After
a break of three weeks filled with business visits and a
vacation in Europe, I needed to get a fix. I was still
slightly jet-lagged when on Sunday August 7 I took off
into cloudless skies. Not entirely; once I climbed up
from the Columbia river canyon and could see over the
Badger mountain, I spotted nicely shaped cu's to the
north and north east. They were, however, very far (80
miles away). I tried to get to them in the blue; from
Badger I flew to Chelan Butte hoping to climb up there
again, but found nothing. Had to retreat  across
the Columbia to the east rim, and then had to start
working really hard to even sustain in the air. Gradually
I bumped up my way and continued north towards Brewster,
however, again getting lower and lower. At one point I
considered landing out there, as I was getting below
2,000' AGL there, but persevered and managed to get back
up again. I spotted a dust devil in the direction of
Mansfield, and headed for it. It was a good choice.
Eventually I got up to a 8,000' - 9,000' MSL range which
I could maintain for a trip to Dry Falls and back to US 2
intersection with Moses Coulee. From there it was just a
glide till over the confluence of Wenatchee with Columbia
(down to 4,000' there). I retreated back to the Pocket
and was able to claw my way up in one 5,000' climb.  That was
enough to comfortably cross west over the Columbia canyon
to Twin Peaks, and connect there to another good thermal.
All these thermals were totally invisible, no clouds, and
no signs on the ground. In two more climbs I was at Snow
Lakes and with 9,500' I headed to Mt. Stuart. I still
needed one eight minute climb to regain altitude by
Little Anapurna. That gave me a long opportunity to
admire the views, and to try to spot hikers at the top of
that favorite peak bearing the name of a famous Himalaya
eight thousand meter mountain.  Little
Anapurna (in the photo with lakes, its summit is in the
right bottom corner) is quite distinct by its benign
northern gradual slope, making it looking quite innocent
and (I have never done it but heard from others)
relatively easy to hike up without any particular
mountaineering skills, for fantastic views from the top.
However, the southern side of Little Anapurna is one
sheer cliff of jagged sharp gigantic monolithic granite
slabs, dropping thousands of feet down towards Ingals
valley.  Often, this area produces
great thermals but violent ones, and it is advised to
maintain enough airspeed with reserve for gusts, and to
make tight turns. After climbing to 9,700' over the
Annapurna precipice, I made one long glide to Stuart.
There I turned around, snapped a picture, and glided back
to Anapurna, this time missing the previous thermal. So I
veered off and crossed the Ingals valley to Three
Brothers, arriving about a thousand feet above that
crumbling peak, and climbed back up for a long glide via
Mission Ridge home to Pangborn. (While passing Mission
Ridge, I checked on the progress of the ski area
renovation.) I practiced final glide to from near Quincy;
I didn't have the guts to fly farther east, and on the
final leg overshot Pangborn. The airport always seems to
sit so high on the horizon!!! The big guys must have iron
guts and really like adrenalin! |