Canadian Nationals Golden July 26

Day of the Canadian Nationals and the task was simple: fly to Invermere which is about 108km.  We decided on this task since it's the classic Golden flight, and we wanted lots of people in goal for the first day, and the weather was going to be good for downwind flying.

I found the air a bit trashy, rougher than Chelan, but still fine.  There was wind around however, and you had to be careful not to find yourself low, or in the lee of a spine.  My motto for today was get high, stay high.  For the most part I was able to do this, although I got low at Brisco and had to ridge soar my way out of a low spot before catching a nice thermal to 4200m.

With this height I was able to skip the dreaded Spur Valley gap, and fly straight to Edgewater before I needed to top up again.  A couple thermals later I was on final glide for Invermere.

Since I was flying with a borrowed GPS without a glide-to-goal function, and the winds in Invermere can switch to south (resulting in a headwind vs. the tailwind up to that point), I opted to get very high before making goal.  Fortunately the winds stayed north right to the ground, and I actually arrived about 800m over the ground, at which point I found it very difficult to get down!  I could have tagged the 400m goal cylinder, thermalled back out, and continued to Canal Flats, had I wanted to.

Meanwhile Xavier had crashed on top of a peak/ridge near Parson (some sort of collapse), but was unhurt and relaunched, and flew to goal!

I think in the end there were about 20 people in goal, and several personal bests were had.  Veronica had 3 personal bests: first time in goal, longest XC distance, and highest altitude.  She was very happy in the goal field!