Judith's blog

We had another pass for a ski resort in the same valley as Formigueres, so decided to check it out for future reference. The cloud was low as we drove to Puyvalador and we could only see a small area around the bottom of the ski lift, the rest was completely concealed. I counted the cars in the car park and there were 34, so it felt like they had opened the place just for us. The resort isn’t huge, but lots of really nice runs, and you have to hand it to the French – they know a thing or two about piste grooming.

Cloud kept coming and going and a couple of times visibility was so bad I skied off the piste. We skied until it got too slushy and as we were about to finish the sun broke through and created a big blue hole above us. The scenery was stunning, made more so by the sea of cloud to the east and the impressive layers of cloud towards the west. This inspired us to carry on and we skied for another hour. We’d definitely go again.

See photos of today.

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We got up at the crack of dawn to drive to Targasonne to drop off our gliders at
Ailipse to have them serviced/chutes repacked. The weather forecast was bad, so we headed off to Formigueres to ski. Yet another free ski pass to use up. First time we’ve been there and it’s in the valley NE of Cerdanya. It’s a nice resort for beginners, but the problem was the horizontal lifts, so it took 12 minutes to get to the midway point of the resort, so four runs an hour max. We spent so much time on the lifts we actually started talking work and planned a future project.

Most of the resort was clagged in most of the time and a couple of times we got glimpses of the scenery around, which is beautiful. Runs were ok, but nothing to write home about. We’d go again if we were in the area, but wouldn’t pay for the pleasure.

We spent the night in Font Romeu, ready for another days skiing.

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After only 4 hours sleep in the front seats of the van we arrived in Millau with a view of flying. We have a somewhat poor history of flying there, because for the past 7 years we have been driving through Millau twice a year, but only managed to fly there for the first time last year and that was only because we refused to leave the UK until there was a passable forecast there. We were rewarded with two days of nice flying then. It was not a feat we would repeat this year.

The forecast we looked at on Saturday was was good for Monday. We stopped to buy some lunch in the supermarket and saw people launching, so we headed up, thinking they were doing top-to-bottoms because it was so light. Wrong. On top it was howling and people were flying out to get away from the ridge. Within 15 minutes of us being on top it was completely blown out, although a tandem launched and one brave soul followed him. He flew out and the spiralled down pretty much straight away. Everyone else drove down.

Geoff didn’t have the energy to rig the hang glider, so we decided to do some tourist stuff. We drove to the Cirque de Navacelles, a huge crater with a stunning little village in the bottom. A walk and snooze in the sun later, we headed home to Spain.

See photos of today.

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We had a lie in to sleep off our hangovers from the night before and got up at 10am to find the campsite deserted. Most people had got an early start and we didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to many of our camping neighbours and new friends. We packed up and got a lift to Sisteron with Mark G. who’d had even less sleep than us.

The Ozone Open was brilliant. It was a shame the weather wasn’t normal this year and that we only got three tasks, however, I learned loads about competition flying, and flying in general. The talks were excellent, but what was even nicer was the camaraderie amoungst the competitors. Everyone was helping each other out, discussing tactics and generally being nice to each other.

There was one accident during the comp and Yanis from Latvia had to be rescued from a tree. Whilst he was being taken to hospital, someone came and stole all his equipment, which was a really scummy thing to do. The person who won the free Ozone glider at the final night raffle donated his prize to the Latvian pilot, so he would at least have a wing. This kind of generosity and kindness was evident throughout the week.

I’m not really bothered about my placing in the competition. My aim had been to learn a lot and also to score for my team each day. I achieved the first by paying attention and the second by there only being three of us in the team. Having Gillian and Dennis there was a huge asset and their knowledge and advice on mountain flying and competition flying was invaluable.

Being there with Ruth was a hoot! We had such a good laugh. We’re definitely going again next year and have our eye on one of the luxury mobile homes already.

Thanks to Beyond Extreme for our team sponsorship. We were certainly the most visible team at the event.

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Surprisingly not hungover this morning, although I should be. There is mistral this morning and they will re-brief at 12pm, although nobody is very hopeful.

They did re-brief at 12pm and decided to take us to Sederon as the local school proprietor reported decreasing wind strength. When we got there it was windy, and within half an hour howling. Dave did a briefing at the site so that we would have the info should we want to go free flying there. As he was pointing out thermal triggers a load of vultures came and illustrated his points, which was jolly nice of them.

We all drove back to the campsite and we got a lovely dinner at Vivi and Rande’s.

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We had an elapsed time race over three turnpoints. The wind was north when we got to the site and a task was set to the south. First turnpoint was at the lower north launch, then Col St Jean, across to the highest point of the ridge just to the south of Chabre and then landing in Ribiers. To make the launch more manageable with 120 pilots they split the field and all 1 and 1-2 gliders had to go to the lower launch. 2 and 2-3 gliders could launch from the top or elect to the go to the lower launch too. The trade off for the extra hassle for the 1s and 1-2s was that you got the turn point without having to fly to it. I chose to drive to the turn point. This was based on a tactical decision. The sky was looking better to the west; I didn’t want to fly the extra 3 km there and back and I didn’t want to have the oncoming traffic of people launching from the north as well as the 2s and 2-3s who were having to fly there and back. This meant having to pack up my gear and obviously this interrupted my flow. When I got to the bottom N take off I realised I had left my flight deck and instruments behind. What a plonker! Wendy the retrieve driver took me back up and I raced back to launch. Because we were launching one at a time, this meant I was way down the queue, but the sky wasn’t working that well and there seemed less rush. Read more»

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We got up early, but missed our chance to get a place in the mini-busses. I ended up having to go on the coach, which takes you to the bottom of the hill, by the gorge. You then have to wait whilst the mini-busses come back down to collect you. I was on the second last bus up. We could see on the drive up that the sky was overdeveloping and that the task, if we would get one would be cancelled soon after the task opened. Speed was the essence. I got to take-off shortly before the briefing, not even having time to open out my glider and check it over. You have 20 minutes after the briefing, so I was very rushed to get ready and didn’t have time to relax and think about the task before having to launch. Because we all knew the widow was short, everyone launched quickly, so much so that they had to close the launch window so there wouldn’t be any accidents.

The task was an elapsed time race over 2 turnpoints. Chabre to St Genie (the volcano), Upaix and then back to the camp site. Read more»

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