Day 2

Today we got up early to go and try a flight off of Burney Mountain (elevation 7,800). It's a dome shaped mountain West of Hat Creek. It blows out early, so we were up there by 8:30, and in the air by 9:30am.

Looking NorthWest towards Mt Shasta (we launch to the South)

The launch - It looks worse than it is. You are in the air before you get to the big nasty rocks....

Launch was nice and smooth, and so was the air. As nice as that sounds, that means there was no lift to be had. So we glided out to the LZ for a short and sweat 10 minute flight.

This LZ is rather tricky. There are a lot of trees so you need to pick your aproach carefully. No problems were had, though my landing was not so gracefull....

The LZ with Burney Mt in the background.

This evening we went back to Hat Creek. Conditions where very turbulent at first, util I found an area of lift that took me way above all the nasty stuff. I boated around for about an hour at 7,000'. Conditions to the East of us started to look bad. The clouds were dark and spreading. Chris and I decided to land in case the clouds turned into to thunder storms. Shortly after landing we heard thunder and knew we had made the right choice.

The clouds made for a spectacular sunset.

Tomorrow we head to Lakeview Oregon where the XC flying will begin!