Flew for 7.5 hours, and did my first 500km. It was an out-and-return flight to Mt Pleasant. There were a few tough parts. The first one was to jump ridges at Salina-Gunnison. After flying miles of quiet air, I barely reached the next ridge at around 10,000 ft. Luckily, I could find a solid lift over a wall of rocks. After that, the way to Mt Pleasant was not too difficult. There were lots of clouds that lead me to it. On my way back, I got low again to 11,000 ft, but was saved by a thermal over Knob Mountain. I jumped ridges again at Salina-Gunnison airport, and tried use left-over clouds. But the saddest moment of the flight came when I was heading to a nice-looking cloud just south of Pfeiler ranch. When I was flying to it, I thought I won my way back to Parowan, but as soon as I arrived, the cloud disappeared! I went there anyway to pick up any left-over thermal, but there was none. I just needed a couple of thousand feet, but the air was pretty quiet. I came down to 11,000 ft which was the same height as the ridge I have to cross to get back to Parowan, so there was no chance I could make it. A nice thing about Parowan is that there are abundant airports between ridges on which I can land safely. I chose Panguitch airport as my landing spot. But then, I had 3,000 ft extra altitude I could use. So, I decided to give my last shot on the big rock eminent from the ridge west of Panguitch airport. Then, wow, I hit a 7 kts thermal right above the rock (later, I learned its name Adams Head) which took me back to 15,000 ft. I was able to safely fly back to Parowan.

Flight trace

Altitude

Rock walls east of Salina-Gunnison airpot

A nice-looking cloud south of Pfeiler ranch, but it disappeared as soon as I got there
More pictures can be found here.