Winter Lift

After a soggy and unmotivated heavy hike up Tiger with my XC kit. I found only one other soul on launch. Gilead. Chilly with a light South breeze, some low cumulus clouds it looked like perhaps a floaty sledder to the lz. After launching it was mildy working and weak just maintaining altitude above launch. Working this weak windward face I managed to surf a bit higher up the ridge each time. Sometimes a cloud would drift over the South ridge and afford some really light thermic lift. I managed to get up near TM and then a nice pulse of lift came through and I tanked up if you can call it that. Gilead stayed around the ridge and it looked like he was having fun wanging it over launch. Turning my flat Icepeak into the lift ever so sluggishly in the dense air I managed to climb to cloudbase at 3100ft. I drifted back over the ridge in front of the Towers that were enveloped in cloud and drifted into the rotor before the Lookout. Kind of a steady Southwest wind coming at me. From there, I just boated along in zero's on quarter bar crossing the wind over the valley and then over to Issaquah where a small cloud seemed to be weakly working. Not having enough height really to make it to the lake, I floated around the little rim in front of the gravel pit and then drifted downwind a bit before coming back into wind and land eventually at the Highlands open area. Kinda fun working the weak stuff and having some clouds to gauge your lines through the sky on a cold cloudy day. A nice little flight, but wanting more of course. But one is never satisified that often in cross country flying. Its still winter... SM