Owens Valley

(the view north from 5 or so miles North of Walt's)
Memorial Day Weekend. Eric Froelich / WOR put together a great trip for us this weekend in the Eastern Sierras. There were about a dozen pilots in our group from the Bay and Nevada. The Owens really takes your breath away (in more ways than one). It as at once spectacularly beautiful and potentially dangerous. The weather rolls through here like a freight train at times and if you aren't paying attention you could find yourself tied to the tracks. I had two great flights this weekend. 35 and 40 mile flights and got up to 14,000' before leaving lift. Conditions would have allowed me to get even higher, but I was not flying with oxygen and stayed conservative.
Above is my gps flight track for Sunday. It was roughly a 3 hour flight. Incredible views all the while going in and out of the massive canyons. Below is a shot taken from around 13k' of Mount Whitney. The photos really cannot represent the scale of what I saw this trip. Shortly after passing this area I circled up with a redtail at 12,000'. I can't imagine a reason why he would climb so high except for the view. Below, a sailplane climbs out below me over the valley floor.
After being crushed by the Westerlies over the Sierras I headed out with some altitude to spare over the valley. Looking ahead at rapidly building Cumis over the Inyos and over-development further North over the Whites (hwy 395 below). There is a lot of strategy and skill involved in assessing conditions and choosing how/when to cross to the White Mountains to continue heading North. I can't wait to get back and give it another go.
Logistics on a cross-country trip can be quite a challenge, but we were really lucky to have two great chase drivers, J-lin and Sayulita, who managed to find us each day no matter how poor the directions were. They were great fun to have along. (Looking out over Mono Lake).
Unfortunately my little video camera only holds an hour of video but here's a short clip.


I faced a some new challenges on this trip. Reading the skies and making the right decisions to avoid some complicated hazards as well as finding a suitable place to land, when I had run out of lift (best to be near the road, a swimming hole, and beer when possible:)

I really appreciate Ben D. and Brian F. giving me their 2-cents and helping this xc newbie get off some personal bests at "the show." Brian had a great flight up to Bishop and Ben pulled off 126 miles.