Before this last Saturday that was the last time I flew the Stones. I was with Jacque Neff and John Lowery. The Wx was overcast with ceilings at 8800', winds SW 10-15 with snow virga. My log shows I flew one hour 30 minutes and saw an eagle. good launch, good landing. Scratched low for several passes before catching on and getting up to 8000' where I stayed for the remainder of the flight.
Fast forward to Saturday July 3, 2004. David Snyder helped Eric Smith, John Lowery and I hump our gliders up, wired us off, then drove the Jeep back to the LZ to await our return. Thanks alot Dave. Thats the kind of effort TFD wants out of its Firefighters. Eric was off first, I think around 3:30, in temps in the mid 90's, winds SW 10-15. He was followed a while later by John in the same conditions, under partly cloudy skies with mares tail cirrus and lower cumulus. I followed John some time after on the Falcon 2 and worked up to 10500', the lowest altitude of the three of us. The temps there must have been in the mid 40's, my arms were pleasantly chilly under my long sleeved but thin cotton shirt. Didn't use the bar mits. Did lazy 360's in big fat bouyant thermals that were spread out at regular intervals. I flew up wind to the LZ twice, descending to 7500' before catching those big fat bubbles to work back up to altitude above launch. The Falcon likes to take its time upwind, but goes downwind like a horse to the corral. What a nice little glider. Right and left 360's, bump turns, VMs, VMc, stalls, felt like I had never been away from flying. After an hour and 25 minutes I thought Eric and John were going to go over the back and Xc, so I thought Id get down so Dave and I could chase. (they didn't) so I flew on out and tried to do s turns over the jeep to set up for landing (its going to be awhile before I get my set up right for landings). I did, but kept drifting downwind. At Dave's suggestion via radio and gesticulations, I managed to get a bit upwind of the jeep and on base got up on the uprights , momentarily caught my foot on the zipper pull, cleared that up, turned final, pulled the bar back to my belly and flew right on down to a round out above the downwind waving grasses, reached out with my toes and settled down to a very very soft landing. No flare, just stopped moving forward.

Wow. Happy to be back in the air. I had the shortest and lowest flight but it was great... Wow. Didn't see any eagles but I guess thats ok. We packed up , and drove back arriving in Tucson after dark.