Okay, I'm posting this really late, but I took the day off work to fly the Friedls. I don't have time to write a lot of details, but there is some info (and a QuickTime movie) available here.
I'll try not to wait so long before posting next time.
Well, after Russell's thermal alert for the weekend, I hoped Saturday would be good. And it was.
After some early flights and low thermaling in the BASA Grob with Jim and then Stan (working on my Grob checkout), I launched with my first *real* passenger (a friend who'd never flown in a glider before) in the ASK-21. We launched a bit before noon off 24 and headed toward the foothills east of the airport.
We released at 3,500 and found lift after a couple turns. We spent the next hour flying along the foothills. Didn't go much farther north than Fraiser Lake. We could have kept going, but the the thermaling eventually got the best of my passenger. :-(
We spent most of the time above 3,000 feet and managed to hit 4,000 a few times. Couldn't go too much higher without worrying about cloud clearances.
Other than that setback, we both had a blast. He was impressed to see that we could stay up in the air that long, and I was glad to stumble my way through the process.
While this is routine for any experienced glider pilot, this was my first real chance to practice thermaling without another pilot or instructor along to help.
Of course, next time, I'll release lower and work my way up.
Oh, he took a bunch of pictures. Hopefully they'll be on-line soon.