I had traveled to Denver by airline, and was now trying to get the motorglider reassembled. It had been disassembled in a hangar, and after a delay of finding someone with a key to the hangar and the help of some friends, its wings were back where they should be. By the time the plane was checked and loaded up, it was afternoon, the wind had picked up and it was 28°C warm. With a field elevation of almost 6000 ft the Centennial airport is not exactly low, and at that temperature the density altitude was about 8800 ft. The wind was gusting 18 kts to 23 kts, 30° off the runway, so the take off was interesting. I had told the tower that I would have to circle to climb using thermals anywhere on my departure, which he approved. The initial acceleration was miserable, but with this strong wind the Falke lifted off in about 500 ft. It took a long time to accelerate to my climb speed of 55 kts, and I gained about 200 ft before the wind gusts decided to quit helping. I lost half of that altitude, while still over the 5000 ft runway, then gained a little and found some lift. I started circling just off the end of the runway while the tower directed the other airplanes around me. Under these conditions and calm air the Falke would climb at less than 200 ft/min, but this was anything but calm air. Eventually, about 500 ft off the ground and at full throttle, I started westbound to clear the Denver class B airspace. I found more thermals, pulled the power back to idle and eventually climbed up to a comfortable 13,000 ft, where it was still +11°C (15,400 ft density altitude). Now with a tailwind I turned northbound.

I had to fly a detour to avoid the highest mountains just west of Denver. The sky, which had been sunny at Centennial, had become overcast from an approaching front. From the cloud character I could tell that there was a combination of wave and thermals active. This creates areas of good lift and strong, widespread sink, the trick is to have enough altitude to ride out the sink and gain it back in the lift. One thousand feet could be gone quickly, so I tried to stay more than 2000 ft above the ground. I flew through the first rain shower near Fort Collins, and turned northwest as soon as the terrain allowed. Because it was so late in the day, and more weather loomed ahead, I stopped for the night in Laramie, 7200 ft elevation.

Low clouds covered the hills surrounding Laramie the next morning. The weather report promised more of that en route and thunderstorms later during the day. I waited a while, until the clouds had lifted some, and took off, following the highway. The wind on the ground had been very light, but at all other altitudes it was blowing hard out of the southwest. I watched the cloud shadows race over the ground, this was a crosswind for me and my crab angle was about 20°. The groundspeed was around 50 kts, and the wind created ridge and wave lift (and sink). I could not climb very high because of the clouds and had to work on maintaining enough altitude to clear the terrain. In the lee of some hills, which were covered by showers just south of me, I played with the GPS to figure out where my next stop would be. It was obvious that with the present ground speed I could not make it to Rock Springs, but had to take the next available airport, which was Rawlins, elevation 6813 ft. So far the hills and plains looked really green, it must have rained rather a lot lately. Sometimes the air was bumpy, but often there was smooth, widespread lift, which must have been wave, even at this low altitude above the ground. Occasionally a ridge would be orientated the right way to help me out with ridge lift as well. In Rawlins the wind was blowing straight down the runway, and I took the time to go to a nearby restaurant for lunch. When I returned to the airport, a large dark shower was blocking my way to the west. The wind picked up and it rained for a while accompanied by thunder and lightning. I waited some more, and finally the shower cleared off. After takeoff I realized that the wind had gotten even stronger and shifted west, directly on the nose. My initial groundspeed was a miserable 34 kts, and I watched the trucks on the highway pass me easily. First there was not much lift, but the thunderstorm had left a high cloud overcast, which extended for more than 20 miles. This overcast had stabilized the air and allowed wave formation. It was weak lift, but I used it to climb to more than 9,000 ft. At this altitude my groundspeed improved somewhat, reaching 45 kts on occasion. When the overcast ended, it seemed that I had reached a boundary between air masses. The new one was dry and initially stable, and the land underneath me suddenly looked brown and dry, no more green hills and open water.

Soon good thermals developed, in which I circled, reaching about 12,000 ft. I pretty much had enough of that strong headwind and headed for the next airport to wait for more favorable conditions. Rock Springs was only 85 nm from Rawlins, but it took me almost two hours to get there. The air was now clear and dry, with blue thermals and a lot of turbulence. They have a really long runway, fortunately pointed right into the wind. The elevation was still high with 6760 ft, but the temperature was a lot cooler than Denver. When I touched down, there was no need to wait for the motorglider to roll out and slow down, I was already at slow walking speed and the airspeed indicator showed 30 kts while I taxied to the closest turnoff. I had an argument with the Falke to convince it to turn onto the taxiway, the tailwheel skidded over the asphalt trying to turn back into the wind. A voice greeted me over the radio, asking if I needed fuel, I called back, yes, but can someone turn the wind off first. The large ramp was almost empty, not many people were flying in these conditions. Fortunately they had a large empty hangar available, in which the Falke spend the night safely. I got invited to stay at the airport attendant's house, who lived next to the airport with his family.

