MOTIVATION . Four days ago I missed a record-setting day when flights over 800 km were flown in our region . I scrubbed my flight then in deference to our club's young member who fatally crashed the day before . I was still deeply effected by the accident . Where did my urge come from to go gliding again? Perhaps a tribute - flight dedicated to Theo? Maybe a restauration of faith in my own flying skills? Catching up on opportunities missed? Improve my standing in OLC contest?

PREPARATION. 7:30 am weather good predictions. At breakfast I mentioned I might not be home for lunch. Tentative appointment with Karly at 9 at airport. When she called at 8:45, I postponed it. Did not have a tow pilot lined up. Arnie's voice mail box full. John asleep - Flo said he came home at 2 pm last night, to bed at 3. The first good cu's popped over Mission at 9:00 already! At 9:15 agreed with Karly she'd be at the airport at 9:30, and then John called, said he'll count on being there at 10:15. At 9:20 as I drove to the airport, the sky said it was obvious that I should have launched already - great cu's were stretched all the way from Mission to Stuart, from Burch towards Glacier Peak, and most surprisingly, cu's popped over the Badger Plateau as well.

DELAY. At 9:45 wings were on already, Karly left, I finished the glider, put trailer away, discovered I forgot the cell phone, pulled the towplane out of the hangar. At 10:20 still no John. Called him, he was still at home,..."got delayed by some phone calls...", I called Karly, she came to the field again, brought my cell phone, today was her big day, driving alone across the mountains for the first time .. she gave me positive check .. I her a hug ... off she was .. John came at 10:45 ... when finally we were airborne at 10:53 I was silently cursing, realizing that due to lack of thorough preparation and prior organization, I forfeited over an hour and a half of good cross-country soaring ... could have been 50 to 75 miles into my route already .. well, let's not be too greedy, I told myself...

EVALUATION .. where to go? clouds looked great over the mountains, and also in the northeastern quadrant... cu's over the Methow mountains and around Moses mountain seemed to swell already and seemed to have lower bases ...

DECISION ... during the circling after the 4,300' release near the Lookout, I made up my mind. When I topped the thermal at 8,000', five minutes after the release, I departed at full speed towards my first destination - Scott Airport in the Okanogan valley by the Canadian border, to the north of Wenatchee.

STRATEGY... Even though the clouds looked better over the Mansfield-Anderson route, it would have been farther to go that way... so, I decided on a straight course via Chelan and Methow mountains to Scott..

Coming upon the Chelan Butte (3,835'), the Mecca of the hang-gliding and paragliding world (two World Competitions were held here already). The summit of Chelan Butte is in the shadow of the cloud to the right above it... an unusual angle for me... morning shadows... I scouted the top of the mountain for any signs of vehicles and other activity... saw none on the ground nor in the air. I climbed to base over Chelan Butte and headed across the lake to another mountain in the distance, Goat Mountain (5,329'). After about a 10 mile glide, still about 5 miles from Goat, I climbed to 8,000' base of another cloud, and embarked on a long 20 mile glide across Methow River towards small 3,500' hills half way between Brewster and Twisp; I was relieved to find good lift; while climbing I also relieved myself (the shape of my circles suddenly got a lot wider!). It was cold! Freezing level was at 7,500'.

There were clouds ahead but their shape started to get a different form; after a while I concluded that they were not just plain cu's but rotors; and that a wave was brewing overhead. It started to get a lot more difficult to find good climbs; my cross-country speed which to this point was quite good for me - a mile per minute - started to drop off dramatically. Northwest of Omak, I snapped a picture of the little town of Conconnuly. There is a dam right next to the town. I thought that if it broke, the town would be history...

After Conconnuly, the clouds resumed their friendly behavior and the going became again easier. The cu's were lined up deep into British Columbia; on this day, one could possibly fly way past Kelowna; and back! The above composite picture was taken three miles north of the U.S.-Canada border. I could see the lake south of Princeton already!

I did not have the guts to try pioneering into BC; instead I turned 120° and headed directly towards Scott Airport, back into the U.S.

