Gorham early report

Wave camp has started. Here is a report from Rick Roelke.

Driving up through the rain, I did not hold out much hope for the day, but having 1000lbs of Ox in the back, and thinking someone might want it, I soldiered on.

The rain stopped shortly after my arrival, and we could see bits of blue, so it looked like it might work. Walter was delayed due to the weather, but we rigged anyway. Peter Stauble was the wind dummy, with a tow to the carters, not far behind, I did my first self-launch at Gorham and it worked great.

I motored to the top of Mt Hayes, where I found the crescent wave. Very slow at first, getting better with altitude. The carters in the meantime were not turning out to be the easy way. Roy, however, did find his way into the primary from near wildcat after a sporting round with the rotor there. I left the crescent wave at 7k and joined Roy in the primary where I found a brief bit of 8 kts, climbing to 20k for the first diamond of camp. Roy would have me point out that he got above 20k in a "real glider"...

John Good also got high, and then (intentionally) headed down wind to explore four cycles of wave east of the carters, and then landing at Bethel. 

I think we had 7ish flights today, good time had by all.

All in all, a good start to camp, particularly after a drive up in the rain...

The big question is what will the weather bring. It looks flyable the next few days, with wave opportunitys, but plagued with excessive moisture. Today we had solid undercast for as far as you could see upwind, but the valley was open all day. So forecasting is difficult. I will tell you it is not optimum conditions, but don't shoot the forecaster if we sneak in a few high flights.

all for now.

RR