March 2010
Monthly Archive
Wednesday, 24th March 2010
Judith 24 Mar 2010 | : Trying, but failing, to fly
A very disappointing day. We thought it might be a little cloudy, but it was grey and depressing when we woke up. So we did jobs. The van got its twice yearly hoover and we started to pack and sort. Then the sun came out so we dashed off to Niviuk to pick up Geoff’s new glider, an Artik 2, which we were going to check out at Santa Brigida.
It was far too windy to fly or ground handle when we got there, so that’s a job for another day.
Tuesday, 23rd March 2010
Judith 23 Mar 2010 | : Flying, France, Skiing
We headed up to Masella for our last days skiing for the season. We knew it would be slushy from early on, so we got there for the first lift at 9am. After a warm-up run, it was straight up to the top of the resort. It was fine up there, but got sticky down by the lift in the middle. We skied until my knees couldn’t take it any more and then set off to meet Mike at Targasonne.
We love the site, but don’t go often as it is on the other side of the Cerdanya valley, near Font Romeu. Mike had told us he thought it would be a good day and it really was. Cumulus popping off everywhere. Thankfully the road was open and we could drive to the top. It was a little breezy and very thermic, so we waited it out for a while. By 2.30pm it seemed to be dropping so I launched first. I climbed straight to 7200′ AMSL (1200’ATO). The views are just stunning.
The landing field is full of horses, which seem completely unfazed by the gliders coming in and largely ignored us. There was a little incident though, when I misjudged the height I was coming in at, mis-timed my flare and landed squarely on my butt in the middle of a huge pile of horse shit. My harness is still drying out next to the radiator…
Monday, 22nd March 2010
Geoff 22 Mar 2010 | : Boring stuff
Geoff writes: Not a particularly nice day, with some rain in the morning, but not as much as we expected. A day for doing bits of work, and preparing for moving back to the UK. There was a brief moment where we thought it might be flyable, but we didn’t even consider going out.
However, nice weather for the rest of the week. Skiing tomorrow morning (before it turns slushy), then crossing into France to try to fly at Targasonne. That’s the plan…
Sunday, 21st March 2010
The forecast for today was bad. Rain pretty much everywhere, except maybe the far NE corner. We had written the day off and were going to work, but the sun started poking through the gloom at 10am and we thought there might be a chance for a quick flight before the bad weather really set in.
We dashed off to Santa Brigida, but the sky got darker as we headed south. However, on arrival we found Albert, Albert (i.e. two Alberts) and a French guy already in the air. We got ready fast and flew too. Considering the complete lack of sun and the fact that the front had already arrived, it was quite thermic. I had two flights and Geoff three, before hunger forced us to drive off to the roast chicken stand in Les Preses. They were just closing and had run out of chicken anyway. It started raining as we got to Olot, so perfect timing.
Nils is coming to visit us this evening after his trip to Argentina and Algo, so plenty to catch up on.
Saturday, 20th March 2010
Judith 21 Mar 2010 | : Miscellaneous activities
Today was a will-it-won’t-it day. At first it definitely seemed a write-off, but then the forecast changed and it was light winds and the sun came out. We had just made arrangements to meet Johnny at Santa Brigida when the wind started picking up a lot. He was at the drop zone in Empuria Brava where the jump master was restricting people will less than 400 jumps from going up in the plane and they were anticipating stronger winds to come. Johnny wasn’t keen and so we finally settled on having a rest day. However, it seemed too nice a day to sit indoors, so we resurrected an old plan to go and check out some flying sites up north. Lots of sites here have fallen into disrepair due to lack of use, so we wanted to confirm that Les Salines and Neulos are still usable before wasting a good flying day going up there for nothing. We’ve also never really ventured into the countryside in that area, so we thought it would make a nice day out.
Neulos straddles the border and you need to access it from the French side. As we approached La Jonquera we could see cloud base was about 700m. Since the launch is 1246m it seemed a waste to drive up and stand in fog. So we turned round and headed to Les Salines instead. We stopped off briefly at Darnius, a nice, but unspectacular village. There is a huge reservoir near Darnius, but we missed the turn off and drove along side it until I spotted a bit of it… there was so little water in the lake that we had been looking over it, rather than at it.
We found the road up to Les Salines and headed up. After a kilometer the road changed from tarmac to dirt and we wound our way up the mountain for 9km until we encountered a snow drift which we couldn’t cross. Argghhh. After a picnic in the woods, we drove down again, not having seen the launch. The mountain does look great though. A huge bowl with sharp rocks. It reminded me of some of the mountains you get in the Gredos.
