January 2010
Monthly Archive
Saturday, 23rd January 2010
I was chatting to my uncle Bruce last night while I was imbibing some rather lovely Bavarian wheat beer. Despite his predictions, I wasn’t too hungover to do anything today. So there!
The forecast was rubbish. Cloudy, some rain at the coast and progressively getting worse as the cold front came nearer. I was all prepared for a day’s work, but the 11.30am forecast gave it even worse for the next two days, so we decided to give it a go on the off-chance. Plan A was to go flying, and if that didn’t work, we would go up to Rupit, and have a nice walk. I had to do some urgent conference work, but we set off at one o’clock.
As we were driving towards Amer, I thought we might as well turn round. It looked so gloomy and the tops of the hills were clagged in cloud. However, the wind seemed to be on, so we carried on. Despite cars in the parking there was no one in the air, but we headed up anyway. As we neared the top, Xiliu popped up above us and started climbing out in a thermal. Geoff put his foot down and we arrived to find Enric, Joan, Quim and Adria all ready to launch. Enric was first there and said it had been really good at 1pm, but now the wind was dropping. Xiliu said it was really unstable.
Joan and Adria sacrificed themselves to the soaring gods and as soon as they touched down it got really, really good. Geoff launched, followed by Xiliu, and got a nice thermal. It gradually got better and better. Big, smooth thermals on the ridge and out in the valley. Enric went for a heroic glide to the end of the next ridge and I couldn’t believe he would make it back. He thermalled back up from just above the bottom landing and made it back in on top.
We flew all afternoon and Joan Borrell (one of the three Joans who were there today) was still doing touch and goes at 4.30pm. Amazingly good for a day that we nearly wrote off and which was overcast nearly all the time. Thermic most of the day, and still ridge lift at the end. You can never write off Santa Brigida. Even Xiliu – one of the Niviuk founders – was impressed with the day!
We’re doing ok for the fun/work ratio so far this January. In the last two weeks we’ve skied 5 times, flown 5 times and worked 4 days (actually, we’ve worked more than 4, but on the other days we fitted it around the fun activities). It’s been flyable 10 days out of the last 14… not bad for the depth of winter.
Friday, 22nd January 2010
Sun, sun, sun.
We went to ski at Masella under a baby blue sky. The forecast was for warm weather (max temp was 12C in the Pyrenees) and we worried about slush, but the snow was excellent, especially at the top of the mountain. After sitting in the cafe in our shirts, I realised I didn’t use enough sun cream and have burnt my nose.
Geoff’s skis are better, but not entirely back to their original splendour. He has to lift his foot to really turn them and they tend to dig in a little on the straight. We took them back to the shop where they apologised profusely and they are going skiing with them this weekend to diagnose the fault properly. Hopefully by next week Geoff will have his beloved Dynarods back.
It was also flyable – the people who flew had a good day.
Thursday, 21st January 2010
Geoff writes: a nice day, very sunny, light winds, warm, cumulus popping off – we got a bit excited. So we went out to fly. As it happens, it wasn’t that good – flyable, but very scratchy, and we both went down at different times. There must have been thermals somewhere, but on Santa Brigida they were small and very weak. And the wind, though on, was too light for much dynamic lift. It did pick up a little, and got soarable, so we all top landed in the end, after flying for a while. Only four of us out – ourselves, one French guy, Gil, and one Catalan, Oriol. But a pleasant day in the sunshine.
Wednesday, 20th January 2010
The forecast for today had substantially gone downhill when we got up this morning, and outside the window was thick fog. Subsequently, there was some discussion whether it was worth going skiing. Despite all the info we were given, the web cams at Masella showed lovely sun shine, so we went despite the forecast of snow later in the afternoon.
By the time we left home there was sun in Castellfollit, but we drove back into the fog in the Vall de Bianya. We finally cleared it after Ribes, where we briefly stopped to collect Geoff’s skis. On getting to Masella it was lovely and sunny and we raced to the lifts, only for Geoff to fall on the first run. When he caught up with me, he looked very concerned. The lads at the repair shop had not just filled in the gashes on the skis, but also sharpened the edges and the skis wouldn’t turn. We swapped and I tried them, but thought they were so dangerous I refused to go more than a couple of hundred meters. There was no choice but for Geoff to ski down, take his boots off and drive the 25 minutes back to Ribes to have them fixed again. There was no point in both of us going, so I had a couple of hours skiing on my own. A novel experience.
