We were going to work today. Definitely no going out. Far too much to do. Forecast was not great with high cloud predicted all day. So we got our heads down and and did some serious grafting. But then the sky started clearing and the sun was shining and it all looked rather lovely and far too nice a day to stay indoors. I’d done loads… maybe just a quick flight. Oh, go on…

El Mont is the mountain we can see from our house and it looked very inviting, so Geoff volunteered to drive for me, so I could have a quick flight and then we could come back and work some more before meeting our friend Debbi for dinner. El Mont is 1125m high (so higher than Snowdon), has a tarmac road to the top, and a restaurant/bar in a converted monastery next to the take-off. It’s all very civilised. Even a top to bottom takes 20 minutes, so it’s worth going up if you have limited time. In the depth of winter it’s usually just that, a fly down, but as it’s my favourite hang gliding site in Europe, I fancied going there.

When we got to the top at 4pm we bumped into Pedro, an old hang gliding friend of ours, who’s bought a little fold up motorbike to retrieve his car from the top. He says there are now so few hang glider pilots that he had no one to share lifts with any more and had to resort to finding a way to get back up the mountain under his own steam.

El Mont is a great site, but the take off is a hang gliding ramp and it was somewhat like aversion therapy for my recent launch numptiness. You have to do a good launch there – there is no choice. Aborting the launch means landing in the trees and risking an ankle. I did a good assertive launch and was off cleanly first time.

Pedro had said how good the thermals had been earlier, but once I was off there was a solid inversion and the thermals were capped under it. You’d get a bit of lift, but it was too small to turn in. After a few minutes of trying along the top of the ridge, I spotted two birds on the perma-thermal trigger point over the rocks in front. It did kick off when I got there, but it was rough and broken and I didn’t hang around. Instead I headed to the gentle thermal trigger in the gulley in front of the quarry, but it wasn’t to be and I had a nice smooth ride into the valley for a landing in Maia. Not epic flying, but a pleasant way to have a break from work and nice to see the familiar scenery of our extended valley. Geoff came in time to help me pack up and then it was back to work…

See photos of today.

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