| Flight details: | Another very busy day on the south-east launch for a late September weekday, but it turned out to be a lovely one. Beat from Switzerland on his Mantra quickly got high, making paragliding look very easy, and a few more gaggles of us gradually followed him up and over the west launch. I then got uncomfortably low, not wanting to have to search for lee-siders in the easterly breeze, but not wanting to go low over the trees behind the west launch either. Fortunately a couple of very friendly vultures showed me a lovely climb, and Jeff from Lincolnshire and I filled our boots (Jeff's boots must be slightly bigger, as he out-thermalled me).
Gliders were strung out along the ridges to the north by now, but I saw Nigel and his client Eric from Hawaii climbing over the Mouchon, so set off east after them. By the time I got there they were on their way to the south end of the Coupe, so missed out on the good climb that the Mouchon gave me. Hard cheese for them: I was able to arrive at the Coupe much higher, and pimp off Nigel as he worked weak lift near the hill, while Eric gradually slid down to the ground.
Now what? Nigel gave up and headed to the southerly face at the very end, without much apparent success, so I decided to head north along the Coupe. But not being very high, rather than fly along the top of the ridge and try to work out which side to be on, I used the foothills on the east side, which eventually gave me some good lift. I could see Digne-les-Bains, and thought about a downwind dash - but my Oudie was now telling me the wind was southerly. I wasn't completely sure that I believed it, but I decided to head north-east to the little rocky hill between the Coupe and Cheval Blanc.
There I got stuck for a while in weak thermic breeze - until I saw a couple of tiny birds zooming upwards. I don't know what kind they were - smaller than swifts, and they didn't look much like swallows or martins. But they were definitely eating some wee beasties that were |