Scott is in the upper far right of the photo. I needed to traverse a long gap between the western and eastern slopes rimming the Okanogan valley.

The town in the foreground, Osoyoos, is still in Canada.

Notice the Osoyoos airport, with a dirt strip runway, on the left by the road.

The international border runs through the middle of the lake to the south of Osoyoos, just north of a triangular peninsula, called the Boundary Point. In the detail shot, the border is at the left.

Of course, when I was overhead, without the handy aid of computerized Street Atlas, I could not see where the border was exactly. I did spot the new customs buildings on the road, though, just to the left and off the photo.

.

.

.

.

The map on the left does have a horizontal line, the 49° parallel, separating the U.S. from Canada. I came up from the south along the mountains on the west side of the valley.

The nearest clouds more or less on my next route, southbound on the east side of the valley, were about sixteen miles away from my turn-around-point.

I arrived about two thousand feet above the wooded terrain, on the lee side of the mountain; not a good place to be; but there were cu's and I concluded that they must be rotors, being there. Indeed, working them required a lot of tossing about, gaining some in half a circle and losing almost the same in the other half; but eventually after some relocating I clawed my way from 6,500' to 9,200' and could commence high speed cruising.

The clouds were then fairly tightly together, forming an aerial freeway. Some of the clouds had their bases significantly lower, and I actually had to meander through the openings in-between them. The view in the photo reveals Moses Mountain, in the distance. I was able to dolphin fly without losing altitude for 33 miles, before making next circling spot. My cross-country speed started nicely picking up again. Somewhere here, not seeing what the conditions would be ahead, I decided that I'd go as far as Ritzville, before turning around. I assumed that the clouds would be as compact as here, all the way.

As I emerged on the south side of Moses Mountain from under an almost continuous cloud base, the gaps between clouds started to widen. Over the town of Nespelem I saw the top of a cloud curl over, a tell-tale sign of where the wind was blowing from. The clouds were still quite frequent and I could not tell how far they'd go.

They looked quite good towards the east. This is the view from over Wilbur, with its airport in the lower right. The clouds shadow nicely show the distributions of cu's which caused them ... still very good spacing. However, about five miles southeast of Wilbur I concluded that while there were still about two or three clouds left ahead and then nothing, big wide blue hole including the area over and south of Ephrata, it would be more productive if I'd backtracked to the "freeway" north of Grand Coulee Dam. So, that's what I did. When I arrived there, however, it no longer was a freeway.

The previously continuous line of cloud bases vanished, and instead there were widely spaced big cu blobs; still quite good towards Canada, but less and less prominent along the route that was to take me back to Wenatchee. I set myself a time limit for turnaround, four o'clock, to help myself overcome the lure of the nice clouds going north. This is where I turned; the view is towards Tonasket and Scott in the distance. I was fourteen miles northeast from Omak airport then, and the time was 4:03.

Thirty minutes later I was 26 miles farther south, halfway between Omak Lake and Anderson. The sky offered a rather bleeched-out appearance as far as cu's incidence goes; I started to get worried that by the time I'd arrive over the Mansfield plateau, they'd be gone. Also, in the distance I spotted lenticular clouds developing, a sign that also at the lower level winds could be increasing and bending the thermals over, or even eliminating them. However, I spotted a series of several good dust devils on the plateau peninsula above Brewster; they were feeding the clouds above. By the time I arrived there, the clouds started to fade; but the thermal was still there, and lifted me nicely to 9,500'. That was enough at that point for a final glide home - a relief. I started to calculate and realized, that if I just finished then, I wouldn't have flown even 500k! I needed to add some more distance! I studied the clouds over Badger, whisps dying over Mission Ridge, and still some active clouds along the Entiat Ridge. I thought; the lenticulars, while enticing, don't have enough camber to them and likely won't produce enough workable lift (if they did, wouldn't it be great! take them as far south as the'd go ... maybe even to Vantage and beyond!). I left the moment for the tactical decision where to go until I'd work the last obvious clouds, above the west end of Badger ridge. Those clouds worked well to 9,700', and a little farther south, very close to where I started the flight six and a half hour prior, there was a thermal that lifted me over the 10,000' mark. I abandoned a plan to go up Entiat Ridge way, because I would be already on an OLC-discounted fifth leg (80% instead of 100% of points).

