Judith's blog

The first day of sunshine for ages! We woke up to leaden skies, but there were patches of blue already showing. With strong tramunatana at the coast, Santa Brigida was going to be the best place to fly. I had to collect my parents from the airport, so Geoff and I arranged to meet there. The trade-off for fetching them, was that they then had to drive me to go flying.

The heavy rain made some of the bank next to the road unstable and a big rock has fallen and is now blocking the road. You can just about get past it by coming off the road, but without a 4×4, we thought we might get stuck, so parked up and started to walk. Luckily, Roger called us after about 10 minutes and came down for us. It had looked windy, but arriving on top, it had dropped right off and gone off to the east. Roger and Geoff launched, but it was scratchy and a bit rough, so both top landed after a short time. Tomas arrived, all keen to get his new kit in the air again, but I was starting to have some concerns about how far off to the east it was getting. Unless it’s 90 degrees off, it’s flyable, but the ridge doesn’t work when it’s off, and unless you get a thermal, you’re nearly guaranteed to go down. Tomas had the added problem of not being able to get into his new pod harness easily and by the time he’d done so, was a long way out from the hill and heading down. So we waited. It became very gusty for a while and clouded over, but at 4.30pm the conditions came good, the sun started shining, and we all had nice flights, getting to 900′ ATO. Geoff, Tomas and I got low at one point and had to work collaboratively to scratch the bowl behind the monastery to get back up and satisfyingly, we all did.

See photos of today.

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Geoff writes: Some rain, but a lot less than in previous days. Wet and cloudy in the ski resorts. In fact, all the higher pistes are closed anyway because of the avalanche risk. Not flyable at all. So a day of jobs, including Judith’s final LMSC newsletter.
 
 
 

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Geoff writes: an even wetter day than yesterday. In fact, it never stopped raining until late Tuesday night. The river flooded again, though, being at the top of a 100 metre cliff, we aren’t in too much danger. And another 50cm of snow at Masella, though all the top runs are closed because of avalanche risks.

Wednesday’s forecast is also poor, but getting better after that.
 

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Rubbish weather. It rained all day. At least we managed to catch up with all the email, post and bits of work we ignored last week.

And, excitingly, the 2011 Àger Women’s Open is ready for registration. Nicky and I worked on the details today and the web site is now available. I can’t wait!
 

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Geoff writes: we may be good tour guides for other people, but not so good when it comes to ourselves – today was a completely messed up day.

The forecast looked OK for flying, and it was sunny here, though with some big clouds (as you might expect with the ground so wet), but plenty of blue, so off we went to Bellmunt. But as soon as we came out of the tunnels on the other side of the pass, there was complete cloud cover, and the launch, and most of the ridge, was in cloud. So we phoned others to warn them not to bother, turned round, and went to Santa Brigida, where it was sunny, but too far west, and with the wind picking up. So after chatting in the landing field for a while, we consoled ourselves with the thought of going to the Olot carnival this evening – a massive affair, which should have been yesterday at 5.00pm, but was postponed to today because of the rain yesterday. It’s a great event, with many really impressive floats, and we always enjoy going. 

As we drove there, we saw a couple of floats heading the wrong way – and after we’d parked and were walking in, we saw more and more people in costumes, also walking the wrong way. We finally asked a policewoman, who said it was finished – it had started around 11.30 – whereas we had assumed it would be the same time as originally planned – and we had checked their web site this morning, just to make sure, but there was no mention of a revised time.

To add insult to injury, we were soaked by the street cleaners…

The forecast for the next couple of days is rain, but better after that. And yesterday, there was 50cm of new snow at Masella.

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Geoff writes: rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain ….. you get the idea. Wayne and Mick left this afternoon. We’ve had a great time, ending last night with dinner with Debi at our local bar, having the traditional Catalan meal of calçots – followed by a meat course, desert, bread and lots of wine, all for 20 euros each. Great value!

Today, we had hoped to get a last day flying before going to the airport, but no chance. The forecast proved all too accurate, and it has been raining continuously since the middle of the night. The only good thing is that this means a lot of new snow in the mountains. We decided to have a look around Girona, but in the end that meant wandering round an amazing toyshop, then coffee, then the airport.

The forecast is a little better for tomorrow, then another three days of bad weather. Lucky they aren’t arriving today, rather than leaving – though the people on the incoming flight will get a shock, when they deplane in not so sunny Spain.

See photos of the calçotada last night.

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Geoff writes: today is the last full day for Mick and Wayne, and it had a deteriorating forecast. Skiing was written off as an option – the first two days were enough for Wayne. Flying, though, seemed possible, before the wind came in later. In the end, after some indecision, we decided on Sant Pere de Rodes, mostly because if it was not flyable, or after flying if it was ok, we could then do other stuff, like go to the beach. Also, Mathias, who lives near there, thought it would be a good day.

We were up early, and so had time for a quick visit to the famous tree house. I guarded the car and gliders, whilst the others went inside. This is the only place where there is a real risk of theft from cars – mostly because once you are in the maze, you can be meters from the car, but still not able to get out to stop any thieves.

Then on to meet Marc, to go up Sant Pere de Rodes. At this point, I decided we were in a hurry to get there before the wind picked up. On the drive up, we saw a glider flying, so knew it was still ok. After giving a bottle of wine to the car park attendant, who always lets pilots park free, we did the route march up to launch. As we were walking up, it still seemed fine, though maybe top end.

On getting to launch, we saw the sight pilots always hate to see – a glider in the bushes just below launch. We rushed down, and found Jesus, a friend of ours, conscious, but obviously badly hurt. No-one else was there – he had been flying with two others, but they had bottom landed, and as far as we knew at that point they did not know Jesus had crashed. Marc immediately called for a helicopter, and we did what we could to make Jesus comfortable. At one point  he stopped breathing for a while, but we managed to get him started again; he also went briefly into shock, and was unconscious for a few seconds, but again came around. We kept him warm, and kept talking to him.

Very soon (in fact, a very fast response) the medics arrived by helicopter (by the end, there were three helicopters from different branches, bringing more medics, firemen and police ). They stabilised him, and finally he was winched off to hospital.

As it turned out, one of the other PG pilots had seen the accident, but I think maybe hadn’t realised quite how serious it was. He had bottom landed – top landing is extremely difficult here – and driven back up, but then it is also a 15 minute walk to launch from the parking. Jesus was extremely fortunate we arrived when we did, and so were able to call the emergency services relatively soon after his accident.

He has a broken pelvis and internal bleeding, but is stable, so hopefully, this has had a happy ending. Wayne even found his vario/GPS, which he was very worried had been lost.

As always, the helicopter pilots were amazing, hovering and dropping off medics over very steep and difficult terrain.

Needless to say, we didn’t fly afterwards – and also the wind had picked up considerably by that point (but even if it hadn’t, I doubt any of us would have flown). Instead we had a picnic looking at the spectacular scenery, then went for a walk along the beach.

Not the best day ever, except for the fact that our friend is alive, and hopefully will fully recover.

See photos of today.

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