I met Jerry and Chris and Lin at Houghton road at 1115,the winds were southeast. The forecast called for the southwest wind to kick in around 2pm. They were right this time!
We arrived at the Stones to find southwest breezes of 8 to 10 in the lz. Jerry and I hiked our gear up to launch. I set up in light conditions and launched in the first decent cycle. No problem getting up,climbed to 7,800msl. I watched Jerry launch and soar up easily. We flew around together for and hour . At one point we were a lot closer together than we had in mind! I was able to climb to 8500msl and fly to the back ridge line and out to the far lz and back to launch. The sky had some high clouds, however thermals were still developing. They had a lot of drift to them so I would fly way out in front and follow them back to the spine, somtimes all the way to the main ridgeline. The airmass in the valley produced zero sink in most places with a 10 mph headwind below 7K and a much higher velocity wind above.
The wind picked up around 330pm and Jerry got caught too far back too low. He headed out the canyon north of the old microwave ridge line. He did not make the corral. He ended up landing across the wind on a open slope, across the canyon from the corral. I watch from over head and when all looked fine I left for the LZ and spiraled down to land. I was in the air two hours.
I folded the glider and drove back to the powerline road then north to the far corral. It was on foot from there. Jerry met us at the road with his gearbag. Chris and Jerry and I headed down to retrieve the glider. Nice steep slopes and shin daggers! I was sure happy to have Chris`s help! so was Jerry. . We rolled out of there at sundown.
Thanks Chris, hope we can show you a better time next trip
Eric

All it takes is one bad decision to make a really good day fall apart. I turned to the right instead of drifting back left over the spine and couldn't find enough lift to get back up. The wind picked up and I couldn't penetrate without sinking pretty fast. I picked where I thought I would make it to land and it turned out to be accurate.
I tried using the lift I found on the way out but it wasn't strong to get me any farther. The rotor created by the ridge of the grassy area with the corral was going to push me down into the cliffs so I decided to land on the clear (sort of) slope just before it.

My first pass I came in close to the top and as I came around back into the wind it popped me up about 50 feet. I made a pass back to the left but was out of position to try and land in a clear area. This whole time I'm getting trashed by the air and I had the first notch on the VG and it let me control/recover the glider quicker. On my third pass I was half way down the hill and decided this was my last chance at a decent landing so pointed it quartering across and landed with a tail wind. I took 2 steps and set the bar down and without the tail wind would have been fine. The wind tried to flip the glider and I waited for a lull and got the tail down against the wind coming up the slope and unhooked.

I stepped in front of the glider to take off my harness and just as I started on the zipper a gust blew down the hill and flipped the glider 4 times. No problem, a few cactus caught it for me. It's not shiny new anymore but nothing is bent or broken but the cactus put a few rips in the leading edge.
The wind must have picked up and the rotor from the front ridge got bigger. It stayed blowing down for the next half hour.

I'm glad I was flying the Sport2 and not the Ultrasport, the slower landing speed made a big difference with the ground coming up fast. The slope looked to be as steep as the takeoff run for the Whetstones.

Thanks Eric and Chris for helping retrieve the glider, that would have taken me most of today to retrieve by myself
Jerry

I looked up on Topozone to see where I landed and it was just on the other side of the hill from Death Trap Canyon.

The glider has 3 short rips in the leading edge and 1 small hole poked on the top. I expected more after watching it tumble down the hill.

Jerry