At last a flight! The air has cleared, a little, however the cloud base is only 200m above take off. I'm away early and am glad for my Atis it has always been a very stable glider. As you fly out over the cliff face the up currents hit the wing and suddenly it's up and away and just as quickly it's big sink. I take a few minutes to adjust to the conditions and then get going. It's hard to stay out of the cloud, but with the cloud touching the ridge in places it's a must to stay safe. I do a small out and return to the first crossing and then my GPS runs out of power. Theres no way am i going to reload it in flight in these turbulant conditions so i play around the launch area doing a little acro. The last pilot off launch climbs up and heads along the ridge. I decide to follow him as he looks to have a purpose. We fly for 6-7km along the ride bouncing off cloud base until we come to a canyon. Here the pilot turns out into the flatland and so i follow, i feel that he is heading for the club in Linzhou so i follow him.
With the smog i can't se where we are making for? Eventually I start to see the town of Linzhou, however i am not going to make the sports stadium so decide to land on a very inviting piece of grass in what looks like a school. I'm down and safe and realise that it isn't a school but a deserted office complex? Very soon I'm met by a security officer who speaks no English. I show the clubs card to him and he invites me into his guard post to wait out of the sun. A short time later and the mystery pilot turns out to be Mr Yu, a club official, who has a taxi for us to get back to the club...cost $1.Not much of an XC flight only 13km but under the conditions not bad and very rewarding.
I am now heading back to Beijing to catch the train to Mongolia. Talking to the Russian pilots from Vladivostok the air is clear in September and the thermals big, soft and going up to 2,000m. Maybe another trip as this site has good potential and the people very friendly.