Mike Cozza
Thursday, 2/22/2024
EJ to the VOR to Spine One (Ojai) to Snowball (top land) to Polo Ridge to Padaro

Reference: [Flt 1 IGC Data File] [Flt 2 IGC Data File] and [Google Earth KMZ File] and [JPG Overview]

The longest leg and the longest collection of legs in the United States on Thursday? (as per XCfind)

49.5 Miles Straight Line Over-Flown Distance (SLOFD) around 2 turnpoints (3 legs)
EJ westbound to the VOR Spine / 3.9 miles
The VOR Spine Eastbound to Spine One (Ojai) / 28.5 miles
Spine One to Polo Ridge / 17.0 miles

Max Altitude 5,049 Ft MSL
4 hours 56 minutes 9 seconds total airtime for both (2) flights
1st flight / 4 hours 9 minutes 50 seconds / Takeoff at 10:48:15 / Land at 2:58:05 PST
2nd flight / 0 hours 46 minutes 19 seconds / Takeoff at 3:07:02 / Land at 3:53:21 PST

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Mike's Narrative / response to SD Telegram DM questions and comments:

SD Questions and Comments
Curious about your thought process and choices, like:

• It appears on your eastbound leg you had light drift from the west up to East Divide, then east up high but west down lower? Example: Spine One in Ojai.
• Why did you angel out from the back ridge for the Castle Front Points after the Ramero Road Cut?
• Why did you choose to turn at Spine One and head back westbound?
• Somewhat amazed that you continued to plug upwind westbound from Superior Meadow (below White Ledge) with marginal altitude (rather than simply falling downwind back toward Hwy 33).
• and also curious about your mindset westbound below The Power Line Crossing where your were at your minimum altitude (only 2200 MSL) but committed to connect by reaching deeper NW away from civilization…

Mike's Response to Tom's questions:

Cloud base forced most of my actions.  Heading out from Romero it was pretty low and I saw Neal get a bit stuck.  I saw birds over the Castle Front Points and it was much sunnier.

I read that the prior day cloudbase was rising as the day progressed so I thought even if I can squeak into Ojai then maybe on the way back cloudbase would be higher, but in actuality it continued to drop.

I could have continued east from Spine One but I didn’t have retrieve and Neal said it looked like Santa Ana’s were coming through the Santa Clara river valley, so I opted to try to make it back and self retrieve.

I thought if I could at least make the top of White Ledge then I could make it back, but cloudbase kept dropping as I progressed and I got to a point of no return, so I figured it was going to be a long hike out either way, so just committed to giving it my all.

The Powerline Crossing on the way back was extremely difficult but there was a cloud forming even deeper and based on where I was it seemed like I was going to get stuck behind them if I didn’t try so I just went for it.  I got the climb I needed and knew I could at least make it over the lines and land on Snowball.  Risky but rewarding!

That was my first Snowball landing/relaunch.  From there I saw birds ridge soaring Polo Ridge so I just went and joined them.  I could have stayed there forever but got hungry and wanted a tri tip sandwich...

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