The forecast for today was slightly worse than yesterday. Strong north at the coast, low pressure and probably more cloudy. We dismissed going skiing, deciding to save it for a sunnier day tomorrow. I have loads of work to catch up on, so knuckled down this morning, but it didn’t seem too windy and there were nice cumulus forming, so at 2pm we decided to give Santa Brigida a go. The plan was that if it was flyable we’d have a quick sandwich and then fly, if not, we could sit in the sun, have a sandwich and a beer, read for an hour and then head home via a look around Les Preses. Since all the local mid-week flyers have abandoned us, we assumed we’d be the only ones there.

As we got closer, we were looking at the usual tell-tales for wind and were getting a little concerned, until we saw a glider over the ridge. Geoff put his foot down…

We could see three gliders getting reasonable height, but didn’t look high enough, another four were on their way to cloudbase. As we got up to launch our assumption was confirmed – a group of French pilots in FFVL vans. There were a dozen or so pilots altogether. We thought it was probably the school in Font Romeu, where they teach paragliding as an elective, but the R10s and high aspect Sky gliders seemed a bit advanced even for the amazing child pilots the school produces. As we walked on to launch, the wind was west, sometimes even north and the guys were launching when the thermals brought it on. They were getting high, but from their glide it was clear that the wind was actually 90 degrees off and when it turned, they were having some minor problems, although the guys who had launched earlier were in orbit.

I got ready and decided to wait a bit. The forecast was northerly and this wasn’t a classic Santa Brigida forecast. The smoke in the valley was north and on the monastery flag it was west. If we’d been on our own, we would not have got the gliders out of the bag. Everything inside my head was screaming ‘Don’t do this! if you have an accident and you have to explain it, it will be bloody obvious you shouldn’t have launched!’  But seeing people high, having a great time is a massive draw. Geoff let some more visitors go and then decided to launch too. I know his flying style better than anyone else’s and can get more info about the conditions from watching him than any other indication. He didn’t seem to make it look horrible at all. I waited a little longer and then the wind turned south … not just on launch, but in the valley in front and behind as well. Time to go!

I launched straight into a thermal and got up to 1200′ ATO easily and cruised around. I wasn’t thermalling very well. It’s been a while since we’ve been in strong, drifting thermals and I was having some issues mapping them. It didn’t really matter, since there was lift everywhere and every cloud was working really well. Since I didn’t launch until nearly 4pm, I assumed that the conditions would deteriorate and therefore didn’t try too hard, and that might have been a mistake, since the French guys did pretty big triangles, some getting to near Roca Corba, Puig d’Afrou and back. People were basically flying all over the place. After an hour and a quarter in the air, I attempted a couple of top landings, but it had picked up a lot and it was impossible to get down. Geoff was already trying to bottom land and I could see he was having a bit of a time of it, so decided to do the sensible thing and go down too – if it meant a walk back up, so what?

A few of us came in at the same time, so I elected to go into the higher field, but as I came in I hit a huge wind gradient and got dumped on my butt very unceremoneously. It turned out that the French guys weren’t from the Font Romeu area, but from the Alps and some are in the national team. They’re based in Berga for the week, but since it’s too windy in Berga they came down to Santa Brigida. A Sky glider came in after me and it was Laurie Genovese – star of the Women’s Open in Àger last August. Really lovely to see her.

And the conditions today? Base was 2700m (8860′) AMSL – that’s 2260m (7400′) ATO!

Geoff writes: as often happens at Santa Brigida, you’re flying a southerly site in strong northerly winds, and that always makes us a bit wary. But the reality was that today, though the wind was very switchy, there was not that much met wind (at first), so it seemed safe to treat this as a normal thermic site and launch when the cycles came on, as they increasingly did. It was very thermic, but not too rough, and easy to get high. At about 3400′ ATO, though, it did get rough, and I’m pretty sure this was the shear layer between the south and north winds. The clouds were drifting from the north, quite fast, i.e. the met wind higher up was north. I was a bit reluctant to go through this, and so pulled out at about 3500′ ATO. The other consideration at Santa Brigida is the airspace, and it is important to avoid that, for obvious reasons. The visiting pilots were not aware of the airspace, not having checked it out before they came.

So I pulled out and pushed forward, getting further over the ridge in front than I have ever done before. There were thermals everywhere, and it was very easy to stay up – but harder to get down. When I decided to land, the met wind low down had picked up a fair bit, and top landing was very hard, so I decided to bottom land. Not sure if this was a good decision, because it was rough landing, but I got down fine.

And just one Catalan pilot there! All the rest were French, and us.

All in all, a pretty epic day – quite possibly the best we have ever had there.

See photos of today.

No comments yet - please add one »