On Thursday, July 16, 2020 at 12:57:52 PM UTC-7, wrote:
I just reread The Beautiful Mountain & her Sinister Trap, by Henry Combs, Soaring mag, Sept 1984. Henry’s friend crashed at 10:30 in the morning looking for earl lift flying alone a ridge line. Henry does an excellent job of explaining how a highly experienced pilot might get trapped on a ridge. Basically, he sets up the trap with a 5 knot thermal out away from the ridge with the sink and rolling away from the thermal, motion that everyone has experienced a thousand times. Only, this morning the sink is aligned with the face of the ridge.............here comes our highly experienced pilot flying along the ridge, looking for an early thermal........ he flies right into 5 knot sink and a rolling away motion of the thermal and the sink and rolling motion is confined by the ridge. Henry, an aeronautical engender states that it’s not hard to experience rolling motion that exceeds the capabilities of our sailplanes ailerons and in this case, the rolling motion is into the ridge!
The Sinister Trap snares someone every now and then........more than a half dozen times in my 50 year soaring experience!
JJ Sinclair

This situation is much more complex than that described by Combs. The day was very gusty with a simultaneous combination of ridge, thermal, and wave lift. The thermals were broken and hard to work. Marak's left-wing dipped (perhaps stalled), yet he turned hard to the right (??). The left wing tip hit the top of the ridge causing the glider to cartwheel. The cockpit took the full force of the impact, which was great enough to break the shoulder harness webbing. The wings were still in their assembled position, albeit with the pins ejected.

While one may want a simple explanation of what happened to Marak, the realities are more complex. The take-home advice is that you need plenty of separation from the rocks. I advise enough to complete a turn toward the rocks with margin to spare.

Tom