I decided to go right up to the top of the resort, and took the quick button lift. As I was going up, I realised that the cloud had come in and we were going to be in clag. No concerns there, except that visibility got so bad I could barely see the cable above me. Suddenly 5 skiers appeared out of nowhere – they must have got lost in the cloud and missed the piste and had to come down the button lift track. With the cloud coming in, the sky looked amazing – blues, greys, blacks all made of a real spectacle.
Once Geoff got back I met him at the bottom and the minute we got on the lift, it started to hail. Great! He got off the lift with some trepidation. His skis were better, but nowhere near as good as they were before. I had another try, but still couldn’t satisfactorily parallel turn them and my cartilage depleted knees can’t take snow-plowing. The sun came out again, so Geoff was keen to try to keep going, but after another couple of runs he had to admit defeat for his own safety. I had skied a lot, so I handed him mine and went to read my book. As soon as he got back on the lift, it started snowing hard. Just not his day, I guess!
His skis are back at the shop for repair and it rained cats and dogs on the way home. Hope that means more snow as it was looking a bit bare in places.
Podcast: Competing in the British Paragliding Nationals
Geoff 20 Jan 2010 | : Podcasts
Competing in the British Paragliding Nationals with Martin Dockerill, Wendy Griffiths and Simon Twiss. In this podcast Martin, Wendy and Simon talk about why they decided to enter the competition, what they learned, and they also provide some tips for others thinking of entering for the first time. 16mins.
Download the podcast: http://www.judithmole.net/podcasts/britishnationals.mp3
Subscribe to future podcasts: see the links on the right.
Please note: this, and all previous podcasts, are also available from the podcast page.
Tuesday, 19th January 2010
Very cloudy today. We did set the alarm clock early to see if it would be ok to go skiing, but the web cams at Masella showed the cloud right down to the lifts. It’s no fun going when you can’t see anything.
Instead we got on with the mountain of work we need to get through. The weather is actually turning out quite well. I hate working when the sun shines and I have more productive days when I can get my head down, uninterrupted, for a full 10 or so hours. Since there was no point looking out of the window, there was no interruption today! Weather looking better again from tomorrow, so at least we’re a bit ahead with the work.
Monday, 18th January 2010
We woke up this morning, peered out of the window and turned back over for an extra half hour of kip. No point in getting up early, since it was a guaranteed work day. The forecast was crap. Completely overcast with possible showers. By lunchtime, we were in full swing working on the LMSC newsletter and on some conference stuff when the sun started shining. There seemed to be no wind, but the forecast is worse for tomorrow, so we decided to have a look and see if it would be possible to fly.
In Olot it was lovely and sunny, but as soon as we got to the Val d’en Bas it was like someone put a lid on the world. Grey, mucky low cloud covered all the hills. We debated whether we should just turn round and go back, but you never know with Santa Brigida.
There was little evidence of wind, and cloud all the way, although it was thinning. At Santa Brigida the wind was on and we drove up. I launched first and got below ridge height before getting a thermal at climbing out to 1970′ (660′ ATO). Geoff launched too and the sun came out and it got really good. Geoff got to 850′ ATO and cruised around. We flew various times, with a break for a late lunch.
On our third flight, the sun went back in and it got scratchier, so we top landed again. It seemed a shame both of us driving down, so Geoff let me fly while he packed up – unless I got up again, in which case he would fly too. It was 4pm by this time, so the day was getting on, but I managed to maintain but struggled to get enough height to have the option to top land. Geoff packed up and as he was putting his bag in the van, I hooked a thermal and climbed back up to 250′ ATO. Even from that height, I could see Geoff sulking.
I flew for an hour and a half, but it was actually flyable all the time we were there. What a bonus flying day though. We certainly didn’t see it coming!