Stepping Up to the Wave

I gambled on a direct tow to the primary wave as the easy way in but ended up taking the hard route. I released at 4,300 ft into air that wasn't working yet. I spent ten minutes probing the lee side and made one fast run east looking for a window, before giving up. By 12:27 I was down to 2,300 ft and heading back towards Gorham looking for a last ditch save at the Moriah–Carter ridge. I found a small thermal just strong enough to lift me on the foothills of the Carters.

The next half hour was the real work of the day. The ridge's northwest-facing flank was giving just enough — true ridge lift plus the odd scrap of rotor — to hold and slowly gain. I worked it in the low 2,000s between Imp Face and Mount Surprise, never far off the rocks.

At 12:35 came the low point of the flight: 1,857 ft. There is nothing to land on down that flank, so I stayed with the ridge until it gave me enough altitude to leave.

Finally. I climbed out of the valley in the rotor's turbulent air, circling in broken lift for twelve steady minutes, from 3,500 to 5,700 ft. The best five of them averaged 350 ft/min.

Reaching the top of the rotor, I pushed upwind into the primary wave. Rough turbulence changed to long smooth legs back and forth across the lift, the vario finally steady, and the altimeter winding up faster than it had all flight. By 13:20 I was at 7,600 ft.

The last move was the upwind one. I pushed northwest into the strongest part of the primary, over the rim of the Great Gulf near The Horn, and topped out around 8,000 ft when we received the radio call about the closing sky over Gorham airport. The summit cone slid by under the left wing, with the undercast lying over everything north of the mountain.

The camp was already shutting down below me: the ceiling was lowering, the gusts were up, and the tow pilots had stopped launching gliders in the turbulent air. I took one more look at the mountain, turned downwind, and rode the long glide home. I landed at 13:36.