Yesterday’s forecast, showed reasonable weather between home and Lone Pine Flyin 2026 in Owen’s Valley California. I was at the airport at 8am and wheels up at 9am. VFR and only broken cloud layer until I climbed to 5500ft. I passed San Luis Reservoir and in the distance it looked like I could make my way through Central Valley by descending below the overcast. Fresno, Visalia and Porterville were M/VFR and trending better. The Sierras were passable abeam Kern Valley.

Few miles in and I saw the wall, very low ceilings and low visibility. I descended near Los Banos to take a look and could only turn back. Always have a way out, mine was to climb back up and into Hollister.

I landed, refueled and hanged out at the BASA Soaring Club and Hollister Soaring Center. Noon rolled by, I ate my hot soup and two sandwiches I made for the trip. There was convective activity and cloud bases were actually dropping. Satellite images, forecasts and weather reports were not showing notable improvement over central valley. My goal was to make it to O26 Lone Pine Airport, with a fuel stop en-route (always have extra fuel to divert to alternative airports), by 4pm. At 1pm I called the trip off, jumped in the plane and flew back home.

By 3:30pm I was at home and checking weather cameras along my Sierra’s crossing route and all showed bad conditions. Simultaneously, convective weather reports were released for the area and weather radar showed a big north-south line of thunderstorms blocking my would-be route of flight.

I made the right decision. Two hours in the air, pack, unpack, go, fly, land, sit, wait for weather, and go home. There is a saying “Better to wish you were in the air, than to wish you were on the ground”. I was on the ground :)

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