First Task

Weather for the first task day was great, even better than the practice day. They called a task identical to the practice task but extended by about eight miles to goal at a waypoint located far down one of the valleys. I didn't make it to goal, but I did tag all the turnpoints on the way, and ended up low in time to make a nice landing at the vineyard. So I actually made the practice task goal from the day before.

Around half the pilots made it into goal, many of them for the first time. The task was fairly modest and they will only get more ambitious as the comp progresses - this first task was probably my best chance to see what that goal beer tastes like. Hard to believe it's tastier than the wine I've been sampling, but I'll keep plugging away at this and one day I'll be in the right place at the right time.

The day was on right from the beginning, with huge convergence lines forming in various places and allowing people to get high and stay high in the gaggles, nicely spread out, up to 7 grand or so. I felt like I had a great start, and was able to stay high for most of the course, except for the second to last turnpoint at Rabies Peak which took me a bit lower. Other guys were getting up at a location pretty deep inside the ridgeline, and I didn't feel comfortable diving back as low as I was. I headed out for the last turnpoint before goal but was too low to continue, and luckily the winery was in range, so that was an easy decision. I also wore Pete's helmet cam for the first and best 20 minutes of my flight so I'm looking forward to sharing that when I can figure out how to do it.

I think Jason will post about his day in a separate post.