Woke up in the morning, and found that the smoke is back. The visibility was less than 5 miles. Yuliy, Seth, and I went for breakfast at "Coffee &" in the old downtown Truckee. We came back, and hanged around and asked around other people if they were going to fly.


Truckee airport in the morning

Sergio and Ramy took off with water anyway, and Yuliy was the next. Then around noon, the wind started to pick up, and the visibility got noticeably improved. Everyone including myself prepared to launch. I took off around 1:50pm, and released in a 9-kts thermal over the airport. I climbed up to 11,000 ft, headed north west (apparently I misheard Hans' pirep of a wave), couldn't find anything, came back to the same thermal at 8,000 ft, backed up to 11,000 ft again, and headed south west. Over the Northstar ski resort, I was able to contact a weak wave (1.5 kts), and climbed to 12,500 ft. I decided to try the same route (going south along the west side of Lake). On hwy 84 near Squaw Valley ski resort, I contacted another weak wave (1.5 kts), climbed a bit, and continued on to the south. Sure enough, right around 4 miles south of Tahoe City where I caught the best wave yesterday, I contacted a stronger wave (3 kts), which brought me to 14,000 ft. I headed south again, and flew 4 miles or so gaining 500 ft just like I did yesterday, but then I started to observe a sink. Remembering the sink I had before I reached the city of South Lake Tahoe yesterday, I turned back, flew the same path and gained another 500 ft to 15,000 ft, and decided to go east of the lake this time. Like yesterday, a few other pilots including Sergio, Ramy, and Yuliy already used the Minden wave earlier. I crossed the lake, and arrived Spooner Pass at 13,000 ft.


Crossing Lake Tahoe at 15,000 ft
(if you have a highspeed connection, click here, and watch in high quality)


The earlier reports said that a strong wave was west of Washoe Lake, so I headed there only to find a consistant sink. Apparently, I was flying between the primary wave and the secondary wave. When I came somewhere between Washoe Lake and Mt Rose at 11,000 ft which was the lowest altitude I had heard from those who caught a wave there earlier, I finally hit -10 kts sink, so I headed to Carson City airport. Then at 9,000 ft, over the south end of Washoe Lake, I hit a strong wave (max 11 kts), and maxed out to 18,000 ft in 25 minutes. Then I wondered what the best use of this altitude was other than annoying Reno Approach. Ramy and Yuliy were further south then, around Mono Lake. I thought about heading south too, but the area between where I was and Whites was totally blue. The top of haze was way below me, and was indicating that I could not expect a thermal to back me up to this kind of altitude if I get low. I headed to Pine Nuts mountain range up to Mine turn point, but wasn't convinced that I should go further, so headed back to Washoe Lake, did a little video shooting, and flew over Mt Rose to go back to Truckee. When I came to the east-side foot of the ridge that starts from Mt Rose, I hit a strong wave again, and learned that this was the wave other pilots had used earlier that day. I wasn't flying west enough to catch the wave on my first attempt. After I came back to Truckee area, I headed north west to see where sierraville was, and landed at 6:13pm. It was a 4.4-hour flight.

More pictures can be found here.