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A Cross Country flight by Len Szafaryn (E-mail) on Saturday, August 11, 2001.

I hung around scratching at launch for at least 20 minutes before a desperate jump across the highway. On the next ridge there was light lift from about 100 below the ridge 'til the top of the ridge line, drifting back behind the ridge I stumbled into a 300-400 minute upper0 that was good for about 25 turns, at times the lift grew to 600-800. The top of the thermal was cloudbase at 15K. I think my altitude when I went on glide across the north side of Arrowhead lake was about 14K. I porpoised along the southern edge of the cloud street until it started to end a little past the northwest tip of the lake. So now the decision was whether to thermal up and continue to follow the cloud street back into the desert, or try and make glide over the ridge towards the LZ. I flipped a coin, but by the time it landed on the ground I couldn't see it anymore (hahaha, remember - no oxygen). I checked my GPS and noticed a ground speed of 16-19 MPH with no speed bar, my glide to the edge of the rim looked about 7 or 8 to 1, and there were some bail out LZ’s between my position and the rim. So I decided to head back to the barn, I made it over the rim with at least 50 feet of altitude (whoo baby!) Now I was definitely below the inversion, but the spines and ledges were working predictably. Not much in the way of altitude gains, but enough to crab my way from spine to spine towards the southwest. It took another hour, but I finally dirted right at the 18 and turnout to Waterman Canyon. Tantalizingly close to home, but nevertheless slightly disappointed. Fortunately, Diane McKenzie was driving down the 18 5 minutes after I landed, so I had some good company on the ride back.

In retrospect, and if I had time, I would’ve radioed to the top of Marshall, or called Windy from my cell phone to get a wind report. Had I known it was so light up on the ridge, I would’ve taken a more northwesterly track along the ridge past Strawberry Canyon and the observation towers and Rim of the World High School to Crestline. From there the glide out to Marshall might’ve been doable. But then again, maybe if I’d done that, I might still be walking.