January 2010
Monthly Archive
Sunday, 17th January 2010
Very marginal today, with 8/8 cloud cover. Felix was keen to go, but we were not convinced. As I was speaking to him it started drizzling at his place in Palamos, and that clinched it. We open the conference to presenters on Wednesday and are pulled out with work, so although it may have been flyable, we can’t spare the time on marginal days.
Still, an extremely productive work day… all the walkthroughs for the conference done; the papers and presentations so far received are edited and uploaded; and I managed to complete another podcast. To be released very soon.
Saturday, 16th January 2010
Geoff writes: the forecast wasn’t brilliant, it was pretty cloudy, but it seemed like it might be flyable at Santa Brigida, and it was, just. We were the first there (apart from someone having a morning flight) and I launched, scratched a while and went down. No sun, little wind. Judith came and got me, and meanwhile some others arrived, Jordi, Joan, Albert, and Pepe. Getting back up, the wind was a bit stronger, and a few of us launched and managed to maintain, some top landing. I was getting a bit low, so did the Santa Brigida equivalent of a slope landing. You can’t slope land unless you like landing in trees, but there is a very small shelf just below launch, which is just about landable, though most people don’t try it. I managed to get in there, so at least I top landed.
Another flight at the end of the day, with an eventual bottom landing, and that was about it. Soarable, but not epic (though they did have a reasonable day yesterday, apparently, with about 300 metres ATO, and flyable all day).
Friday, 15th January 2010
Geoff writes: after looking at the forecast again this morning, we decided to go skiing, but this time to Vall de Nuria. Because we have a season ticket for Masella, we also get free day passes for some other resorts, and Nuria is one of them. We’ve never bothered going before because it’s a bit of a Legoland type of resort – a ski resort in miniature, with only about 7km of piste (yes, seven kilometres). But it is in a spectacular location, so we thought we would go. The other thing is, you can’t drive there. You have to get the Cremallera. This literally means zip, but actually is a rack and pinion railway. This is the only access to the valley, and is a 13km trip, which costs a small fortune, but the ticket was included in our free pass, and it’s a nice ride up the valley.
Unfortunately, when we got to Ribes, and went to get the ticket, the guy said the runs weren’t open because of 78km/h winds – something which wasn’t really forecast.
So we decided to use a different free pass, and went to La Molina. This is just before Masella, much prettier, better views, but usually less snow (not that that should be an issue at the moment), and they are pretty bad at grooming the pistes – which is more of an issue.
We took the telecabina almost to the top, skied down a little, and took a button lift a bit higher, checking first that that run was open. It was, and was amazingly well groomed, and we thought everything was fine. Then the grooming abruptly stopped, and the red run became more of a scree slope than a ski slope. Incredibly difficult to ski down, and with a lot of stones – and rocks – just beneath the snow. Everybody was having a problem getting down (not that there were that many people up there). We were doing fine, almost at the bottom of the rocks, when I hit something, heard that awful crunching sound of stone on ski, and, for the first time for ages, fell. When I finally recovered my skis, there were some big gouges in them. Amazingly, though, it didn’t seem to make any difference and they still behaved properly – maybe because the gouges were in the centre, rather than at the two ends. (Or maybe I’m just so bad at skiing I can’t tell the difference).
The rest of the day went really well. We avoided the slopes with thin snow (thin because it was windblown away) and generally had a nice time in the sun. Judith’s skis are faster than mine, and I did wonder if the damage I’d done was slowing them down, so we tried a slide angle contest – stopping at the top of a small slope, pushing off, seeing who went the fastest. She did …. but what’s new?
At the end of the day, we skied back to the bottom, and I managed to fall again. This time, we’d stopped, I’d taken my skis off and was about to set off walking back to the van when I promptly tripped over them. I wasn’t even going downhill. Pathetic (and embarassing, in front of loads of people sitting outside the cafe).
We had the usual beer and sandwiches, then on the way back, dropped off the skis at Marc’s ski shop in Ribes, so he could fix them for next time.
So apart from trashing my skis, a great day out. And it never was particularly windy (and it was flyable back here, apparently, too).
Thursday, 14th January 2010
Geoff writes: a working day. A bit wet and cloudy, but that meant more snow today at Masella. Tomorrow is forecast sunny, and temperatures are picking up, 15C tomorrow at the coast, but it should feel warmer than that. It will also probably be flyable, so we have to decide whether to ski or fly. We’ll check the 8.00 a.m. forecast and decide then, though we’re more likely to go skiing, given the limited time we can do that.
Of course, it might all change overnight, and be wet and windy….
Wednesday, 13th January 2010
Another gorgeous day of sunny, crisp weather. We’re making the most of the good snow, so we headed up to Masella, where it was marginally more crowded than the other day (we had to ski round people once or twice!). It was a perfect blue sky, and in the afternoon the cumulus started popping. More runs we haven’t skied on this year, so it was nice exploring more nooks and crannies.
Some people were off flying at Santa Brigida today, but not sure how it was.
Tuesday, 12th January 2010
Geoff writes: the weather was a bit in decline today, so we did some work – not too much of a hardship after four quite nice days really, with the last couple having some good skiing and flying. The NE corner of Spain, our bit, seems to have had the best weather in Spain recently, with fronts hitting the south more than us.
We did need to do some work anyway today, because of our upcoming conference at the end of the month.
Should be nice again tomorrow, we are hoping to ski. Depends how fast the front goes through.
Monday, 11th January 2010
We finally got to go skiing again today, after our season tickets were not valid during the holidays and then the weather wasn’t good last week. It was a lovely day, sunny with a little high cloud. With all the snow over the last few days nearly every run is open and we had 63km to play with. Not that we got anywhere near round all of it, but we skied a lot of runs we haven’t been able to so far this year or which were closed last year. The snow quality was excellent, in fact some of the best snow I have ever skied on.
They have been doing some work at Masella and have opened a new ski lift, the Pia Express, which is super fast and a whole new sector (La Pia) which has added about 5km extra piste to the resort. We can park there and save ourselves the drive all the way to Masella proper, so it also saves 10 mins each way of the journey too.
With everyone having finally gone back to work today the place was deserted. It gave the impression that they just opened the whole place for us, which was jolly nice.