Judith’s blog

Geoff writes: a day of sun, sea, sand and snow – unfortunately, all in the same place.

As promised the day was very sunny after the blizzards of yesterday, and the snow is already melting here. We decided to go to fly, and got to Santa Brigida, where the wind, and sky, was perfect. The only problem was that the slowly melting snow was gradually turning both the bottom landing and the bottom parking into a lake, rather than a field. We started to drive up, but even the paved bit was extremely slippy, even with the 4×4; also, we were a bit dubious about laying out gliders – especially the demo Artik 2 – in melting snow, with mud underneath. We decided not to bother, and went on a couple of km to the Niviuk HQ, to ask if we could keep the Artik 2 for another week, since we’re off skiing and flying tomorrow, and Judith wants to fly it. Fortunately, they said yes.

There wasn’t much snow at La Cellera, so we decided to go to the beach, at Blanes, a place we have never been to. But it quickly became apparent that we had wildly underestimated the chaos the snow had caused. As soon as we left La Cellera, there was a lot more snow on the ground, and as we got closer to the coast, we passed literally dozens of cars that had just been abandoned, and lost count of those that had skidded completely off the road, into ditches, etc. The trip was slow because we were stopped every now and again whilst cars and lorries were being dragged out of the way, and the snow ploughs were cursing drivers who had abandoned their cars, and not come back the next day to pick them up, making it really difficult to clear the roads.

Blanes was sunny, there was sea, and sand – and also snow, and big waves on the Mediterranean. It has a nice beach, but the rest of the place is a typically over-developed coastal resort, and a bit of a dump. We walked for an hour or so, and dodged the waves, so it was fun, but we’ll never go again – likewise for Lloret de Mar, a few km up the coast – nice beach, awful town.

By this time the cloud had come in, and it was getting a bit chilly, so we decided to drive home. Going back via Girona, we noticed there weren’t many lights on – and then heard on the radio that the entire city was without electricity. We then saw why – a number of collapsed electricity pylons had pulled down the cables.

As we reached home, the sun came out again – it had been out all day here – and the snow is almost gone, so here at least it is back to normal, i.e. the snow is where it should be, in the mountains. Which is where we will be tomorrow.

See photos of today.

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The forecast bad weather arrived today – in spades. There was a thin layer of snow when we woke up and it has snowed ever since. This is unusual – in the eight winters we have spent here, we have rarely seen snow (as opposed to rain), never mind it lying on the ground. I’ve been hoping to get some photos of snow on the cliff for ages, but it’s always gone by the time I get to the bottom of the cliff.

There was about 20cm of snow by 3pm and the power cut out, so we went out to walk round the cliff. It’s really weird seeing Castellfollit looking so different.

Masella has had 70cm of new snow and it’s still snowing hard. Most of the resort is closed due to avalanche risk. My dad phoned to say they had 60cm in Rupit and he is snowed in, occasionally without power. He’s going to use the snow shoes we bought him for Christmas to go to the shops tomorrow. Nicky has had trees down at the bottom of her road and looking at the Roses webcam, we saw snow lying on the beach for the first time ever. The forecast strong wind has just arrived so it seems it’s pretty wild all over north-eastern Spain.

The 7pm forecast has just predicted continued snow throughout the night.

See photos of today.

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Geoff writes: it was a really poor forecast today, with a front coming in, but it seemed to be coming in slower than expected, so we went to Santa Brigida late morning, still expecting to turn round before we got there. But all the indicators on the way were good, not blown out, right direction; and the sky, though completely cloudy, was not threatening rain. And in the event it was a very good day, flyable all day until we left (and probably after). It was very lifty, really easy to stay up, with some strong-ish thermals coming through, in spite of the total lack of sun. It was quite bumpy at times, more so than I expected, but nothing to cause a problem.

I flew both the Artik II and Judith’s Aspen II, since I’ll end up having one or the other (one, of course, will cost a lot of money; the other one will be free).

