Willi XC Challenge Day 3

Another day with high winds - this seems to be the norm at Golden this year. Two pilots on early-morning sledders reported being on speed-bar all the way to the LZ.

I went up the mountain at 13:00, and it was windy south on top. Lisa Gerrard was first HG off at 15:30, and got flushed to the LZ, but an Atos pilot from California managed to stay up. Rick Chubey launched soon after, managed to get up, and flew to Brisco and back. But no one else launched until 17:30, as it got quite windy on launch. But more disturbing were reports of gusts to 30 km/h in the LZ. No one wanted to sink out and have to deal with that. The valley was full of haze and smoke, but there were nice cu above the peaks.

Finally around 17:30 it seemed that the wind had died off and Kim Stauss and another pilot were off, and as soon as they reached the SW flank of the mountain, they climbed out very quickly. I got off soon after and also climbed out quickly to 2900m. After reaching Willi's Knob without getting any more lift, I thought I'd go back to the peak to top up. Big mistake - I spent an hour trying to get back up peak-top level. Meanwhile, the hangs that went south were doing well.

By the time I got up again and got over to Pagliaro, it was getting late, but I climbed out to 3600m (drifting back to the back range in the process) and flew down to Washout Creek. Looking south, I could see some good cu still, but it was after 19:00. I thought it would be too late to go anywhere and still make it back. Wrong! Doug Litzenberger, in his first return to Golden for nearly a decade, got down to Parson and back.

Meanwhile, the PG pilots in the Race Willi had launched and were on task: launch to Pagliaro, then to the gravel pit, back to Pagliaro, then Nicholson. A good number of them finished the task, as the evening turned into a glass-off. As I came back over Mt 7 the sky was full of gliders, and out over town I found a good number of PG pilots near the gravel pit.
Around 9pm it started raining paragliders as all the pilots started coming down to land, a few arriving from the west side of the valley where they had been exploring. John McClintock brought his Atos in and had a good nil-wind landing on it. No aluminum was sacrificed to the wind gods by any hang glider pilot, a great performance by all.

Day 4 is looking good, with lighter winds in evidence this morning.