January 2011
Monthly Archive
Sunday, 16th January 2011
Judith 16 Jan 2011 | : Trying, but failing, to fly
We can see Coma Negra from our house and it looks only a couple of kilometers away. It’s much further, and at over 1500m high, with a long windy road to it, it takes over an hour to get to it, and then you have to walk up. We haven’t been often, and when we have, we’ve barely flown, for one reason or another. Quini and Amadeu are the local experts and we have asked them to let us know when they go there. We bumped into Quini at Bellmunt yesterday and he was planning a day out at Coma Negra for today. We didn’t need to be asked twice. The meeting place for Coma Negra is in the cafe at the bottom of our cliff. We met Amadeu, Quini, Edu, Jordi, Alfons and respective partners and kids and headed up the road and up the mountain.
At the parking it was off to the west, but very light. I was expecting a top-to-bottom, which isn’t too bad; it takes a while to fly down, you have to cross a couple of ridges and then have to negotiate a steep valley landing, so it’s more interesting than your average plummet. Once we had all got to the top, it was much windier and way off to the west, so we decided to wait and see. We would have stayed on the west face, but there’s an accepted wisdom here that the sun will bring it on, so you just go to the normal launch.
When it got to 1.30pm, and despite the wind picking up, Amadeu decided to take off. With it being off, he had a 60% collapse just after getting airborne, which we thought didn’t bode well. He headed straight to the landing field and it was a rock n’ roll ride to the valley. Alfons was next. He also went straight out and down. By this time we had serious doubts about wanting to fly. It took them ages to get down. Quini went next and went straight up, like being popped out of a champagne bottle. He turned left (east) and went screaming downwind, and once he turned back, he was basically stationary. He kept going up, still trying to go forward to the landing area, but he was drifting further and further east. It’s almost certain he was in wave. There aren’t many safe (or easy) places to land between Coma Negra and Oix, or Coma Negra and our valley, so we were willing him to turn and run. To us it seemed as if he had reached El Mont, so we were a little reassured, but then we saw him sink and we knew he had gone down in Sadernes… not a good place to be.
Meanwhile, it was getting gustier, and we were not inclined to fly, but our lift had gone, as all the cars had been driven down to the landing. We waited it out until 4pm, but the wind was still too strong and the direction too far off. We tried to get in touch with Quini, but there was no reply from his mobile so we were getting more worried about him all the time.
Eventually, we packed up and walked back down and Amadeu came back to pick us up. We did finally get a call from Quini and he had landed high up a mountain in one of the only landable fields in Sadernes, near St Aniol. He didn’t have his speed bar connected and was at the mercy of the wind, but he said he wasn’t too worried. With his height, he felt he could always reach a suitable landing field.
So, another time at Coma Negra and another time not flying. It’s a stunning place, but it would be nice if our luck there changed.
Saturday, 15th January 2011
Geoff writes: we’re in a period of high pressure with strong inversions – nice warm, sunny weather, blue skies, but bad for flying, too stable. We did consider canning the flying and just go for a walk, but we decided to do a bit of work in the morning, then go out early afternoon. The actual wind forecast was light southerlies, so in the end we decided to go to Santa Brigida, where it’s rarely not thermic, and if the wind is on, it works ok in ridge (dynamic) lift. In spite of being a SE face, Santa Brigida often doesn’t work in a southerly, because of the way the wind comes through the valley, but the forecast was so light we were sure it would be on. But, surprisingly, when we arrived it was both strong – blown out – and north west. Quite a few people were in the parking, looking a bit disconsolate.
We phoned Oriol who had gone to Bellmunt, and he said it seemed ok there, light winds, on the hill, though no-one was flying yet. So we promptly went there (having told the other pilots to go there too). Not a long drive, given the new tunnel, though driving there no-one was flying – but as we arrived at the bottom, people were starting to launch. Scratchy at first, it got better. Judith and I launched in quick succession (there was a queue, we had to wait to get off) and I had a nice, interesting flight. There were thermals, but weak, but there was also some ridge lift. It helped that there were half a dozen other pilots flying at the same time, indicating the lift. No-one got any great height, my best was around 450 feet ATO, and it got a bit bumpy higher up, but it was fun. Great views, and a nice change from Santa Brigida – and, to be honest, a much better day than we had expected.
Friday, 14th January 2011
Judith 14 Jan 2011 | : Beach, Flying
So the plan for today was to get up really early and get on the first lift at Masella, ski until lunch time and then drive across the valley to France and fly at Targasonne.
