We woke up early in the morning to set off to Snowdonia, but on looking at the forecast again, there seemed to be a good chance of a third good day on Corndon. Since we messed up the last two, we decided to give it a go. We bumped into Kai on the hill and it was just the three of us for most of the day. Despite it being blue in the morning, by the time we set off to go flying, high cloud was over us, shutting off the sun. At Leavesley Hill the conditions looked better with cumulus.

We all got ready and waited. Then we waited a little more. We chatted some, but mostly we waited. Kai had a punt, following a bird, and he managed to get a couple of hundred feet off the deck. I followed another bird, but it didn’t work out and I slope landed in amongst lots of bracken. I may not have mentioned this before, but I really, really hate bracken. In the end I got into such a mess trying to get my gilder out and back up to launch without collecting the remainder of the bracken on the hill that I devised a new carrying technique. Risers in my jacket and then the lines folded into the glider and the sail folded over and over and then I carried it up the hill in front of me like a washer woman bundle.

After some more waiting, it got soarable and we lobbed off. I slope landed again… guess where? Yep, in another carefully chosen clump of bracken. As I was freeing my lines, Geoff and Kai were having a nice time but I decided to stay calm and not let it phase me – never let your own incompetence spoil your enjoyment.

In the end we had some nice soaring, but it was impossible to get away. At 4pm we packed up, headed home, packed up the van and headed to Snowdonia. The news there was that Dave Thomson was the only person to make goal in the BPC task but because so many people didn’t launch he only got 66 points (out of a possible 1000), which seems ridiculous in the extreme.

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