On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 1:00:45 PM UTC-8, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
The Minden valley is benign, but since my hypothetical contest was out of Truckee, and I am attempting to return late in day along pine nuts. Is the deck 14,000 at Bald Mtn if I attempt a final glide from there or 5500 if I go North by Air-Sailing?

On Friday, January 26, 2018 at 11:22:56 AM UTC-8, John Cochrane wrote:
The minden valley is about 4700 and pretty benign, so I'd put the hard deck in that area at 5500' MSL. The point is to not give points for low altitude thermaling.


Jonathan, the hard deck is not intended to get you home. It's intended to keep from having to compete with those who are willing to risk life and limb to win. The deck at Mt Baldy would be well below Mt. Baldy, as good airports (well, airports anyway) exist to the south, north, and east of the peak. It's probably the same 5500' MSL. A crash on Mt Baldy (and there have been) will be due to a stall spin, not running out of altitude to get to a landing.

A better question might be, what is the deck over Lake Tahoe? We have pilots that are willing to commit to the water, hoping that there will be sufficient ridge lift at Day Dreams to keep them from getting wet. Pilots have died trying this. We have had pilots place well at contests doing this. We have had well known foreign pilots landing on the golf course in Tahoe City and by some miracle missing everyone with no loss of life. A deck over the water that allows a return to South Shore or an exit through Spooner or Brockway passes prevents me from having to compete with those pilots. They're going to do it anyway on non-contest days, but I do not pay the price for their foolishness. There are posters here who will argue it is their right to get wet if they so choose. But that just hands the trophy to the greatest fool that survived his foolishness.