Once we were off the mountain and back in Maçanet de Cabrenys, we drove around trying to find the old bit, but managed to completely bypass it, so thought it was newish and didn’t stop to look around. We did find the dam at Boadalla, but it isn’t a patch on the Susqueda dam.
By this time Geoff was getting a bit frustrated with the day. So far everything had just gone wrong! We decided to ditch the day and just meet up with Johnny in Figueres to give him the Hook. On the way there, Geoff slammed the brakes on and reversed back. He’d spotted a waterfall. He’s a real sucker for them and his thing is always to try to get behind the water. We walked up to it and managed to get into the cave behind. Then we discovered a proper cave and a way of climbing up to get behind the waterfall again into a different cave. It was brilliant and saved the day.
Friday, 19th March 2010
We really wanted a day off today. Really. The forecast said there would be high cloud and getting worse later, so we blew out Oriol and Johnny. It looked cloudy at the coast, so we decided against the beach and settled down to work. Then the forecast changed to sunny in the afternoon and worse for tomorrow and Sunday. We spoke to Johnny again and he persuaded us to come out and play and bring the Hook for him to test fly. There’s only so much arm twisting we can take…
We met up with Johnny and John at Sant Pere de Rodes and it seemed not too windy. On top we noted that cloudbase was actually below us, but further away. I launched first (on my new glider!) and scratched along the front. Considering the sunshine it was surprisingly lacking in thermals, but given that we are back in the UK in a couple of weeks, I need the scratching practice. Eventually I sunk to the level of the church, which is normally the height you need to consider going out to the landing field. Johnny came over to join me in my little scratch pad and considering he flies without a vario, did an astonishingly good job of staying up. I eventually got high enough to cross back to the main ridge, where Geoff was happily soaring above ridge height. Johnny fought it out too and managed to join us soaring over the ruin.
Within about 15 minutes the sky had completely changed. It was like someone turned the lights off. The front came in and sea fog/low cloud came rolling in and the ridges to the east and west of us started to be clouded in. Geoff and I were not on radio, but simultaneously decided it was time to head out for the landing field. Both of us had spotted the increasing wind and the lifty conditions and did not want to risk being above orographic cloud.
I did land coming down fairly vertically, but nothing dramatic. We didn’t see another spec of sunshine until the spectacular sunset on the way home.
Thursday, 18th March 2010
Judith 19 Mar 2010 | : Holiday, Skiing
We got up early to set off to the high Pyrenees to use up another free ski pass; this time at Boí Taüll. The drive from Ager to El Pont de Suert is spectacular. Not only to you get to see the backside of the Serra de Montsec (the ridge which dominates Ager), but the road takes you through narrow steep gorges, past lakes and hydro-electric plants with precipitous stair cases hewn into the rock.
Boí Taüll is at the end of the Vall de Boí, just on the edge of the Aigüestortes national park. It is without doubt the prettiest resort we have ever been to. The views were just breath-taking. So much so, that we did the skiing in a completely leisurely fashion. It took ages to get down the first few runs, we spent so much time stopping, gasping and taking photos. The resort is in a huge bowl and the highest point is 2750m. You get different views from the top of each lift and can see Aneto, the highest mountain in the Pyrenees. An approaching weak warm front provided a spectacular backdrop, with whacky wave bars and greying skies.
Despite the approaching cloud, we seemed to be stuck in a blue hole and the sun was far too strong to keep the snow nice. By 2.30pm it was getting slushy even in the middle of the resort and the resistance in the skis was making my knees ache. We had been to all the sectors and to the top of all the lifts, so decided to call it a day and head back home in a leisurely fashion, taking a route through the Pyrenees we’ve never travelled before.
On our way we passed through Sort, a place I have always wanted to see, given the name means ‘luck’ in Catalan. The anticipation wasn’t rewarded… we didn’t even stop. We did have a coffee at the service station up the hill on the way out of town and the loos have the best views!
We stopped and had a look round La Seu d’Urgell. We’ve been past it loads of times, but always bypassed it on the way somewhere else. It’s a lovely place and you can see that it was once a massively important town. The old splendour of the buildings in still there, albeit a bit more cramped together than 600 years ago.
We got home late and are determined to have a day off (hopefully at the beach). Nine days of consecutive skiing/flying and we are exhausted!