xRedRocks Challenge Day 3 2024-09-27

Day 3 task:

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Day 3’s task consisted of a hike to Edna peak, followed by an out and back hike to tag a cylinder around Delano. It was mandatory to hike both directions. From there, the next turnpoint was goal at the Monroe LZ. Winds were forecasted to be light and variable, with 15 km per hour of Southwest winds at top of lift. The forcast indicated that the day would start turning on (on the East faces) between 11:00 and 12:00. Top of lift would rise to 18,000 ft by 4:00 p.m.

Similarly to day one, there were two options for the day. One was to do the hike, then take off and fly directly towards goal on glide to the ground. Then one could run 15 miles with 1500’ of elevation gain to the LZ. The second option I saw was to do the hike, take off and fly the west side of the valley, then cross the valley to goal.

Given that we were flying the west side of the valley ( east facing slopes ) and the weather looked good for flying, I chose to take the flying approach. 15 miles and 1500’ of elevation would be a long ground day with no clear time advantage to flying.

For the initial hike, the obvious way to traverse between the two cylinders was to follow the ridge. I saw a trail at a lower elevation that was much flatter, but was slightly farther to get to the cylinder. I made a bet that it would be faster to run the trail, instead of hiking up and down the scree ridges.

The drive up to launch was gorgeous. The fall colors had filled in the range, covering the rocky landscape with bursts of yellow and light orange. On the drive up, one vehicle got a flat tire.

I knew that the day would turn on fast and would likely be on by the time I got to launch, so when the race began I went as fast as I could. I kept up with the lead group of folks, and made my way to my lower trail when the pros stopped at the top to launch. I ran the trail, and felt good the entire time - I just had a positive feeling in my gut. I started to think about all of the folks that have helped me along the way in getting to where I was on that day - my amazing partner Maggie, my good paragliding friends, my hero in flying Muuo, my hero in hiking Keaton, Garcia, Jug and the Norcal XC league, Thorin, and on and on. I had a flashback to emailing Rob Sporrer: I tried to convince him to sell me a lightweight wing and a string harness when I was signing up for my P2 license because, in my reasoning, I was primarily interested in hike and fly.

My good feeling was damped a little bit when I got back to launch and realized that my route definitely wasn’t the faster option. A good number of folks had already launched in the challenge division, and Damon was just laying out his wing. I sprinted to grab my stuff, got my things set out and my gear on. I launched just after Damon, and we searched the air around launch for a climb. I found the beginnings of one off the windward point of the ridge, which took me up and over the antenna. Damon and I were neck and neck, but he was slightly upwind and slightly below me. For a couple of turns the climb got really turbulent and rowdy. I let it drift me back into what I was feeling as the stronger part of the climb, and Damon pushed out front. As I fell back I took half a turn in 5m/s, then fell out front, then 3/4 of a turn in the strong lift, fell out the front, then centered my climb in an absolute bullet of a thermal going up. I banked it up hard, and yelled at the absolute top of my lungs. I knew that this was the climb that was going to take me to the win.

I glided out at 4900 m as the climb petered out and hit what I assumed to be the boundary layer. From there, my instrument showed that I had glide to goal at 10:1. I had two options. I could go directly towards goal, or I could follow the ridge as it fell off to the north. 10:1 was a bit of a gamble for me to get to goal, so I decided to take what I thought to be the safer option, and follow the ridge, expecting a climb. I glided north and waited. And waited. And waited. I waited for lift, or sink, or anything to indicate a climb. Nothing. I circled in a zero for a minute or two and got blown Northwest.

As I got down the ridge, I realized I wasn’t going to get a climb, and started picking out LZs. There was a nice open one in the town of Joseph on the west side of the river, then a construction yard & building on a hill on the east side of the river. As I came in, I assessed my glide and made the decision to go to the east side instead of in landing in the big LZ. As I came around the hill, I was cautious about tucking into it, as I thought it to be the lee side of the South wind I had experienced up above. However my instrument show that down closer to the surface, there was a bit of a North wind. As such, I tucked in close to the hill and took a weak climb from about halfway up the hill to the top before I lost it. From there I glided straight towards goal, not expecting to get anything else.

I landed in a baron desert place, packed up as fast as I could, put in my earbuds in and started running. I knew that folks would likely be flying in over my head if they were patient, but I knew that I had the jump on most of them. From my landing point to the LZ, I pushed myself pretty hard to go as fast as I could.

While running, I pulled up my map and worked out my route. I could go in nearly a straight line to goal if I found a route between a diagonal forest service road and the road in town leading to the LZ. The only issue was that the two were separated by about a half mile strip of agricultural land. As I ran along I kept looking for a path from one to the other, but nothing materialized except for barbed wire fences. When I got to the end of the forest service road, I chose to jump a gate and run on the property line between two agricultural fields. I made the connection, but not without a good bit of anxiety about getting caught by a farmer. I had it planned out in my head that if someone came up to me, I would hold up my hands, say that I was in a race to Monroe, and that my phone had died so I didn’t know where my route was.

Fortunately, no one yelled at me or pulled the gun on me, and I made it through the fields onto the road in town. While I was making my way through the field, I saw on live tracking that a pilot had flown into goal. I ran as fast as I could to the LZ, and when I arrived I was in second for the day.