The day after the Mistral

Local lore has it that the day after the Mistral is generally not that great. And so it was.




Briefing was punctuated by the beeps and squawks of vintage iPaqs as Ben manfullly struggled and failed to load the right turnpoint files.


Launch was delayed until 1300hrs and was into a crystal clear blue sky, still air and not a single Cu in sight. However, when the tug hit lift at 1000' above the field the red mist came down, auto-reflex took over and I released, then struggled away from the therms kicking off the local hill. It took a while for JTU and KV to get launched but we eventually met up and headed East. A couple of weak climbs near Malaup, Les Monges and Blayeul and we were onto the slopes of Trois Eveches. We scraped over into the Allos valley and one further East into Cime de Pal, using the ridges to around 9000' as the good looking Cu didn't seem to work. Even the Buzzards were taking the mickey as under the best Cu of the day one was folding its wings, diving, pulling up and I swear was practising stall turns.





Around 1730 the more sensible of us pushed off home for the first beat ups of the week. Dan pushed on to Guillaume for a scrape home and then the evening disintegrated into a retrieve for Ben Crook (again) and a few other bits of excitement - which fortunately all ended well. Thank goodness.


Cake of the day: Blueberry muffin

It's lift Jim, but not as we know it

The forecasted Mistral didn't really live up to expectations. There was a brief flurry of excitement yesterday evening when the possibility of a really early start (0530 a.m.) was discussed but ruled out as the wind forecast just didn't look good enough. This morning the wind kinda held at 20-25kts at site but weakened dramatically to the East where things looked really rather stable. So it was a late launch after all, around 1100, on to the Arambre ridge and out to the West around 7-8kms to the local wave hotspot and sure enough after a little perseverance there was 4-5kts up to 9500'. There was a distinct lack of imagination on my part regarding what to do next but in the end I ran out West to the end of the Alps and Aubenasson ridge. From here West it's the flatlands so that was far enough thanks. Here the wind had veered to a NE'ly which was confusing, and the wave just wasn't working so it was a return trip by therms and ridges back via Col de Cabre. Then it was a trip down the Lure with Ben Crook in 580 and Mike Collett/Jane Moore in 315 and home for another trip up to 10,000' in wave and a few photos with Booker's K21.

This evening Dan, Ben and Andy have showed up so we're ready to rock and roll from tomorrow...

Cake of the day: Blackforest Gateau

Is it all working?

I do believe it is!


It was a little tricky to get away from work this year so a delayed departure and shortened trip meant calling on the services of Wyld's Logistics - or retiree Boris to be more precise. Boris did an excellent job of getting the trailer here which left me the simplified task of flying into Lyon and collecting the car to arrive at site Wednesday night. Thanks Boris.

Thursday then dawned dreary, grey and wet. The Klaus Ohlmann briefing was short and subdued so I did wonder if we'd fly at all, but lo and behold at 3 o/clock it looked just about good enough for a launch. Cloudbase stuck stubbornly at 6000' amsl, the breeze refused to go above 10kts Westerly so it was all rather weak but good enough to check the kit all works. Plus it's always educational at Serres and on weak days like today there's always stuff to learn and local nooks and crannies to explore. A little run out West to Rosans, South beyond Chabre and back to St Genis still felt like a cross country and it was good to be back.

The weather for the next week looks like it could be good: lots of blue and little wind but is that the sound of Swiss Alpine Horns calling - could it be a trip to the Aletsch Glacier this year?

Cake of the day by the way was Victoria Sponge

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.