Woodside May 10

After yesterday's cu-nims and thunderstorms in the Fraser Valley as we drove back from Cranbrook, today was looking quite nice.  So back out we went to try the 100 km Al Thielmann triangle.

Cloudbase was way up there, above the legal airspace limit of 1981m on the Woodside side, but it wasn't the nicest air.  The west wind came in a bit stronger than we expected which got me as I was trying to punch west to tag the Dewdney TP.  Pattison wasn't working either, and after getting flushed at both Pattison and Dewdney, and hearing the reports about how nasty the corner of Dewdney was, I decided to get out while I still could, and flew back to Woodside.

Heading back to Woodside after an unsuccessful attempt at the Benedict triangle.

Over the back to Agassiz Mountain and then Bear, but I couldn't get high enough at Bear to make the jump to Ludwig with any comfort.  Norm had tried the Green Hill route and no luck, but was able to find a flatland thermal over the freshly-plowed fields downwind, and made it across.  However I was unable to find a similar climb, and ended up landing at Seabird Island.

Alex managed to make it across to Ludwig and did the Ludwig-Elk run, while Igor flew north up Harrison Lake a bit before landing in Laidlaw.  Al Thielmann did some bear-country-flying through the Norrish Creek valley before popping out behind Bear and then doing the Ludwig-Elk run as well.  And lots of pilots made the jump to Sasquatch and beyond before the west wind shut them down.

An easy hitchhike over to Bridal, just in time to watch the Bridal pilots coming in to land in the late afternoon wind.  The schmoo was coming in too, but earlier in the day the Bridal pilots had gotten above Cheam and 2400+ m, since the airspace limit is much higher on the Bridal side.  Too bad we were forced to stay below 1981m on the Woodside side; the air may have been much nicer, higher up!

Woodside flight.