Martin Ginsberg (from LA, used to live here) and myself spent a week kayaking the lower Grand Canyon. The plan was to fly the Hurricane Cliffs in Utah afterwards but that giant cold front left that area very cold and windy. It did make for some spectacular 1000 foot waterfalls in the canyon though. So we muttled off to Las Vegas to save what flying we could do. Oct. 7 we went t0 Jeans Ridge- a 400 foot ridge overlooking a dry lake bed. Nevada is amazing in the sense that almost everywhere is a decent LZ. The site is a drive up but we opted for hiking up with almost zero wind. Once on top it was cross at 4mph but would occasionally straighten out with 8 mph. Martin was first off and sunk out. It was fairly warm and not feeling very encouraged I dressed lightly. We all know what that means. Boom ! Right off launch a punchy thermal took me 2500' over but it leaned more than 45* and I found myself miles from launch. We both agreed there was no radio or phone and getting back to the car was our own responsibility. Sometimes a big lonely desert is exactly that. I left the thermal early to stay within glide of the car. Besides it was remarkebly cold up there. I burned most of my altitude only to top land at the launch and put on more clothes. Sucker. I promptly sunk out. By now Martin made his way back on top to sinkk out again also. Not to be discouraged he hiked again to fly an hour in glass off conditions. I had already started to bury my sorrows in beer and watched jealously from below.

The next day we went to Goodsprings. A drive up - I forget how many thousand foot launch facing NE. It was super strong that morning with clouds cranking out of the west above- can you say shear layer. After 4 hours of hiking around, etc. the base wind dropped off and the clouds overhead slowed down. The wind switched to the SW side and light. Martin took a nice thermal off that side and specked out. He felt it was probably easy 100 mile day. His main concern was that he felt the jets flying overhead looked precariously close.He flew for 1.5 hours- half of that was spent trying to get down. I guess he spiralled for almost a half hour off and on. We did have radios this time but of course I wanted to fly also. The wind had switched back to the north. I took off in 4-8mph wind about the time Martin landed. I Immediatly climbed out several thousand feet only to find myself with the inability to penetrate up wind. Drats. Every thermal was sweet but kept taking me further downwind and away from the road. Crabbing like a mad man and keeping my options open I finally found some sink to core and land near the last piece of dirt road I could find. My new wing has amazing performance but holy sh*t it kept me busy. I didn't officially measure it but it was like 10 miles. I was immediatly picked up by Martin with drinks and grins.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1069987859 ... N3X7pXguAE

Sunday was blown out but everyone should hike in Red Rock Canyon- it's beautiful.