The AHGA's XC Contest 2009

On Aug.9 Paul W. Dale M. Bruce ?,Carol,Linny & I desided to give Elden a try.The road up to the top is really bad,it just plain sucks.Never seen it so bad.Dale & Paul launched first.After about 10-15 min.they hooked a good one and topped out around 13,000'M.S.L. It took one full hour to get up to 12,900'.It just seemed like Bruce & I got stuck there,from 9,500' to 11,000'.Headed N. down to around 9,500' found a boomer to 14,500', the time was 3:45pm.Took pictures of Sunset Crater,then cruised on.With a nice 7-10 M.P.H. tail wind,it didn't take long to fly over Dale & Paul.They landed just S.of Secret Mt.for a nice flight.The tail wind ended around Wupatki,& Linny was right under me.Tryed to extend the glide,as far as possible.Getting low,dropped a smoke bomb between 89 & the power lines,1/4 mile apart.I was expecting the wind to be out of the south,it was East,big time.Didn't want anything to do with the power lines,so glided over them to the W.Now 3-4 tenths of a mile from 89,at the last sec.deployed my drag chute,and had a good landing to the S.E. I desided to split the differance.Hey I didn't drop my nose,so I was happy.It was a long walk back to 89,sweating like crazy.Had a safe landing,thats the most important thing of all.Drank a cold beer with Linny,as passer bys honked there horns.We all met at Silver Saddle Tavern for a cold one,then all went out to dinner.A good day in deed.Happy landings,Andy Rockhold