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.

It got a bit cold at that altitude, so I stayed below 8000′, but Mike climbed up to cloudbase at 10,500′ and said it was perishing. He went for a triangle, but missed it by a narrow margin, while I flew around soaking up the scenery and Geoff found it a little bouncy and decided to head out into the valley and then down. To be fair, he was flying my Aspen, which is the wrong size for him.

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…

See photos of today.

4 Comments »