Flutterby™! : Gliders and Clouds

Asha and I hiked up Sugarloaf Mountain today. We wanted a short hike with good views and this turned out to be excellent. There were lots of lenticular clouds in the sky and some snow left on the ground. We were treated to views of the plains to the east and the Rockies all around. There was also a glider floating around. The Boulder Municipal Airport is very active with gliders and I never thought about them hanging around up in the higher elevations. Via WikiPedia:

This is because the systems of atmospheric standing waves that cause "lennies" (as they are sometimes familiarly called) also involve large vertical air movements, and the precise location of the rising air mass is fairly easy to predict from the orientation of the clouds. "Wave lift" of this kind is often very smooth and strong, and enables gliders to soar to remarkable altitudes and great distances. The current gliding world records for both distance (over 3,000km) and altitude (14,938m) were set using such lift.