The next morning dawned clear, cold and calm, what a relief. There actually was light wind out of the east on the ground, and this would make up for yesterday's trouble.

After I came back from lunch, a lot of airplanes where flying around the pattern for touch-and-goes in such tight spacing, that I had to force my way onto the runway for take off. I apologize to the guy who had to go around, but I just could not see an end to their activity and did not want to wait much longer. The Falke crept out low over the bright green fields, until I found the first thermal 3 miles west of the airport. I did a few circles and gained 2000 ft in 300 fpm lift. A few miles further the next thermal with stronger lift came off the valley floor, and lifted me even higher. To the south I could see the big salt lake. The hills I had to clear were not very high, only in the 8-9000 ft range, separated by wide flat valleys with plenty of landing fields in between. By the time I got up to 12,000 ft, the Snake River Valley stretched out in front of me. No more thermals reached up to my altitude and I cruised along for a while in calm air. I had picked up some tailwind and my ground speed had increased to 75-80 kts. I could have flown further with the fuel I had, but I thought Gooding, Idaho was a good place to refuel. Its elevation of 3728 ft was the lowest so far on this trip. It had a self-serve pump and I did not spend much time on the ground. By now the wind was blowing quite strong with 15-20 kts out of the east, an indication of good thermals. The wind was lined up on the runway, and even though it was slightly uphill I had no trouble. Before pushing the throttle in I observed a large dust devil vacuuming dirt from a plowed field right next to the runway. It did not seem to come any closer than about 200 yards to the runway, so I decided to take off anyway. As any good low pressure area north of the equator, it was rotating counter-clockwise, which resulted in a good push for me and additional altitude when I most needed it. I turned 180° around it and soon found strong lift. I must have hit a lift street in the blue, because I continued to be lifted with 600-800 ft/min while I was flying straight west without a single circle, up to 9000 ft. All along the valley floor more dust devils were rising from the brown fields and marking the start of thermals, but I was too high by now to make use of them. I continued to climb with thermals until I reached 12,000 ft (-5°C up there) and was getting pushed along nicely by the east wind with ground speeds of 85 kts. I saw the only two other airplanes in flight on this trip near the military airport Mountain Home, two F-18 passing a thousand feet above me. I looked up my alternatives for the next stop on the chart, and decided I could make it to Burns. I crossed the river again, which flowed north now, and left the large valley behind. Now came what I considered the most uninhabitated and unlandable stretch of country, Eastern Oregon. There were few roads, fewer houses and almost no fields. Everything looked dry and scorched under the sun. The hills were only about 6000 ft high, with the valleys at 4000 ft elevation. There were fewer thermals now, or maybe they did not reach up to my altitude anymore. I made sure I stayed high until the GPS announced it was time to start my descent into Burns. Strange enough in this desert is a large shallow lake, south of Burns, and the flat valley north of it is threaded with small waterways. Farmers made good use of the precious liquid, and there were many green fields around Burns. This airport offered two long runways and a moderate elevation of 4141 ft. By now I was too tired to continue, I had flown about 460 nm today.

I spent the night there and continued the next morning. Again the sky was clear and the air not cold. No wind to speak of made it hard to decide which runway to use, I ended up taking the closest one to the ramp. It was too early for lift to develop, the only help I got to climb were some weak bumps, which soon faded out. Fortunately the hills were quite low, the highest obstacle between me and Bend was only 6300 ft high. From 90 miles distance the white peaks of the Sisters showed up over the light haze, this is where I was headed. First I had to cross more uninhabitated country, before more and more farms showed up in narrow green valleys. I almost made it up to 10,000 ft, in the hope of checking out some inviting looking lenticulars. But at this altitude the wind speed was less than 10 kts, which meant no wave lift. I finally got within range of Bend, my final destination and landed uneventfully. Without the long wings of the motorglider, which enabled me to fly it more like a glider, this trip would have been almost impossible to make with a similarly low powered airplane.