Tiger Mountain Sunday

After roughly 70 hours of thermalling down in the mountains of Mexico, with two high-level competitions, flying in some of the most rattiest, trashiest air, and going in to places one would never go...my glider held up really well with no major issues.

Now, the second day of March in the Northlands with weakish 3-4m/s thermals and nice cloud flying my glider decided to have some fits of rage. Hanging out near cloudbase for a spell enjoying the scenery and deciding where to fly to, I decide to glide towards the Towers, where I find another nice little thermal, except this one wasnt so nice maybe. A couple of turns in to it, I hear a strange sound like a very gentle rustle and think to myself, huh, I wonder what that sounds is, oops the whole left side of my glider mushes in to a stall. Huh, weird, except now my glider is bucking and pitching like a bronc that is pissed. Being slow to react due to the cold temperature, i try to make sense of the thing at least still above my head but not flying. Diving and surging is this game, and once I finally discover what is happening i let off the brakes all the way. But its still doing its chaotic thing, now i'm burying that sucker every chance i get to get out. Finally i hit the right sequence of stalling and then it recovers...with a big cravatte now though. Bummer, at least its flying but i have to keep the weightshift and opposing brake to keep it from winding up now. Too late, and now i have to go through the stall sequence again to get out, but i get out but still cravatted. All the while looking to see what altitude I have because I think I might have to throw. But I get it together. Grabbing lots of lines on the bad side i finally find the stabilo but its too slack and i cant get enough slack out to make a difference when pulling on it. So, both hands off the brakes and some timed yarding on the stabilo I get it. Finally.

But hey, its still on and I just went in to a really nice thermal just after this "cascade," so I turn, and get back up to base and head Southeast towards highway 18 on a long glide. There is a nice cloud there and i boost back up to base, whiteroom. Behind me I see Cliffords Targa and I head Northeast from there and make it to Snoqualmie ridge and work some real weak stuff for a long time before it kicks and I get it some more. Clifford lands near Snoq. ridge below but i hang on to some scratchy weak stuff and then go on to Rattlesnake 1.
Now, i am drifting in some lifty air towards the East but the day is mellowing. Taking this lifty line I point it to N. Bend and see a potential lz ahead. On closer inspection it is a very deep looking and cold swamp with lots of brush. Dang, there's a small housing development but i get there and its power line city. This only leaves me with one choice, the secondary 55mph highway. Thats the one, i point it back in to wind making sure i fly very straight because of power lines on one side and tall trees on the other. I had maybe 3m one side and 5m on the other, tight! Landed safely but then my glider drops into some hateful blackberries. But at least I'm off the road now. I didnt hesitate to rip my glider right out of the bushes, I hate blackberries and there's no easy way to untangle the lines and wing out of there without just yarding it straight out. All good for now.

Thanks to Joe S. who came and got me and drove me back to the LZ. Building good karma points dude. Milroy has a pic of my cravatted glider I'll post when i get it later. Nice flights to all who decided to take a chance and leave the mayhem.

Analysis of the event:
As far as the thing that started the cascade, for some reason and maybe this is scary, is that I dont really know what started it. I mean, I've had a couple of these types of events before, but I always knew what started it.
It felt like I spun it, which would make sense but I was turning into the thermal and the opposite side spun. Maybe I was cold and out of it for a spell? Which means I'm getting old... scary too. Lastly, maybe I just hit some bad air and the sound I heard was the sound of the wing getting hit by some down air inducing the spin? Funny, because while all this was happening everything felt so slow and sluggish, I was even thinking to myself on how high I was above the ground thinking damn I have to reach down and throw out the reserve because its not coming back. Later, I discovered on my track log that I had lost 450 meters before recovering. So, if anyone saw the event unfold towards the beginning, comments would be appreciated. Thanks, SM