Paragliding - Destination Unknown (page 3)
The next day (Saturday) the weather looked great again but I got cocky or stupid and went down from Plan Fait take off just as the others caught a great thermal up to the teeth. Pressure was a little higher than the previous day perhaps. It was irksome to watch them zooming off as I had been looking forward to flying together but I wished them well on the radio and managed after quite a wait to hitch up with two climbers to Col du Forclaz.
It was about 1550 before I took off... eventually getting tired of the people taking 10 attempts to do a reverse launch and plonking my wing right in front of them....
After getting a good 4m/s thermal just above take off ( I couldn't understand why none of the other 100 gliders in the air came and joined me!) my frustration faded a little and I had a drink and wondered what to do next! Over the back to the Aravis looked good again but there was a thick veil of cirrus and I figured an out and return route in the same direction as Owen and Andy would be the best thing to try.
I had the choice to run direct for Roc de Boeuff but decided a long leg across the lake and slightly into wind might deck me again . Twice in a day would be too much! So I ran along to the Dents and 2200m before going for the crossing to beefy.
You can just about see someone who had come direct from Forclaz low over the trees....but more worrying was a cloud of midges (wings) higher up on the ridge.
Nobody seemed to be getting up and I groaned thinking that the cirrus layer must have done for all the thermals already. But hey, this is France and it takes more than a piddly cirrus layer to stop beefy thermals!
Looking back I could see Tournette with Forclaz take off on the wooded spine just below the next peak to the right of Tournette.
I zoomed up to join the mass of other gliders and was surprised to be able to leave most of them behind by flying reasonably aggressively (with the lift, not other gliders) and getting back to over 2000m above the powerlines in the middle of Roc de Boeuff.
Off to the S of me was the Semenoz ridge - a TO we had not flown and the only proper top landing site round Annecy. Now it was time to make a transition across to Trelod and I followed the line of the col joining Trelod to beefy as Irwyn had told us arriving still above ridge height.
Here we are toppinng up again after the transition. Roc de Boeuff where we have come from is out of shot to the L
There was more and more high cloud coming across so I decided to run to Trelod quickly and see if i could return to the lake.
This is taken from above Trelod looking W (?) at my furthest out point looking toward where Andy and Owen had gone (crossing Jarcy in the valley in front and onto Arclusaz straight ahead. They had gone down earlier just failing to cross to the far side of the valley after Arclusaz to the S side of the St Hilaire/Grenoble valley which is the next range of hills beyond Arclusaz). There were streams of gliders returning from Arclusaz .... It was so tempting to go one jump further.... but i turned as it was already late in the day.
Looking back NE(?) along the route we had come to the Trelod ridge and Roc des Boeff beyond
Topping up height before going back to beefy.
Cruising back along beefy no thermals now but enough height to cross the lake almost to below Forclaz before running for the Doussard landing field.
Great flying and great memories
Brendan
May 2003