Geoff writes: a less successful day today, though we did fly.

The forecast was very light SW, so we went to Elan Valley, along with Mick and Hayley, and Graeme and Odette. Elan is an extremely sensitive members-only site (lots of nesting birds, including red kites), very beautiful, and a really good place from which to go XC when it is light. We’ve been a few times before, but never flown it on the PGs (though I have on the hang glider), usually it is too windy.

We were racing to get there before the approaching front, but as we arrived, it was still sunny, with some nice cumulus developing. On launch, the wind was all over the place, and two very strong dust devils came through within about ten minutes. We decided to wait a little while, which was a mistake, since the front was approaching extremely fast, and within another 15 minutes or so, the sun had gone.

And that was it for a couple of hours, with the wind going more westerly too (ahead of schedule). We repeatedly tried, along with locals Steve and Piers, but didn’t get up. Eventually, one by one, we flew over to the more westerly facing ridge, the wind picked up, and Piers and Steve got up there, as did we all later on. Once you were above ridge height, it was easy to stay up, in thermals, and maybe a bit of wave or convergence from the two valleys feeding into the site. It was quite bouncy though. I got to about 1000′ ATO, and was still climbing, and briefly considered going XC, but there was no sun at all, it was getting late, and after hanging around all day my motivation was gone.

Still, we did get a reasonable flight, in the end, at a stunning place.

See photos of today.

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