| Flight details: | Not for long admittedly; but after a couple of minutes exploring, I found myself in a climb that took me up 1000 metres at 5 m/s -- that's climbing Snowdon in three and a half minutes! And for a moment at the top, I was above the tandems, above the local XC hounds, above the rigid hangies, thinking the whole of the Alps were at my mercy -- 100k, 200k? The rest wasn't quite that easy, though...
It started oddly. I got a lift up early to the west launch with three Czechs, one of whom drove back down to leave his car and come up with the rest of his mates in a minibus. So the two monoglot Bohemians and I sat silently puzzled by the wind coming strongly over the back. We'd have been sure we were in the wrong place -- we saw gliders launching and even climbing on the south-east launch -- except for the large numbers of local pilots who kept arriving to join us. Sure enough, by 1230 it came on to the westerly slope, and off we went.
After that first climb, I tried to remember the bits of briefing I'd been given about XC routes. North seemed to be the plan. Before long I was scratching at the top of a stony white hill called the Cheval Blanc with an orange Gin and a Niviuk tandem. Eventually the Gin and I climbed again; he went west, but I went east, concerned to keep plenty of landing options open in the Thorame valley. More climbs followed as I crossed the several spurs -- a grey Gin and I kept missing each other, one up as the other was down. I was a bit scared of heading into the big mountains, conscious of the narrow gorges between them through which the valley wind would no doubt be howling. So I kept the main Verdon valley -- which is itself a bit narrow in places -- in range, as a red Gradient tried to catch me up. But that meant I eventually found myself in the valley, sinking and zooming along in the wind. The Gradient touched down just before me on the edge of the village of Allos.
Gerard, the Gradient pilot, and I packed up together and got a lift all |
