I arrived at the Lz at 11:00 with one of my neighbors who wanted to come along for the hike. Initially the winds were very light. But as we hiked up to the lower launch they were stronger than I had expected. (10 -17 mph) I set up on the SW launch and waited (quite a while) for a low cycle. I lauched at 1 pm and immediately rose a few hundred feet. I flew S to the next ridge and scratched around for 5min. Then the next thermal came and took me up to 7000'. I flew forward and had no problem penetrating. My air speed was around 20 mph and my ground speed was 10 mph. The air temp. up there was 44 F. I flew out well past the Lz with little sink. Later I headed back to the hill and did some spirals, wingovers , big ears, etc. and then decided to land since the winds over the Lz seemed to be getting stronger. I flew for 35 minutes and was happy to be in the air. Gunter