I flew up at Whitewater on Sunday. Once again, I flew with a camera, and once again, I had camera problems. On my first flight my vario was not working. I'm not sure what's going on with it, but it gets in some wierd mode and I can't get it out. I ended up releasing from tow around 1700' feet (I guess), and turned every now and then. I've gotten pretty good at knowing when I hit lift. You can feel the acceleration in your chest as you are pushed into the harness. I also can feel when I accelerate downward - you get that "i'm floating" feeling. The hard part is knowing when you are in consistant lift or sink. When on glide, I can usually look at the horizon and see rise or sink, but while turning in a thermal at a constant speed, I have no clue if I'm going up or down. I can see it better at low altitudes, but up high I don't stand a chance. Perhaps I am looking in the wrong place. After a 15 minute flight, I got towed up again with a working vario. I released in light lift at 1900'AGL and took it up to 2k, but at that point it was a bunch of light bubbles. After turning in that area for awile, I was at a slight net loss, so I decided to search elsewhere. Thermals are supposed to come from dry, dark field, and will usually be found after a downwind trigger on a windy day. I try to use this while flying. I search 2 or 3 locations that I thought would be good, but found nothing but sink. I was then flying back to the airport when at 700' I felt the pressure in my chest that only a hangglider pilot can really enjoy. I looked down and slightly up wind and what did I find? A swamped field of light color. I started to turn lightly, and then kept trying to find the core of the thermal. I tried using a new technique I learned from Mike Barber in Tennessee, which is to control turn radius with pitch (push in or out) rather than roll (push the bar to the side). In a hang glider, we have good pitch authority with very little effort, whereas roll control takes a lot of muscle. I used to try to get into the core by attempting to roll really hard into the rising air. Remember that when doing so, the rising air that you are trying to get into is actually rasing the wing on that side and trowing you back out. Trying to overcome this will roll control takes a lot of effort. However, if you are already in a turn and feel you are really close on the core, you can push out on the bar. This will slow you down (keeping you in the core longer), decrease your turn radius (keeping you in a tighter circle on the core), and takes very little energy. The slight increase in turn slip and increased spiral dive speed are nothing compared to the upward speed in the core of a thermal. A tight spiral in normal air makes you go down fast, but a tight spiral right in the core of a thermal will make you go up, up, and away. I ended up coring this thermal really well. The vario was showing a constant 300 fpm upward, and I held on for several minutes taking me up to 3500'. It was cold that day, and the temperature + wind chill that high was taking its toll on me. I was shivvering, and my fingers were numb - but not numb enough to make me leave a thermal. Eventually I slowly came back to terra firma, riding a few bubbles on the way. I ended this nice flight with a great no-step landing. Not my best flight ever - but definatly was my best October flight ever.