Best cove launch of the trip so far.
The wind was pretty non existent on launch, and a couple of people who launched early bombed out, so I waited for one pilot to make it look easy before I jumped in. This ended up being about 1:30pm before it turned on and was good.
The launch was a north launch, so, we’d want to make sure the cycle was a good one to make it over the shrub, which I was very happy with.
Climbs were strong, but good. The flight plan was to take off from Cove, head down to the end ridge, then back to Monroe before landing. The plan that I’d made with Arpan was very ambitious, but decided to give it a go.
I out climbed Arpan, which never happens, so, that was fun.
On the benching up to Cove mountain, I found that Arpan was happier to go deeper than me, and I wanted to stay out front a bit. I was worried with a north component, there might be some converge layer on the ridge (which by reports there was, so I made a good call).
I lost Arpan, but did manage to make it up the top and went North a little down the ridge, which as amazing.
Didn’t have the skills to bench up when heading over towards Blue Finn, but am getting closer.
I ended up having so much altitude over the LZ, which makes me feel I could probably have tried a little deeper on my “bench up to Monroe” goals.
Fantastic flight!