How To Fall Off A Mountain

Rich Benbrook

Using the Maps

Mount Whitney

Monarch Lake

Vidette Meadow

Cottonwood Lakes

Onion Valley to
Whitney Portal

Symmes Creek to
Mineral King

Mount Tyndall

Whitney Group

Mount Shasta

Mount Williamson

Palisades

Middle Palisade
Revisited

Thunder Mountain

Middle Palisade
Try Again

Middle Palisade
Take Three

Mount Sill

Thunderbolt Peak
Climbing Up

Thunderbolt Peak
Climbing Down

Thunderbolt Peak
Rescue

Aerial Photos

National Park Service Search and Rescue

Links

Middle Palisade Revisited

maps:

Later in the summer, I returned to the scene of my agonizing defeat on Middle Palisade, this time from high above on another sailplane flight. Apparently, Middle Palisade had not yet forgiven my transgression at the old grave on her sister Split Mountain, and she was not yet through beating up on me.

The flight up to this point had been relatively uneventful. I had launched from Tehachapi in a borrowed Jantar 2A for an early September cruise up the Sierra. Not the most nimble sailplane I've ever flown, the Jantar's 48 to 1 glide ratio barely compensates for its pitiful roll rate and completely ineffective rudder. Fortunately, thermals were quite good under the blue, cloudless sky. Only stopping to circle if the lift exceeded a thousand feet per minute, I herded this venerable old ship north to Bishop.

At an altitude of nearly 18,000 feet above sea level, I arrived above the summit of Middle Palisade. Pressure had been building in my bladder, so I filled a Ziploc bag carried just for this purpose and prepared to jettison the pee-bomb. Now I was struck with a devious thought. Here was my opportunity to extract a little revenge from Middle Palisade. I flew over the top of the mountain, checked for climbers and seeing none, flung the pee-filled pouch out the window.

Much to my dismay, the bomb did not fall down and away as expected. Instead, it flew up and hit the leading edge of the wing, where it became firmly attached.

I tried everything to shake loose the ugly jellyfish-like parasite affixed to my wing. I flew fast. I flew slow. I stalled. I pulled several g's. I pushed over to zero g. I slipped and skidded and lost precious altitude, but the bomb would not drop free. Just inches from my face, but separated from me by the Plexiglas canopy and hopelessly out of reach, the disgusting ornament dangled, mocking my futile attempts to break its grip.

At this point, to say the glider flew poorly would be an understatement. Stall speed and sink rate were both noticeably higher. The disturbed air struck the elevator, creating a continuous buffeting and stick shaking. Adding insult to injury, every time I turned my head to look left, all I saw was a large bag of yellow liquid hanging unceremoniously from the wing.

I evaluated my options. Landing out was not one of them. I had arranged neither a crew nor a tow vehicle, and the trailer for this glider is not considered roadworthy. With a hundred and fifty miles to go, I resigned myself to a long, miserable flight home.

For a while, I continued to fly in rising air and was able to maintain altitude. Then about ten miles north of Inyokern the lift ended abruptly. The wind was light, and I was still at 16,000 feet. An average glide ratio of just under 30 to 1 would take me home with no additional lift, so I was blissfully confident.

I hit descending air, and it soon became evident that I probably would not make it over the ridges between me and Tehachapi. I continued, hoping for lift and knowing that the California City airport would be a good option if a glide into Tehachapi became unfeasible.

But the sink worsened. Now California City was completely out of the picture as well. Already descending at a rate greater than a thousand feet per minute, I hit sink so strong my camera flew up against the top of the canopy. Now I set my sights on Inyokern just a few miles off the nose. With no way to retrieve the glider, an out landing was unthinkable.

Fortunately, the sink decreased somewhat. I was still descending fast, but at least the needle occasionally bounced off the bottom peg of the vertical speed indicator. I lost nearly twelve thousand feet in ten miles, and arrived over the Inyokern airport only a thousand feet above the ground.

Thankful for the safe landing spot below me, I abandoned thoughts of any further attempt at flying the rest of the way home. I lowered the landing gear, opened the spoilers and set up for a landing.

As I made the left turn to final approach, the pee-bomb bomb hideously swinging back and forth under the wing served as a cruel reminder of my second failure this summer on spiteful Middle Palisade.