Bogong Day 3

Forecast is for light and variable winds and a decent cloud base.  Task committee calls for the Mt Buffalo launch.  It’s a dramatic and picturesque cliff launch overlooking a huge rock face and bowl.  Much of the mountain is covered with large rock slabs and a thin layer of burned up trees (fires during the comp 2 years ago I’m told).  I think the large percentage of rock slab contributes to the turbulent nature of the thermals on that hill.  When we flew over Mt Buffalo yesterday I noticed it was the roughest air of the day.  Most of the massif was capped by a cloud layer during launch.   It’s cool to see how much this hill works early in the day compared to all of the surrounding areas.  Morning clouds like that big rock pile.

 

Hanging out for the start is pretty easy.  The radius is set 10k from the first turnpoint so we hang out on the shoulder of Buffalo and just wait.  Jonny is either shooting video or taking pictures so I try to pee on him.  It must have been cold out because he just thought I was screwing with my harness zipper.  The course was a zig zag across and up a handful of valleys.  Clouds cycled fast but the clusters marked what regions were working well.  Cores don’t seem to last long here.

 

I didn’t time the start well and had to trail the leaders through the first 2 turnpoints.  I stuck around for the strong climbs and took relatively conservative glides.  On glide I tried to take wider lines and hope for a thermal the previous markers missed.  That worked for me on the glide to TP 2 and I caught back up in a fat thermal there.  Gliding to the last turnpoint things started to look a bit more grim.  The ridges ahead didn’t have nice speckled white cloud patterns like the rest of the course had offered.  Instead we charged into the blue, out into the flats.  I had lost a bit getting greedy on our last climb and was now gliding about 800 feet lower then Oleg and pals.  I flew slower in the buoyant air to try and build my altitude buffer.  I was less concerned with speed now, it was more about maintaining altitude buffers.  Into the last turnpoint was downwind, blue, and flat.  I was worried.   The leaders marked a decent climb just next to the turnpoint so I joined them and nailed the point while thermalling.  That was a bonus.  They left as soon as the climb slowed and I hung back to try and see if the climb had anything left.  Lucky for me it came together and gave me that extra altitude I felt I couldn’t push on without.  The main group had charged to the ridge but were struggling in crappy lift drifting back my way.  I had an edge on them but blew it flying too conservative.  Jonny got high at the turnpoint and was marking another good one up the valley ahead.  We all chased after him.  I was slow finding the core and the rest of the gaggle caught up.  Today I seemded to be really itching to find my own climbs and it wasn’t always paying off well.  It happened again and I was lower then meat of the group.  They all charged to the west side of the valley and I went to the east side.  We were close to having good numbers for final but that far out from goal a positive final glide number didn’t mean much.  I could see the leaders getting low on the west side so I charged ahead hoping the small gamble would pay off.  I dolphin flew  turning for a few hundred feet in the good ones while making my way up the ridge.  Most of the group seemed stagnant on the other side of the valley so I just kept pushing on.  My course line took me further from goal but I felt the line was safer.  About 15-20k out I still couldn’t get really solid numbers for final glide.  1000-1500 feet above best glide.  That didn’t look to good to me visual, especially considering coming off the ridgeline into whatever valley winds lay lurking below!  I just wanted an extra 500 feet.  I could see one or two gliders were driving into goal low.  By now I was losing clearance from the ridge top and soon would have to start running down the face.  About 400 feet over a saddle I flew into the fatty fat daddy of late afternoon thermals.  An 800 fpm screamer!  I guess it didn’t come as a surprise because I was close to one of the only clouds in this valley.  With the lift growing stronger the 5030 kept telling me to climb higher.  I wasn’t about to complain because a high fast final is so much more comfortable then a low slow one.   With about 2,500 feet in the bank I finally headed out.  The glide was uneventful and I cruised into goal 5^th.   Jonny and Gerolf had been high and ahead the entire last leg so only letting 2 other pilots from my original group slip in ahead is not so bad.  Shows my course line choice was pretty good.  The other 5 or so pilots from that group trickled in within the next 5 or 10 minutes. 

 

The last leg was very tough compared to the rest of the tast but a fun day nonetheless!

 

Kev C