October 2008
Monthly Archive
Friday, 31st October 2008
The UK XC league ends today, and subject to no late submissions, the placings have been decided. I have come second woman and 39th overall, which I am really thrilled with. Last year was my first year in the league, so I am pleased to have improved from 71st overall to be in the top 40.
Before the beginning of the season I had set myself the goals of coming in the top 50 overall, and the top 3 women. I am sure the weather helped. Because the weather was so bad, anyone who can fly any day was going to do better this year. Another factor was that nearly all the UK comps were rained off, so there were few declared goal flights in the league. However, saying all that, I put in 30km more than last year with no ridge runs, which shouldn’t really be in the XC league anyway.
Looking back on the season, it was a shame that there were not more good days. I came back from Spain in April having spent the winter getting to know the Zoom really well and feeling that we were really in tune with each other. Some good distances had already been done in March and the weather got steadily worse as the summer progressed. The exception was the 10 days when I was at the Chabre Open, when it was fantastic and Geoff went XC nearly every day. I really wanted to progress as a pilot this summer and put into practice all the things I was practising over the winter. It wasn’t really to be, although I did get my PB this year. So goals for next year?
I’m thinking about entering a comp, possibly abroad, depending on when/where they are. The Chabre Open is apparently not happening next year, which is a huge shame. I’d also like to get in the top 30 in the league.
The Aspen is packed away for the winter so it doesn’t get trashed on Santa Brigida, but will come out in February for me to learn how to fly it. So I am back on the trusty old Zoom.
Roll on 2009…
Thursday, 30th October 2008
Judith 30 Oct 2008 | : Boring stuff
We woke up to blue skies and sunny weather, but with a bitterly cold, howling wind. It made the ridge opposite the house look like a squirming, moving object, as the wind blew through the trees. We considered going for a walk, but couldn’t face the cold. I am still amazed that it went from summer to winter in one night.
The ski resort at Masella has had half a meter of snow (see screenshot of the webcam), and we are going to buy our season pass next week.
Wednesday, 29th October 2008
Judith 30 Oct 2008 | : Boring stuff
The cold snap is here too. We woke up to see snow (!) on the mountain behind the house. It is 1500m high, but it was still a bit of a shock to see the white stuff. The mountain is called Coma Negra (black mountain), but we have temporarily re-named it Coma Blanca. We’ve had lots of rain, but my parents, in Rupit (900m) had snow too.
On the bright side, the ski resorts in the Pyrenees got a few inches. Roll on December!
Tuesday, 28th October 2008
Judith 28 Oct 2008 | : Boring stuff
One word describes the weather today: terrible. It is ironic that I was swimming in the sea yesterday and we actually considered turning the central heating on this evening. It rained most of the day, so we worked. I am preparing for our next conference in January, so there is lots to be getting on with, as well as finishing off the latest LMSC newsletter. The forecast is poor for the next couple of days. Low pressure all over Europe.
Monday, 27th October 2008
Judith 27 Oct 2008 | : Beach, Flying
Too many choices today. Hang gliding, paragliding, beach, walking, cycling… There was supposed to be a front coming in and the weather was supposed to turn cloudy in the afternoon, so we decided to have a lazy day and go to the beach to do some swimming, roller-blading and cycling (with a bit of lunch and snoozing thrown in for good measure). Alas, it was not to be! Roger called to say he was free and another car changes everything. Since we were heading for the beach, we arranged to meet Roger at Palau Savardera to go flying at Sant Pere de Rodes.
We rushed out and I did get a swim before we headed up the mountain. As we were in the car park ready to walk up we could see the halo round the sun and the high stuff was coming in. There was nearly no wind on launch with just the odd waft up the front. It seemed as though the sky would shut down, so Roger launched and got one or two little bits of lift, but nothing he could turn in, so he went down. Geoff and I did pretty much the same. We were consoled by the fact that we had flown, but as we were sitting by the landing field having post-aviation beer the sky cleared and it became really hot and sunny again. It was probably great, but none of us could face a second climb up. Roger is off to Morocco for a month (lucky beggar), so we won’t see him again till December.
Sunday, 26th October 2008
Forecast was for less wind, but possibly going W later. We spent some time considering our options then went for the easy one… Santa Brigida. We bumped in to Joan in the landing field and on arriving on top saw three gliders very high over Puig d’Afrou.
We got ready and Joan (as in the male equivalent of John) launched first and got straight up. We launched next and the thermals were strong, but smooth. I thermalled up to 1250′ ATO and went on a jolly along the ridge to the east, whilst Geoff struggled to get up. I thought about going XC, but decided to stay in the area to fly longer. Geoff got very low and then got a low save from 400′ BTO. We both top landed whilst Joan went down. A French guy flew over from Puig d’Afrou and we watched him stuggling to get down to land.
Our second flight was surprisingly bumpy, with the thermals very rough. You’d shoot up, the glider would lurch forward and you’d try to wrestle the glider into a turn, all whilst the vario was beeping furiously. The thermal strength was pretty impressive for late October.
Geoff top landed a second time, but it picked up a lot and each time I tried to get close to the ridge to come in, it got really, really turbulent. I opted for a bottom landing in the end. Geoff took me back up, and he had a nice evening flight.
Geoff’s comments: my tolerance for roughness is obviously increasing since I didn’t find it that rough. On my second flight I was in a very strong climb, but decided to try to make the ridge in front; a mistake, since my penetration on the Hook is poor – I have a very un-aerodynamic flying position, and the wind was picking up, so I had to turn back. But great flights, a really nice day, and low saves are particularly satisfying, and good practise for the XC season back in the UK.
Saturday, 25th October 2008
Judith 26 Oct 2008 | : Party, party, party..., Trying, but failing, to fly
It was a beautiful hot day, but unfortunately there was also a strong north wind. We debated whether to go to Puig d’Afrou, but decided to just try Santa Brigida instead. It was over the back there and gusty, so we had a picnic and read our books in the sun. It was probably flyable later at Puig d’Afrou, but by 5pm, we were lazy from the sun and couldn’t be bothered with the drive. Instead, we set off for the main fiesta of the year in Girona. We originally thought this was next week, but Nils our street performer/hang gliding buddy confirmed otherwise. We got there just in time to miss his first show, but saw the next one. We’ve seen it 4 times before, but it’s such a great show it’s worth seeing again and again. The finale of the show is Nils on a 3 meter unicylce juggling knives or fire.
We hung out at the fair for a while and looked at stalls waiting for the correfoc to start. Correfoc means running with fire in Catalan, and that’s a bit of a misnomer. The streets are so narrow you don’t run anywhere – more skip, dance and generally try not to get singed is a more accurate description. You go dressed for a correfoc in old clothes, and most essentially a hat or hoodie, if you don’t want your hair to catch fire.
A correfoc is basically a procession of drummers, the general public and a load of guys (and gals) dressed as devils and dragons who have fireworks on sticks which they light and swing over your head. At other correfocs we’ve been to you dance in a great huddle with the devils and the closer you are to them the less likely you are to get burned. Not in Girona. They chased us with fireworks held to the ground so you had to do a kind of skipping dance to avoid getting you socks burned, whilst above your head sparks were flying. All this takes place in streets too narrow for cars to pass through them and there are hundreds of people. The noise, smoke, bangs and sparks are amazing. It’s completely anarchic. I was squealing with delight most of the time.