Chelan July 8

Christine setting up with the fire in the background.

Task was pretty straightforward...a big 30km TP around Sims Corner then north to goal in Omak.  I'm not quite sure why a Sims TP was included as it doesn't add any significant real distance and there wasn't any safety issue needing to keep us on the rim that I could see.  Essentially that TP meant that we needed to fly to Omak via the rim, and given the wind conditions (like previous days, variations of east) I wasn't too happy about it.  I would have preferred a task that allowed us the option of flying to Omak via the west airport side rather than restricting us all to the rim.

Anyways, the east wind meant the rim was lame and many pilots arrived low and ended up scunging north...some made it high enough to jump the powerlines while others (me included!) never got high enough for the powerline jump and ended up landing in either Farnham or McNeil canyons.  I spent over 1 hour below the rim edge, trying to get high enough to at least think about jumping back to the powerlines, but it wasn't gonna happen and eventually I got so low I had to head out to a safe LZ.

Back at HQ now and many pilots have landed out near Brewster or Bridgeport so retrieve is busy finding them.  The good thing about landing next to the main road in McNeil canyon is that I got back early and was able to get 2 swims in.  Silver lining and all that :)