Lorraine and I made a day trip up to Mingus to hang out with Alan Housel, who's been inviting us to come up and check it out forever. So we finally made it. It's about a 3.5 hour drive from my house to the campgrounds, 210 miles or so.

This is my first trip there and it's a gorgeous place. Launch is a 7600 MSL and faces southeast, shaded by large pine trees. It doesn't really blow harder there but it sure sounds like it is with all the trees. The valley floor is around 3500' or so. AHGA has a great relationship with the USFS and has a special use permit area where they've put a nice concrete ramp, and they are building a campground and even a restroom to replace the porta-potty they have now. Local flying is into the Cottonwood Airport where they also have a great relationship with management. Everybody up there likes those guys!

There were a large number of pilots there on Monday, I heard 17 HG and 2 PG. Everyone flew. It was stronger than expected in the morning, everyone hung back until finally a wind technician (Mike) stepped up and took off around 11:30. He worked at it for a couple of minutes but eventually got stinkin' high, which started the rush off launch.

I queued up and took off behind Alan on his new U2. He got high right away, it took me a few minutes of struggling in the very turbulent lift right at launch level. Once higher up I was able to relax finally, and the thermals got bigger and smoother. I got to 11,500 on two occasions and was pretty far back, because I had followed a gaggle that I think eventually went over the back. Too rich for my blood for a first-time flight, I set best glide and zipped back over launch to Cottonwood Airport, where Alan and a couple other pilots had landed. I had a reasonably good landing in light, switchy conditions in the Drop Zone (apparently named for what it likes to get you to do with your glider).

Pav Dygas and Ilker got their PGs in the air later in the day when winds coming up at launch backed down a little. We were still in the Drop Zone when Pav landed - which took a while, the sky wouldn't let go of him. I didn't see Ilker land, but they both seemed to have nice local soaring flights.

So, I ended up with 1.5 hours of nice boating-around-and-checking-out-the-scenery soaring flight, got nice and high and cool before baking in the LZ. Alan got an hour or so before deciding to go out and land, and apparently there were a couple of XC flights. Dustin went all the way 60 miles back to Turf Soaring (south), I heard some guys went to Sedona (northeast) and I could swear I saw a couple of wings headed toward Prescott (southwest)

Lorraine did not like the drive from Mingus to Cottonwood through Jerome. It's an old mining town hung on the side of the mountain, lots of hairpin turns, 15 mph zones, no-guardrail drops and of course, guys who think it should be driven at 50 mph. She didn't mind the trip back up nearly as much, the Maguerita at the mexican resteraunt in Cottonwood made all the difference

Long drive back, lots of traffic. Worth the trip.

I'll check the camera for usable pictures tonight and post any that look good.

John