Until next year...

Chamonix

The team were dropping fast today. Cockeye Flewett and Mark Holden both left for home after the briefing, Steve Ell had problems with a leaking oxygen system and Andy Holmes was keen to fly on his own so it was down to just me, Dan Pitman and Dane Dickinson to keep the side up. We headed North with some better climbs than yesterday but more humidity around, so by the time we popped into the Sollieres valley we decided to fly with the lower bases out to the West. So we had a nice little cruise past Albertville, Megeve and across to Les Houches before moving onto the slopes of Mt Blanc. There's something about mountains - the crags, the icefields, the grandeur -that's captivating so once more the camera was working overtime. We ran up the Chamonix valley, taking care to avoid the cables on the Aiguille du Midi cable car, climbed over the Mer de Glace and stuck our noses into Switzerland before turning for home. The ridges facing West were still being blasted with sunshine so worked just fine and we had a fairly straightforward run home. Dane wanted to top things up to yet another 500km flight so we turned Serres and ran a street up to the Vercors and town of Die. Then it was home for smokers and derigs. I think that's me done for another year.

What a day

The met maps for today showed most of the alps looking really good so we packed our passports and

toothbrushes and launched early.

5 of us headed North via Pic de Bure and crossed direct from 7500' to the slopes near Guillaume. We arrived fairly low but a bit of perseverance with the ridge lift and therms got us up to 8500'and away to Tete d'Amont and 10,000'.

We continued North over Bradonecchia, Sollieres and turned right to go up over Tignes at 12,000'. We made our first turn at Ferret, between Blanc and Aoste and crossed over the ski resort of Verbier to the North of the Sion valley. A pair of impressive eagles marked the climb and helped us out. The valley scenery here had changed markedly - much more Swiss precision in the layout of meadows! We ran East past Sion and Turtmann until it was 4 p.m. and we were something like 260kms out from Serres. The temptation to go further was strong as ahead things looked well formed and the valley made a very obvious route but the cost of the aerotows home was starting to look rather pricey - so we turned for home. The initial thought was to go back the way we'd come but the South side of the valley near the Grand Combin had a high cloudbase and we decided to head over there.

Another swift and helpful conversation with ATC at Sion and we were on the South side and once up and back as a group were up in the high snow fields. What a privilege to be amongst such scenery - absolutely stunning stuff with some ridge soaring of peaks up at 12,000': surreal. We flopped over into the Aoste valley and then pretty much retraced our steps home with little drama. After 8 and a half hours we landed back tired but happy.

Aoste and Mt Blanc

What a splendid day that was!We launched around 1100 and went up towards Grenoble to check out the Vercors but the cloudbase was low there, so instead we went out to Seyne and North from there.

It was fairly

straightforward running past Siguret and up over the Vars to Bardonnechia where we thought at first that the cloudbase wasn't going to let us get much further. However, once we crossed Sollieres and hooked a climb on the far side of that valley things ahead looked a little better so we persevered. We didn't quite get to the Gran Paradiso but instead ran down the spur leading to Aoste and then turned left over the Petit St Bernard pass onto the lower slopes of Mt Blanc where cloudbase was a respectable 12,500'. There was a little wobble on the way home when we dillydallyed in some weak climbs near Bardonecchia rather than pushing on to Briancon where in the end we found a nice 7kt climb. We ran home over the Ecrins and into the Gap valley where it was black and gloomy with a monster CuNim sat over Sisteron. Fortunately we were able to just put the hammer down and run straight home to Serres which was still bathed in sunshine. What a super trip to end Mike Collett and Booker's Duo 315's stay - he had a really good run round with Ben Crook.

Wing camera mountings: discuss

Well, I’m not doing that again. Today’s bright idea was for me and Flewett to fly with wing cameras mounted a metre out on the wing. What a boo boo. The turbulence created made flying below 55kts a nightmare with all sorts of stick vibration and as for pulling hard into gusts in a thermal: forget it. To be fair we did get some OK shots but was it really worth turning around at Seyne and coming back to Serres to remove the cameras and take a relight? No.
Anyhoo, having removed the cameras and started again at 2 p.m. we set off to Logis du Pin again and had a reasonable run. The Belgian Paragliding Open is on at Laragne and we counted over 80 canopies as we ran in at 90 knots, pulled up in their climb, rejected it and blasted on towards Digne at 100kts. If those guys have any sense they’ll be forcing the chutes into skips and placing orders for 15m gliders tomorrow. We made good time down to Logis and went past the turn to take a climb in a convergence at 8kts. From here we ran North along the convergence, occasionally getting too enthusiastic and getting too far East before realising they do Pizzas in Serres so there was no good reason to land out in Turin. We had a nice cruise past Lake Brice and up towards the Cime de la Bonnette.


Popping into the Barcelonnette valley I figured there was bound to be a Texan climb on Siguret but it let me down badly. Instead we wound up scrabbling around the slopes near Jausieres before finally getting away. We got abeam Briancon at 5 p.m. and it was looking a bit flat in Bardonecchia plus the rest of the group had headed South long ago, so we ran over to the Tete d’Amont for a nice 6kt climb then into the Ecrins for a glide home. The one cloud ahead lay 4.9kms from Gap and the 5km exclusion zone so we couldn’t use that but did sneak in round the Grand Ceuse to appear back over site to find the home ridge still working with a constant 4 kts. That meant I had to go and give Chabres another little seeing to and encourage the remaining parapenter crews to show their appreciation with two fingered salutes before heading home for the traditional smoker. Dinner on site was excellent – 5 courses and oodles of beers and wine for the princely sum of 20 euros. Bargain!

