Have you seen the cover photo on the Facebook page. :-). It should give you a good chuckle...

I love mountain flying but I think many of us also love classic thermal competition in a nice landable topography. Pure thermal flying is, in many ways, more challenging as there are usually several efficient "routes" along each leg. Cloud selection and reading the heating potential of the upcoming surface features are key vs. simply flying to the next best mountain peak aligned to the sun/wind. Mountain tasks (seems to me) tend to collect gliders along the same route. This can create a bit of a parade with few alternative routes (which are often high risk).

As for the weather, the entire eastern USA has been fairly poor in general the past few years. By 2016 it will be cooking again! We have had incredible flying the last three years in Ionia during late July.

In the future I am certain more exotic US locations will host the U.S. Sailpane Grand Prix Qualifier. With only 2 weeks left to submit the FAI bid, there is still time for one of them to step up to the plate and take a swing....