Jim,
I took one look at your photo of the clouds near Tehachapi and new we had crossed on the same morning. The clouds over the pass itself looked truly intimidating and I'll bet you felt the same way about them.
I had nearly the same experience as you up at Red Bluff. I had already climbed up to 13,500' to get above the weather around Shasta, and thought maybe I should fuel up first. The ASOS at Red Bluff convinced me to go for it and keep that altitude. Over the passes at Shasta with 160 Kts TAS, I was getting between 60 and 80 Kts GS! There was a nice hole over the Medford airport so I fueled there, but getting out to the North could not be VFR without going up on top of the clouds again. It looked like a great white curtain with snow coming to the ground.
So right back up through the hole to 13,500' with the strong headwinds until I was over the valley near Eugene, it was a broken layer and I had no difficulty finding a hole to descend down through. It was still bumpy with headwinds but I finished my trip back to Kent without getting much higher than 2000'. At least I could see that I was going faster than the cars on I-5!
I had attended the Alternative Engine Roundup at Jean Nevada, hosted by Contact magazine. I had strong headwinds for the entire trip except the last 30 minutes or so. I couldn't believe it landing at Crest Airpark with no wind after making that trip. I made good use of my turbo charger getting up on top several times along the way.
Randy C
RV7A Turbo Sube STI
