carnage

I had a very memorable flight today second only to the nastyness that happened afterword. First, my flight, I was later in the launch line after watching a few get away slow and few sink out. I locked into a great thermal right off launch and was soon at 10 grand. that was the last turning I did for the rest of the flight. 50 km out and return with one turn. I've heard of people doing it but never thought it was possible. I bounced between 11000' and 9500 for the entire trip. the air was semi rough but nothing abnormal for here. I turned around do to an ugly storm brewing down the valley. Which leads me to my second half of my adventure.

The entire valley to the south was black. I turned trail and ran home. I was on the ground and packed up when it started raining gliders. When the gust front hit there was likely 15 still in the air. All the paragliders ran downwind and to my knowledge only one wound up in the hospital with injuries unknown to me at this time. 3 hang gliders were parked at full speed and hat the ride of their lives. Searge made it down with only a broken down tube. Doug K piled in hard and took out at least two downtubes. He got popped at 50 feet and stalled straight in. Dave B was the last and he was doing good until the bottom dropped out and he piled in with a high speed skid. glider fine, him bleeding but ok. There was a few lessons learned and I was very happy with my decition.