Instead, I decided to carry on farther south, and try to connect at the whisps over the main Mission Ridge - if I could get to them. On the way I took the picture of the lenticulars and their shadow over the Columbia River south of Pangborn.

Also, I took another picture looking down at our home-base airport and at its - from this altitude of still over 9,000' tiny - grass runway on the airport's eastern end (left in the photo).

The sky was veiling itself in solid overcast, and it appeared obvious that my soaring on this flight came to an end, I'd get to glide out my altitude, and have to land. It was only a quarter to six in the evening at this point. So, I fervently decided to really try hard to catch that last dying thermal on Mission Ridge. I flew in a straight line (light green track in the map) to the spot where I saw the last traces of the cu's vapor disappear. Eureka! There was still some lift left! I worked it carefully, being only about a thousand feet above the terrain, it seemed to work only on opposite sides of the circle; so I switched from circling to level flying where I suspected might be the elusive wave. It was there, faintly... along a 3-mile long stretch. But it was not powerful enough to hoist me higher, to the level of the lenticulars. Shucks! I said, when suddenly I ran into another thermal; strong enough to get me over 10,000' again. I called Emily and she was not thrilled; she hoped I was about to land; since I called her a while earlier telling her I had the final glide. Instead, I appeared to her that I just floated about purposelessly while she had a nice meal prepared for the two of us to eat.

But I was on a mission this day. I needed to rack up more miles. Glancing northwest, there were still some active cu's in the distance, perhaps within a shot. I started a best L/D glide towards them; just to see if I could reach them.

I was amazed that while totally invisible, there must have been still some remaining thermal tops along the route from Mission Ridge to the clouds. In the 10 miles from the top of the ski area to Blewett Pass, I lost just 700'. But it was another nine miles before I'd reach the clouds; and they weren't working - at least not initially. I had to apply a good deal of willpower to move on, over the summit of Three Brothers (7,169') and the sun-lit spot there from which a turbulent, squirmy thermal was feeding the cloud above.

Once I was sure I had the thermal "locked", I looked down at the colors of the mountains - those to the south of the granite Stuart displayed all different hues, yellows, orange, reds... the above photo is looking southest.

I continue with the panorama...

Looking south towards Cle Elum, one ridge possibly has some iron deposits - or whatever ore it is - looking in the Street Atlas, indeed, it has a name "Iron Mountain", 5,500'.

This is the direction where I came from, from Mission Ridge on the far left horizon. I used the foothills as the stepping stones to get here.

I did not know whether I would get any closer to Mt. Stuart, so ....

I made sure I had another photo of it.

Mt. Stuart is 9,415'.

Following is a a selection from about 20 pictures I took while I soared in the Enchantments.. In this travel log not every one of them is shown. It was hard to select the samples, each of the also other photos is great by itself...

Looking at Argonaut Peak 8,453' with Colchuck Mountain on the right, 8,705'.

Lake Colchuck is hidden beyond. Icicle Ridge is on the horizon.

.

.

.

Below the wing are Upper Enchantments with the summit of Little Annapurna. On the distant horizon the spire of Glacier Peak sticks out. I was pleasantly surprised to still see this much snow; it should help the orchardists in this drought-stricken year.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Glancing over the summit of Mcclellan Peak, 8,364', looking into the basin of the Middle Enchantments.

Here the ice in the lakes melted already, while in the upper Enchantments the lakes still were frozen.

.

.

.

.

.

And this is the parting shot, of Snow Lakes, while exiting from the high mountains. Snow lakes are large reservoirs where orchardist many years ago dammed up the streams and enlarged the smaller lakes which were there before.

.

.

And then, high on the horizon, seemingly too far, is the goal, Pangborn, and the landing.

After the flight was downloaded and optimized in SeeYou, it turned out to be just 3.5 km shy of 700 km long!!!

Another personal record. I ate alone. Emily couldn't wait. Eventually, she understood that I was on a record-breaking task, and not just floating about.