https://airtribune.com/questxc/blog__day_12

The original forecast was for light winds, good lift and a high cloudbase. The
winds were light and the cu's started forming early. The local forecast went
from 30% chance of rain the day before to 50% on Wednesday. Still it looked
quite good around 11 AM.

My plan was to go around the Green Swamp counter clockwise if I could get anyone
to go with me. Niki Longshore said that she would. I'd guide her through it on
her first time.

I didn't see her out and about until after 1 PM, while it had been looking good
for two hours. I guess I should have hunted her down earlier. No other pilots
were thinking about this task.

Finally she appeared and got ready and I had to scramble to get in line right
behind her.

The sky was full of cu's, in fact too full. There were only very small patches
of milky white between the cu's. The cu's apparently had spread out or were
sending out higher level clouds to obscure the sun. We said that we would get in
the air and evaluate whether to head out or not.

Niki was off just before me and she and Armand in his Swift were doing well. I
pinned off early in light lift and was able to climb at 150 fpm to cloudbase at
3,700'.

As I looked around it was almost completely shaded. I had climbed up over a
sunlit patch on the edge of the cu above me. Looking to the west, northwest I
couldn't see any sunny patches. It looked like we would not be able to go around
the Green Swamp on this day.

Not long after Niki lost the lift, which was weak any way, given that the ground
was mostly dark, and she landed. A few of us got up again and Armand and I found
almost 400 fpm over Osborn field west of Quest. But, given that my job for the
day was over with Niki landing I headed back to Quest.

I found that I had wrapped my retraction line around my slider on my harness so
that I couldn't open it up. I wasn't too concerned as I would be landing in a
nicely mowed field and I have strong wheels on the carbon fiber base tube. It
was easy to do a roll in landing.

Much later the rain came and soaked the fields.