To Rome (long)

Also with photos at http://home.inreach.com/grahdani/flights.html

After being damaged in a ground-loop landing the previous summer, my
1965 H301 Libelle glider, N11GV, was flying again in the spring of
2006. By summer that year, I was ready to try another straight out
flight picking the route as we go. So, with my friend Jeff in his
Cessna 150, on 4 August 2006 we were once again off to somewhere.

I took off at 1101, early, to beat forecast over-development, from
Runway 12 at the Bishop airport. I towed straight about 10 miles and
all the way to about 9,600 feet on the south side of Black Mountain.
Black is the peak at the south end of the White Mountain Range. I
tried to work broken thermals over the peak for a few minutes without
much luck. I left the peak headed toward a cloud a mile or so
northeast. I found a thermal there and climbed to near cloud-base at
about 12,000 feet and started north.

Soon after, I had a problem. I use a small Garmin Geko Global
Positioning System (GPS) receiver stuffed into one of the pockets in
my cockpit to record my flight track. Soon after I headed north from
Black Mountain, I had taken the GPS out of the pocket to make sure it
was on and working. I must have sent it in my lap for a moment and
then flew through a bump, which sent it up in to the air in the
cockpit. When it came down it went into the hole around the spoiler
handle and lodged under the seat pan. If I reached way into the hole
I could just touch the GPS with the tips of my fingers. I tried to
remember what control rods operated in that area, but couldn't
remember for sure. For about the next 20 minutes as I worked north up
the Whites from cloud to cloud and worked the GPS around until I could
finally snag it with one finger nail, move it closer to the opening
and pull it out.

The Whites had good clouds to follow and I reached about 15,000 feet
near White Mountain Peak. Although I could see a blue hole north of
Hawthorne over Walker Lake, the day seemed to be pretty good and I
expected to make good progress. I knew I would soon reach the blue
hole and would have to decide whether to go east or go west of the
hole. I would make my decision as I approached the hole.Even though
the sky looked good up to about Hawthorne, I lost altitude most of the
way there. Over the crest of the Wassuk Range southwest of Hawthorne
I made a small climb just south of the blue hole. I decided that east
of the hole looked a bit better than west, so I went that way, out
over the valley. I started down pretty fast. My flight to the
northeast the year before and that ended in a ground loop sort of
flashed before my eyes. In addition, it appeared the clouds east of
the hole looked like they could over develop. So, I changed my mind,
turned 90 degrees left, and headed northwest. This turn meant that
I'd probably be flying toward Idaho and reaching that state became my
general goal for the flight.

Even as I crossed over the crest of the Wassuk Range again, I
continued down and didn't find lift until down to 11,000 feet on the
west side of the range. Here I had a good climb back to about 15,000.

I climbed again under the clouds over the Pine Grove Hills west of the
Hilton Ranch and turned north. I tried to connect the dots of the
clouds across the Mason Valley, where Yerrington is located, to get
some lift on the way across but didn't find much besides sink. East
of Yerrington I was down to close to 11,000 again where I was able to
climb again under some small clouds there back to about 15,000 feet.
Fifteen thousand feet is okay, but 11,000 feet is a lot lower than I
like to be and I was seeing that altitude too often.

North of the Mason Valley, I had a good climb over Cleaver Peak and
continued north to the clouds over the Virginia Range northwest of the
Silver Springs airport. From there, the clouds looked good northeast
of Fernley on the Truckee Range. I finally heard from Jeff, who had
left Bishop after me, as he passed by Bodie on the way to a fuel stop
at Yerrington. At about 1420, I crossed Interstate 80 near Fernley at
about 14,000 feet and about 160 miles out of Bishop.

As it got to be the heat of the afternoon, the lift got better and I
felt I could relax a bit more. Ahead was the Black Rock Desert
which, in contrast to Labor Day when thousands of people spend a week
there, looked quite deserted. I did note another blue hole north of
the Black Rock. As I approached it, it looked like I could go either
west or east around it too, but there seemed to be more airports on
the route around to the east.I had a great run up the Truckee Range
toward Black Rock and snapped a self portrait without dropping the
camera as I held it out the window. Southeast of the Black Rock
Desert playa I turned northeast to avoid the blue hole. I was getting
better climbs and finally got above 17,000 feet. I got another good
climb at the south end of the Jackson Mountains, the range that
separates the north end of Black Rock Desert from the Desert Valley,
the next valley to the east. Still, even with the clouds there, the
sky looked weak ahead toward Orovada somehow. And, indeed it was weak
because, although I tried to pick a good route between the clouds, I
seemed to go down and down. There were better clouds further east,
but I didn't want to go that far out of direction. I was out of areas
where I was familiar with landing spots as well. Down and down I went
until finally below 12,000 feet I found lift again. But just a
little.

For the next 20 miles or so I cautiously continued northeast over the
Desert Valley, circling in the light lift I found here and there. I
didn't make fast progress and, about this time, Jeff passed me far
below, but I didn't Self Portrait Clouds Along the Way
see him. Then, near the Sodhouse VOR I got another good climb, this
time to over 17,500 feet, and headed on following the best clouds. It
was 1640 and I was about 300 miles out of Bishop. I was approaching
the Nevada / Oregon border.

