and the plane flew hands-free without needing any correcting input from me.

I decided to use a technique I started employing during my recent practice final glides: I dialed in on my calculator the altitude I was at, set the wind to 5 (there was some easterly breeze according to Pangborn ASOS), and kept the McCready setting at 2. The calculator told me that I could fly another 36 miles! I was fifteen miles from Pangborn then, so I deducted those from 36, and divided the balance by two. The result was that I could go another 10 miles farther south before I would have to turn.

All along I was monitoring the "distance to goal (Pangborn)" on the GPS, and kept fine-tuning the calculator. Then I took the picture as I headed southwest. In my eagerness to extend the flight, I even hoped that the long cirrus was indeed a lenticular, and that once I'd be far enough west, I'd get into a wave!!? Well, it turned out only to be a wishful thinking. I kept going and going, convincing myself that I've practiced final glides now often enough that I should trust the calculations. At twenty miles out the numbers indicated that I could go to the 25 mile out point and still make it back; I decided to compromise and turned at 22.5 miles.

Once I turned my face must have fallen ashen - I saw a very long stretch of flat gradually rising plateau, and I did not see Pangborn at all. It was sunken in behind Jumpoff; and I had to clear that first. I figured that if I could not clear it, I'd detour somewhat to the east where Jumpoff has a notch and sneak in through that.

The first five miles were the most nerve-wracking. I was flying against rising terrain, and my goal was becoming more and more obscured. Then, however, I cleared the flat ridge and from that moment on the terrain below me started to very gradually drop away. I realized that until then I was not looking at the surroundings - which was a pity. I was quite close to the ground over one of the least visited wildlife areas; under other circumstances I would be scanning the countryside for elk, deer, cougars, bears and study the landforms, photograph, etc. On this final glide I did none of the above. It was not until I cleared the towering major electrical power transmission line near Colockum Pass that I started to relax and actually did some sightseeing.

Studying my ground speed, I was moving at 75 mph; I must have been gliding a little faster because I was heading into a quartering headwind, which Pangborn reported then to be around ten knots. About five miles from the edge of Jumpoff (nine miles from Pangborn) it was obvious that I was above the glide slope, and started speeding up. I announced my presence and intentions to Wenatchee traffic, crossed Jumpoff at 145 mph, and finished at 155 mph over our clubhouse hangar. There was one Cessna on final landing on Rwy 12, I was in contact with him, and overflew that runway on my final. The breeze from the east was noticeable for I came down earlier on the grass than I normally do, made a silk smooth landing and floated in the ground effect till next to our hangar.

I signed off on the radio, got out of the plane and yelled out a loud THANK YOU FOR A WONDERFUL FLIGHT ! to a silent audience around me consisting of some song birds, grass, and nature. The time was seven minutes to seven in the evening.

I spotted Laviniu's car was still parked next to the hangar. I checked inside and notice his plane was not there. Ah, Laviniu must be soaking in the soaring even longer than I, and must be still floating somewhere. Ten minutes later, as I was tying the glider down, I heard some whistle overhead. There he was! I was excited that I would be able to talk to him soon, ran out and snapped a few pictures of his landing. Jumpoff Ridge is in the background.

Laviniu got out of the glider, and with his characteristic swagger moved towards me. "I landed out in Ephrata!"... he called. He said he declared Pangborn - Anderson - Wilson Creek and back; he got shot down near Wilson Creek - down to 3,200' - and then limped back to Ephrata. Just like last year, the SGC made him become a member before he would get a tow half way back to Wenatchee.

I helped Laviniu pack his plane in the hangar; he would not stay for another day because of an unfavorable weather forecast. I had an invitation to go to a party; so I tied CD outside and left it there; hoping the bad forecast was a hoax.

It was not. At 3 am Sunday the rain started pouring and did not stop until 10 am. After church Karly helped me to de-rig; and at 1 pm the sun started shining again.

I was on "Cloud Number Nine" for many days afterwards...