Nelson's gave it up big! The hike was brutal as always, I launched in light thermals, thought I was sinking out, but maybe about 320 ft above the flats I caught a weak thermal.
Milked it milked it, made it back up to the ridge where it was pretty strong. I got boosted up to about 6,500, pushed out, made it across the Dragon's Mouth. Battled my way up the ridge, finally got to North Franklin, pushed out front because it was real rough over the peak.
Climbed to about 8200, drifted back to North Franklin, found a really nice thermal, l rode that baby up to 12,300 (12,600' barometric) which was cloud-base! Almost but not quite in some wispies, probably just as well because that would have been a violation of airspace.
I'm guessing I got about 300 ft from the bottom of the cloud. Boated around for a while, landed at the entrance to Franklin Mountains State Park.
Pretty great for a flight where my goal was to not have to hike down!