However, yesterday the top temperature at Masella was 16C, and today was supposed to be warmer. Mike wasn’t confident about the forecast being good for flying at Targasonne and I wasn’t feeling 100%. So we scrapped that plan and instead we went flying at Sant Pere de Rodes. Since it was my monthly day off flying, I was designated driver.
Matthias and Jesus had gone up the hill earlier and we met up with Mike and Oriol in Palau Saverdera. Once at the top, we could see the thick inversion below us. Matthias had launched and gone straight down, so we all waited around and then Jesus launched for an extended top-to-bottom. Mike flew next, but Oriol had to wait a while, as the wind started switching north and only thermals were bringing it on. He got off and had the longest flight of the day, working weak thermals under the inversion layer.
By this time it had switched north properly and Geoff walked across to the other launch and flew there, landing on the beach at Port de la Selva. I drove down to get him and we spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the sun, looking at shoals of fish and being groomed by some shaggy dogs to be their playmates.
Thursday, 13th January 2011
We posted a message on the Parapent Girona list last night, but nobody wanted to come out to play at Bellmunt today. On a Thursday it’s too much of a lottery whether there will be anyone there and it’s too much hassle to walk back up, so we decided to do something else. Since tomorrow’s adventure is more laborious, we decided to go chill out. With a forecast of 21C at the coast, it was a bit of a no-brainer… head to the beach.
Geoff took his bike and I took my blades and we did the St Margarida – port at Roses and back trip, with a stop off for lunch on the seafront on the way. It was a good job I took some shoes in my rucksack, as the loos were up a spiral staircase, which would have guaranteed some broken bones if attempted in roller blades – if indeed they had let me into the place in them. After, we had a paddle, a snooze and read in the sun and then headed back to do some work. Less than 3 weeks before we open the next conference. Better make some progress at editing the presentations…
Wednesday, 12th January 2011
More nice weather for skiing. A little windy, but not so much that the lifts were closed, and it did keep the temperatures down. We got up early to get an early start so we could make the most of the morning conditions. It was a bit icy to start off with, but once a few people had skied down the pistes and loosened up the top layer, it was actually really good snow. Much better than Monday. At the top was nicest, so we stayed there for most of the day.
There was loads of wave around, and the sky was full of crazy patterns, colours, shapes. It was like someone was painting the sky from above and we were watching it from below. The photos don’t really do the sky justice, since most of the wave bars were too massive to fit onto my camera. There were glories and sun dogs and also rainbows here or there, caused by the wind blowing snow over the mountains. Just beautiful.
Tuesday, 11th January 2011
Geoff writes: tramuntana forecast, so, as usual, we planned a trip to Santa Brigida. It was dull and cloudy in the morning, and, according to Mike, raining very hard just accross the border in France (though not here). So we did a bit of work, then the sun came out, and off we went, meeting up at Santa Brigida with Roger. And it was very nicely flyable. Sunny, thermic, not rough, and easy to stay up.
Whilst I was flying, someone else turned up on a quad bike, Gerry Mayr. He is on his way – by quad bike! – from Germany to Dakar, and stopped off at Niviuk to pick up a glider. He managed to get a flight to try it out, then bottom landed. Gerry holds various world records for quad biking.
He has an amazing trailer, which includes a garage (his word) for a paramotor engine, a tent, cooker, solar panels for his computer….. and, no doubt, a kitchen sink. Hard to believe you can get so much into so little space. Though going downhill towing it behind the quad bike could be a bit of a nightmare – it’s pretty heavy. Great to meet him, and hopefully we’ll see him again on his way back.
Judith has spent the evening recording a podcast (our first for a while) with Steve Hudson of the Derbyshire Flying Centre. Still to be edited though, so will be publicised when it is ready.
Monday, 10th January 2011
Finally we got to ski again. It snowed in the mountains yesterday and today should be the coldest day of the week, so best time to go. It was sunny at home and we drove through a layer of cloud on the way to Ribes, where it cleared again. In the Toses valley it was beautiful sunshine, but as we got to La Molina, there was thick fog! At Masella, we got on the ski lift and it took nearly to the top of La Pia to get into the sun, but once there, we were treated to a fantastic view of the sea of cloud below us. We took the next lift to the top of the resort, where the views were even better.
Eventually we had to descend back into the murk (to get to a cafe to have lunch). The cloud did start to dissipate in the afternoon, but then started to re-form in other places, so it was a really intersting day for changing scenery. Some of the sunbeams in the trees were magical.
The snow wasn’t the best (or worst) we’ve skied on. With the thaw/freeze cycle coming and going, it’s a bit lumpy and icy under the top layer, but there were nice runs to be found. Just nice to be out in the white stuff again…