The place was almost empty – probably everyone, like us, believed the forecast and made other arrangements. When we arrived there was just Andreu, and Adria turned up later. Johnny also arrived, after a text from us to say it seemed flyable. And Judith wasn’t very well so she stayed on the ground.

See photos of today.

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Geoff writes: today was forecast northerly – not tramuntana, just a north wind. Sometimes Santa Brigida will work then, but often not. We thought it might be too strong for Sant Pere de Rodes, and our ideas of going to Ager were scuppered by the north wind, and the fact that the next two days’ forecast is poor here. So we decided to take a trip across the border to Ceret, which has a north and a south launch, and where the forecast was light northerlies. John and Johnny decided to come too, their first time flying in France.

After looking at the landing field, we went up – which took a bit longer than usual because the centre of Ceret was closed for a carnival.

The only other flyer was a guy doing tandems – no other pilots there at all, which was a bit surprising on a Saturday.  He had launched just before we got there, and gone more or less straight down.

The wind was nicely on, but there were no cumulus. I decided to launch anyway, and see if it was working. After sinking a few hundred feet, I connected with something, and then it just got better and better. The others rapidly launched, and we all flew around for a while – the thermals got stronger, and the higher you got, the rougher it was. Or, possibly, that was just because I was flying the Artik 2, which is certainly more dynamic than the Hook. It was nice to fly, and thermals really easily, turning very nicely into the lift. Whilst it was a lot more dynamic, it wasn’t anything to worry about, and I had a great flight. Lift everywhere, very easy to stay up.

Once we had all landed (through choice) we decided to go up again, hoping it would have smoothed off a little. In fact, it was more or less dead – very light on launch. John and Johnny flew, both getting nothing on the ridge, but light lift in the valley, low down, which they both worked really well, until they finally went down. Judith and I decided to drive down – it would be a long retrieve for the sake of an extended top to bottom.

After beers and food in the landing field, off to Ceret to see the end of the carnival. Some great floats and costumes.

All in all, a very pleasant day!

See photos of today.

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We knew a whole bunch of pilots were going to Masella today and the first person we bumped into in the car park was Nani. We skied together for a few runs and then headed up to the top of the resort and met up with Xiliu, Sergi, Albert and Ricardo. A Santa Brigida reunion. They all went off-piste down some precipice above Coma Oriola. We thought better of it and stayed well away! Once we split up we lost them and never saw them again.

Masella was unusually busy. There were stalls from most skiing manufacturers with demo skis, but there were also loads of groups of first aiders and mountain rescuers who were doing practice runs. We were a bit concerned about the number of accidents until we clocked that it was either a convention or a training camp.

See photos of today.

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Geoff writes: Forecast was ok, likely to be cloudy, clearing later. It was indeed cloudy when we woke up, but quickly cleared and it was sunny. The 11.30am forecast put a bit of a dampener on the day when they predicted possible rain. As we went out, the cloud was getting more extensive as we got closer to La Cellera.

I went to pick up an Artik 2 from Niviuk to test fly it. They’ve moved into nice, new, big headquarters here, and Xiliu gave us the tour. I later went to Santa Brigida, and flew the Artik a few times, top landing, but the clouds were big, black and low, and it seemed to me like there was lots of cloud suck, so I spent most of the time trying not to get high. It is a vast improvement on my Hook though, far better glide, and nice and responsive; and really easy to launch. I have it for at least a week, so should get some nice conditions to fly it.

Yesterday, there was another 25cm of snow at Masella, so tomorrow we’re off skiing, a nice sunny forecast. First farewell dinner tonight. Bit sad to say goodbye to Liz, Judith’s mum, who is off to Israel for three weeks, so we won’t see her until next autumn.

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The forecast was as bad as they predicted and it has rained all day. Good working conditions. Geoff even managed some DIY, in the shape of painting part of the office. The fumes were so noxious that we had to move out of the office. Not such good working conditions after all!

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