Oh Yeah

Today was a good day. We set a task of Sederon/Logis du Pin/Aosta for a silly 550kms and all set off as a pack from Serres around midday. We used the ridges to start with

and bounced St Genis and Chabre, turned Sederon and dropped back onto the Lure. We ran that East, crossed the valley to Vaumuse and picked 6 kts off Authon at the top of the ridge. One more climb near Digne and we were across to the proper cumulus and some good climbs on the way South East. Here we were joined by the deserter Hurd in 218 who joined the banter in between checking in with Big Brother at Sisteron. We pretty much all turned Logis together and started North, going West to dodge the showers kicking off behind Par Cours. By now it was pretty clear that Aosta wasn't on but did that stop us? Actually, yes it did. Instead we carried on North via Barcellonette and St Crepin and as if by magic appeared at Glacier Blanc.

It would have been rude not to but after we'd done the traditional glacier run we decided to head for home and beers. The run back was a doddle and we landed around 6pm.

Splendid stuff- more again tomorrow please!

Thrashing round the box

Well, we were stuck in the box again today. We could get North to Pic de Bure, East to Sisteron, and South West to Mt Ventoux but clag and unsoarable conditions set the boundaries.











The whinge over, we did enjoy 7-8 kt wave climbs to FL 115 and Geoff in GA topped out at 15,000' behind the Pic de Bure. The problem was wind shearing and weakening above 12,000' so there were a lot of breaking waves with the attendant strong climbs but tumble dryer motion to deal with. Fortunately most of the good looking lenticulars were in airspace. It kept us entertained for a good 5-6 hours though, and included a belting run along the Lure out to the Mt Ventoux summit, before some exciting landings.



The spectacle of Rod Christie in his Nimbus 4 DT with full right rudder and aileron sailing past the final turn straight and level was tres amusant.




Enough now - less wind, higher cloudbases please Soaring Gods.

Wavy gravy

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Today was entertaining. Cloudbase was only around 7000' but the ridges were working and there was plenty of wave around. The wind didn't keep strengthening with height so we were topping out at around 14,000' but that was enough to get Ben Crook his Gold height and enough to keep us all thoroughly entertained.

We did a little run down to Mt Ventoux again though we failed to stay together as a group. We returned to the Chabre and then set off for Aubenasson on the Western edge of the Alps. The air got really murky out there and the visibility dropped, as did the wind sadly. So we used weak ridge and rotor to return to the Serres valley although Shack Roberts wound up landing out near Luc en Diois. The retrieve story of cars falling into holes, crews chased by wolves and the pilot struggling to communicate with the entire village using the 6 words of French he knows must at some point be told.
Back in the Serres valley we climbed back up to 10,000' near Aspres then checked out the breaking wave behind the Pic de Bure. Weird stuff with patches of 12 up in places but stopping around 12,000' leaving the flying saucer lenticular overhead tantalisingly close. We landed around 6 p.m. and await the return of Shack, Ben and Geoff so we can tuck in to the Chicken dinner from the on site restaurant.

Making the most of low cloudbase

Friday dawned with good promise. Blue skies, a light Northerly and drying air. The Cu were popping from 0830 onwards so after a short Klaus briefing we launched around 1100 and got away easily. After a quick foray to the North of site we grouped up and headed for Dignes. The Chabre ridge was just about working despite the sinking paragliders and we spent the obligatory 20 minutes entertaining the public. From here we set off across the valley to the Gache but arrived a lot lower than planned.

The damn power cables were in exactly the wrong place so there was an element of dodging them before getting away. Mike in 315 displayed perseverance beyond the call of duty and made an excellent low save not once but twice. Once away we cruised over to Dignes and the end of the Par Cours but the cloudbase wasn’t great at just 7200’ amsl. We ran along the Par Cours tucked up between the peaks and the cloudbase and crept along to Dormillouse. It has to be said the run has worked better! Then it was off to Mt Ventoux, 70kms to the SW, using a great line of energy to arrive with the top tantalisingly only just in cloud, round that and off to Vinon. That involved dodging the St Christol airspace and a cell that was right on the cusp of going BOOM. The run North was pretty straightforward with some interesting thermal induced wave behind the Lure and smooth lift up to 8,000 and beyond. Still air at site provided plenty of scope for giving it large so what else could we do?

And so it begins...

Well we flew anyway yesterday, but the weather wasn't great. We gridded up under 8/8 cover and took a launch at midday expecting 30 minutes or so local soaring to check out the kit. In the event the skies dried up, there were cumulus to 7300' amsl and the ridges just about worked in the 10kt Southerly. The Booker Duo is out here with Shack and Anne Roberts flying it with Mike Collett. The Duo plus Ben Crook in his ASW had a couple of OK flights working the ridge at Aspres and the hills to the East. My apologies to readers for the poor photo today - this one's from the camera phone. I had a few technical difficulties with the new camera so that when I thought I was taking a photo I was actually turning the unit off. I did say it was a shakedown day!

Dane and I worked our way over to the East of La Motte and Sisteron and landed back around 5/6 pm. That left plenty of time to derig and get to the Hotel du Nord in time to watch Mexico beat France at the footy. Oh dear.

This morning, Friday has dawned very differently. Blue skies, cu's already popping, glorious!

2010 edition

Not long now! The ferry tickets are booked, the chalets are reserved, the pulse rate is quickening. There promises to be a good showing this year with some slackers and state pension burdens even planning a two week attendance. The qualifying is almost over - who's going to be in pole position for that ferry disembarkation this year then?