Gorham report October 12

Here is Rick Roelke's report from yesterday:

While not the day we had yesterday (I expect it will be another 10 years before we see that again) it was a fine day at camp.

Monday had very low winds on the surface, but enough wind up high to soar the front face of the Presidential Range. This is not a shabby place to be hanging out, and the early flights had no problem getting up and over the summit in smooth ridge lift. 

It was unclear if the wave would be working, but the thought was to soar up the front side, and then dive over the crest and see if we could connect with the lee wave.

I was not the first launch, but I was the first to attempt the transition, and I found 2-3 knots of wave lift in the Tuckerman ravine. But I quickly lost it. I then ventured around the Horn, and did find some week lift there, accompanied by MP. We gained back most of our lost height from traversing the sink to get there, but we decided to move back to the front side again. 

On the second attempt, we had better luck, with a slow initial climb in the ravine that gradually turned into 3 knots.  I could see to the west that a bit of moisture coming our way was producing some upwind lenticular clouds. Soon we had one over Mount Washington. I think the base was around 11k. We climbed up past that, and I topped out at 18500 feet, with MP and RC close behind. 

Unfortunately, the winds were dying, and the later launchers were stuck at "only" 15500 feet.

The day was bright and clear, and very warm on the ground.