Arctic Triangle

Winter thermalling at its finest. Six inches of snow on the North launch, we slid off the hill into the cool air. Pienak was already airborne by the time I arrived and was maintaining well enough but it didnt quite turn on until about a half hour later. F. Henriquez and I declared a triangle hopeing for several km's out to the North then, West and South some km's to see what we could manage given the copious amounts of snow on the ground. Fortunately, the clouds were there and a nice convergent lift band with NE flow aloft but ever so light. Three of us now in the air climbing out after some slow climbs up to +3000ft and decided to have a look around. Steve P split to the South and was gone. Frank and I headed over to the Towers where I got low on the cold backside pushing in too deep like a knucklhead. Frank stayed high and didnt push as deep so he was good. I had to push back upwind into the drainage and glide out low eventually arriving back at N launch. From there I Lost Franky and was getting lower in a bad down cycle. Finally, after ridge soaring at 900ft over I stuck into a nice one that took me back to base over the Kingdome. Now, I could see what was going on again with the clouds all around and see Franky well along on our proposed route way to the North of. I pushed on route to the North and "tanked" back to base around 4100ft and cruised into the blue over Highlands. From there it was a nice convergent cloud street running SE/NW. I topped back up under a nice cloud and headed Southwest over to Squak Mtn antennaes with plenty of altitude. Once there I pushed into a headwind at this altitude going SE back to Jct 6k area another leg completed. Getting lower here I headed back North to the LZ/goal that I thought I would make easy. But the valley wind was flowing through big time and I sank hard into the headwind, not looking good for a fresh LZ landing. Finally, crossing to the North side of the valley I managed to work the valley wind/ridge lift and came into goal/landing high enough with my task buddy Franky arriving at the same time. Sweet! Interesting day in that it was NE up high, NW down low and SE in the middle. This provided the small convergence line we utilized to have a great fun flight around the area for this time of year. Its fun to challenge yourself flying these types of tasks, you gain that much more information about the air 3-dimensionally and forces you to make decisions with such. Pienak took the front (West side) of the cloud streets to the South and had a nice open distance flight landing in Cumberland. Base was to low over the mountains and too dark to really get back in there and get up. I forgot all about the cold, hopping amongst the clouds, crystal visibilty, and gazing at the immaculate white mountains surrounding me. SM