Another point that was made to me today by one of the other pilots at the camp is that i may have been significantly more predisposed to the bailout option because i have jumped before and don't find it all that intimidating. While I do agree that this very well may be true once in IMC, the idea of bailing out never comes across my mind while flying, and i didn't actually even consider the notion that i may need to until i went into full IMC. It became the decision once i was still in IMC and below mountaintop level.

From my perspective, the flight went much like one of those "Choose your adventure" books, where at each step both choices seem rather benign, until you are 4-5 steps in and you wish you could go back to the first chapter. In my case, my intent was never to go IMC, it was actually to avoid it altogether and take what appeared to me at the time to be the most conservative option of descend immediately. continuing to the second gap when the first closed is what i see as my greatest mistake of the flight. With the Oudie moving map going white intermittently, i did not have as good of situational awareness as i should have as to the location of the second hole (way down the valley). Once i arrived at it, all future decisions became means to survive, and in the end worked out as well as they possibly could have (given the insurance comparison to total vs. repair from an out landing).
Chris