It was getting late enough in the day that I needed to start thinking
about when the lift would die and to make sure I was going to be near
a good place to land when that happened. Unfortunately, on my path
toward Idaho, western Idaho, would take me over an area that I did not
think had many places to land over the next 120 miles or so. The sky
looked pretty good toward the Snake River Valley of Idaho but it also
looked like it might be fading with the heat of the day.

I got the best climb of the day about 20 miles west of McDermitt and
topped out over 17,500 feet again. With that climb I was optimistic
about making it into the Snake River Valley. Jeff was ahead of me now
and had landed to wait for me to catch up at the Rome State airport
north of McDermitt. I pushed on as fast as could go and was sorry to
see a blue hole developing over the Owyhee River area, the area I
would have to cross to reach the Snake River Valley. I climbed again
to about 17,000 feet about 10 miles southeast of Rome State and I
thought I probably could glide to Homedale, Idaho airport from there.

The clouds were definitely dissipating except back where I came from.
Still, toward Homedale seemed like the right way to go. With the
dissipating clouds I figured I wouldn't find much lift on the glide to
Homedale. As long as I didn't find much sink, that lack of lift would
probably be okay and I would make it. However, as I flew on toward
Rome, which is about 30 miles northeast of the Rome State airport, I
found mostly sink. As I approached Rome I had sunk below a
comfortable glide to Homedale. Although there were a few scraps of
cloud over the Owyhee Reservoir about half way to Homedale, I wasn't
sure of any places to land before Homedale. My ground-loop the year
before weighed on me again, and I decided I didn't want to get to
Homedale bad enough to risk landing someplace bad. So, I snapped a
photo of the Owyhee River Canyon near Rome, and, at about 1820, 13,500
feet, and 375 miles out of Bishop, turned around and headed back
toward Rome State to join Jeff.

After I turned around Jeff and I chatted a bit on the radio. We
talked about camping at the Rome State airport for the night. Jeff
had looked around a little and it sounded like it would be a pretty
good out of the way camping place. I was sorry not to make it to
Idaho but I had a nice day none the less. I had plenty of altitude to
reach the airport so I figured I would fly around a little. Instead
of heading directly southwest for the airport, I headed a bit more to
the west toward some clouds I thought I might be able to reach. I
continued to find sink though and, after flying west about 20 miles,
turned back south toward the airport.

West of the airport and down to about 8000 feet, I started finding
zero sink and light lift. Then the lift turned much better and I
started to circle and climb pretty well. Pretty soon I thought there
was a chance I could climb high enough to glide to the Alvord Desert.

A few weeks earlier I had landed on the Alvord playa in my Cessna 170
and met a group of glider pilots from northern Oregon were there auto-
towing. Running into that group was great because it brought me back
to being a teenager and being captivated by an article in Soaring
magazine about auto-towing the Alvord and flying the nearby Steens
Mountains. It is a beautiful place and, to top it off, there are nice
hot springs there. Jeff and I like to fly in to hot springs when we
can.

As I climbed I called Jeff on the radio to see what he thought of
landing on the Alvord but couldn't reach him. I continued to climb
and before too long was up to 14,000 feet and had plenty of altitude
to reach the Alvord. I stopped circling and headed west toward the
Alvord. I called Jeff again but, again, did not reach him.

I headed west toward the Alvord for about 35 miles calling Jeff all
the while and finally sinking to the point I couldn't fly back to Rome
State. I figured at some point while I was still high enough to reach
him with my radio Jeff would get back to his and I could convince him
to join me on the Alvord. I got to the Steens Mountains west of the
Alvord at about 8,000 feet, got a quick look at the pretty Lost Horse
Lake nestled in a glacier carved canyon near the south end of the
Steens before I had to turn back toward lower ground.

I finally reached Jeff and through very crackly radio connection said
I'd be landing in a few minutes on the Alvord. I wasn't sure, but I
though I heard him reply "What are you going to do there?". With this
last transmission I wondered if I would be seeing Jeff that evening or
not. That was important because Jeff had my sleeping bag, camping
gear, and our dinner and breakfast with him in his plane!

I circled down toward the playa deciding where to land. I wanted to
be as close as possible to the hot springs so I could walk there if I
wanted. I didn't see gliders anywhere but I did see a group of land-
sailors camped by the edge of the playa. I landed adjacent to their
camp and rolled further along before I came to a stop so I would not
crowd them. It was 1929 hours, and about 460 miles from my release
point by way of Fernley and Rome.

The story continues after that but suffice to say Jeff did not show up
that night. Still I had a great barbeque chicken dinner, slept in a
sleeping bag on a cot, had a great breakfast, and borrowed a truck to
get to and from the hot springs a couple times all through the
tremendous generosity provided by the land sailors. As the sun
appeared above the horizon the next morning Jeff arrived. I learned
that while I had been flying toward the Alvord and trying to reach him
on the radio, he had been enjoying a glass of good wine. Because of
that wine he wasn't flying anywhere that night and that's why he asked
me what I was going to do at the Alvord.

We made a trip to the hot springs and then towed out, a bit late in
the morning. We were late enough that after our fuel stop in
Winnemucca the air was getting pretty bumpy and I really had to work
to stay in position on tow hour after hour. As we approached
Yerrington, suddenly Jeff disappeared from my view and I quickly
released. Apparently he had enough of the bumps and had quickly
pulled the power back to descend to Yerrington and I immediately
overran him. On top of that, when he landed, the rope had come off
his plane so we had to visit the local hardware to fabricate a new
rope. The bumps weren't too bad the rest of the way back to Bishop.