Thanks for the post. Sounds like a great flight and a dream come true.

I fly a motor glider out of Hayward, just south of Oakland and I've
had a few "dream come true" flights in the area also. The first was
making it across the Sierras at Yosemite without the engine. I'd
soared across the Sierras at Tahoe many times, but the mountains are
much higher and wider at Yosemite, and I play it cautious in terms of
having the engine on whenever I'm not within safe gliding distance of
an airport (for various reasons an off-field landing is not an option
in my ship).

The second dream flight was soaring over Yosemite Valley itself --
really going up. That happened when I found mild wave at the east end
of the valley and got to almost 18k. The two remaining dream flights
(at least that I've thought of) would be

a) making it all the way back from the Sierras to Hayward without the
engine. I had hoped that might happen the same day as the wave flight,
since a 50:1 glide ratio should have almost allowed me to make the
roughly 150 nm from my altitude of almost 18k feet. But reality as
well as a head wind left that as a dream yet to be realized.

b) making it all the way from Hayward to the Sierras with just a short
engine run to launch. Brian Choate did the equivalent last year when
he launched from Hollister, got real high down by Panoche and made it
all the way to Truckee via Yosemit-- in a pure glider.

Anyone make any of these dream flights or have others to share?