Gordon Boettger, who was hoping to fly more than 900 miles in a downwind glider dash from Minden, Nev., to Rapid City, S.D., was forced to land about halfway to his record-setting goal. Deteriorating weather prompted him to land in Twin Falls, Idaho.
Boettger was trying to ride a mountain wave, the high-altitude winds that ricochet off the western mountain ranges of North America and persist for hundreds of miles. Boettger set a record last year by surfing a mountain wave for 1,321 miles.
