20210422022289A

Flight was intended to be a cross country contest. At approximately 1900? AGL pilot felt a significant surge of lift and released the tow. He was unsuccessful in finding the lift, and proceeded to search over ground that appeared favorable to generate thermals. Finding none after 5 search circles, he proceeded to head towards the airport in case he would need to land. A short time later his altitude was approximately 1000? AGL and he was approximately 1.8 statue miles from the airport. Pilot encountered significant downdraft of sinking air, which reduced his altitude to approximately 600? AGL by the time I was approximately 1.5 miles from the airport. At this point the time and distance to the airport was not practical as the path would take the glider over nothing but trees of 50-75 foot height. The field that was attempted to use was surrounded by trees and was approximately a 500X600 foot rectangular area. I tried to enter the field as low and slow as possible, but was not able to reach the ground before the glider impacted the trees at the northern edge and western portion of the field. Pilot configured the glider when entering the field for landing. Pilot consciously decided to enter the trees versus attempting to turn to the east, as he stated would almost certainly have stalled and spun into the ground.