I heard later that some pilots down at Wallaby were flying and
staying up in very very light lift in the afternoon. Up at Quest there were a
bunch of tandems throughout the morning, but the regular pilots were holding
back as it was so dark on the ground from the shade and the sky was so white.
Finally, around 3:30 PM Steve Bellerby got hauled up and he stuck. We saw him
turning and he reported lift. This sent the rest of us scrambling for our
gliders.

Jamie Shelden was the next one to stick and reported strong lift at 4 PM as the
sky got blue and the sun came out. She climbed to 4,800'. Steve Kroop, John
Chambers, Tim Ettridge, and I joined her and Steve and we climbed slowly out in
weaker lift just south of Quest Air to over 4,000'.

My goal was to fly down to Wallaby Ranch for the Saturday party. After I topped
out I headed south at 4:53 PM hoping others would go with me. No one did. I had never started a cross country flight so
late in the day, and really wasn't sure that there would be any lift out there once I left Quest.

The air was pretty buoyant, well at least the sink was light. As I approached
Seminole glider port, ten miles to the south, I was getting a bit too low not
having found any lift and headed southeast toward Kirkland Lake and highway 561.
There were a number of cultivated drier fields in that direction with plenty of
larger fields to land in, which was not the case by the glider port.

Down to 1,500' I found a light thermal just on the southeast side of the lake.
Lots of trees to the south, but a nice sand mine further south also, all off
sand roads. I wanted to stick with this thermal to see if I could get high
enough to make it to 474 at least.

It was weak, but every once in a while I explored around to see if there was
better lift nearby. I kept finding better lift a little to the east and kept
moving in that direction. Then I saw a bird going up better back to the west and
got under him for better lift. The higher I got the more exploring I could do
and the better lift I found. The thermal lasted for a long time, just as the one
south of Quest had done, so I was happy just to stay in it and get to 4,200'.

Now I was high enough to make the jump over the tress and get to good retrieval.
I headed south for the sand mine, and found 400 fpm over the hot white sand pile.
This baby got me to 5,500' and the 6030 said that I could make Wallaby Ranch 22
km away.

I went on glide again in buoyant air that kept me on track to get to the Ranch
with enough altitude to feel comfortable going over the last six kilometers of
trees. But as I approached the sand mine to the north of Wallaby I hit a bit too
much sink to feel as comfortable as I would like. There was a weak thermal right
at the sand mine and I worked it for a few hundred feet from eight kilometers
out as the needed glide went down below 10:1.

Following along the sand mines heading south I got back in the buoyant air that
disappeared when I left the mines to go over the swamp and trees north of
Wallaby. Still I had plenty of altitude to dive fast into Wallaby and have the
flight of the day. Everyone else drove from Quest down to the Wills party.