Willi Muller XC Challenge July 28

Classic Golden!

Another beautiful day in Golden with sunny skies, a few cu's (mostly in the backcountry), and light winds.  Today was out-and-return day!

I had pre-declared an out-and-return of ~150 km with the turnpoint at Spur Valley so was hoping today was the day to finally do it.  It certainly seemed possible as I flew down the range as the winds were mostly west.  It was light enough that the thermal development seemed to be the deciding factor in the local wind direction.

Cloudbase was super-high although it was mostly blue, and folks were getting 4000+ m at Spillimacheen and south.  I'm sure there were some airspace-busters as some pilots took thermals way above where I was pulling out to avoid the airspace (which varies between 12,500' and 13,400' south of Brisco).

Alex and Peter were just turning around at Spur Valley as I tagged my turnpoint so we flew back together.  Andrew, Al, and Andy had pushed on for the 100 km turnaround point for the 200 km OR.  They didn't quite make it back and landed in pretty much the same field as yesterday for just shy of 200 km.  Good job guys!

Just south of Kapristo: the highway to Banff and Beaverfoot valley.

The lift was still quite abundant at 8 pm and it was easy to close my flight by overflying the lookout, and then it was time to get down before it glassed-off!  I think it took 45 minutes to get down as I was just too tired to do wingovers etc to get down sooner.  My first 150 km out-and-return, and paperwork pending it could also count as a Canadian record!