Late Fall Hiking

It's a wonderful time of year in St Andre. This is the quietest time of year, before the skiing brings the tourists back. Most of the shops in the village close for a couple of weeks in November. The weather has been lovely - cold, sunny and clear. A little chilly for flying, but lovely for hiking or hike and flies. I took a couple of highish altitude hikes over the weekend, knowing that the snow will be arriving soon and making such things a lot harder. 

Pics from Saturday and Sunday

St Andre Scratchfest

The 11th of November is Armistice Day in France and a public holiday. St Andre is one of the few flyable places at this time of year, so eager pilots come from all over. It was a S launch day (always a bit trickier at St Andre) and, after my hike up, I was surprised to find only a handful of pilots there. Half a dozen wings were in the air - roughly at launch height - and there were many wings in the LZ.

As I got ready, more and more pilots arrived and suddenly launch was quite crowded. I launched and was immediately followed by several pilots. After 5 minutes I found a decent thermal and got 300m over launch. Things seemed very comfortable but I decided to wait for cloudbase to rise a little before going XC. 

But the weather didn't cooperate. The day was clouding over, and the thermals didn't last that long. As the lift diminished, more and more pilots took to the air. I soon found myself scratching in a tricky mix of ridge lift and thermals with an awful lot of pilots. To add to the problems, someone in St Andre was burning vegetation and - with the low winter sun sometimes poking through the clouds - visibility was poor. 

I'm the blue wing top right (Stephane from the LZ)

I flew pretty conservatively, avoiding the worst of the crowds, until the skies cleared out a bit. At that point, there were really no thermals to speak off. Weak ridge lift was the only game in town - a pleasant change at St Andre! I'm almost at the top of the weight range on my new wing, so I was please to see that it performed well in these conditions. 

After nearly 2 hours I headed to the LZ and joined a lot of happy pilots. Someone counted over 60 wings in the air when traffic was at its worst. I talked to a pilot from St Hilaire; his club couldn't find accommodation in St Andre and they were staying in a Gite in a neighboring village. 

A few pics - all taken before I got into the heavy traffic!

Deluge in St Andre

The weather has been very dry for a long time in St Andre, but everything changed at the start of November.  Sandwiched between a couple of French holidays on the 1st and 11th of November, a week of very wet weather was forecast.

It has been very wet, with plenty of storms and winds. The lightning has played havoc with church clock and bells; they seem to get it fixed each day only for it to fail again overnight. The big concern in the area is flooding; so far the Verdon has stayed within its banks. There are still a couple of days of rain to go, but hopefully we are over the worst.

Pics and a video

Optimism Pays Off

My girlfriend arrives tomorrow for a 10 day stay, the morning's forecasts were good so grabbing a lunch-time flight was an easy choice. 

But as soon as I left the front door, the signs weren't so good. The clouds were screaming out of the north (a bad direction for strong winds at St Andre) and the trees were moving a lot. Near the summit I encountered a pilot walking down with his gear - the signs can't get much worse than that!

We talked and I decided to continue, if for no other reason than to have my lunch on the summit. I was hoping the winds would weaken as the inversion rose. At launch, the wind was strong but seemed manageable and a couple of HG flew. I checked the wind carefully for about 30 minutes before launching. The flying was interesting; at this time of year you sometimes have to work a little harder to stay up than in the middle of the summer, but things are still plenty spicy in the air. After just over an hour I headed back to work just as pilots started arriving on launch.

Tracklog and a few pics

Sharing the Sky

I flew Sunday, but not for terribly long; it was bumpy, cold and hard to get high. After an hour or so I decided to land.

At one point I encountered around 12 vultures in a thermal and couldn't resist joining them. The vultures live in a big colony in the Verdon gorge just to the south and fly the paragliding trade routes in their search for food. If you see them flapping you know it's going to be a slow day.

They didn't really seem to care about or even acknowledge my presence. They circle very smoothly, but are obviously a lot more maneuverable than a paraglider. At one point a vulture turned sharply in some lift and was heading towards me. I knew he could see me and my wing, but I was worried he would fly into my lines. But no; full air brakes on, he dove under me and glided away, doubtless cursing amateur pilots.

PS Maybe I treated this too lightly. A few days later this article appeared on the paragliding forum and you can see the action in this video. I don't think I'll join any vultures in thermals any more.

My New Baby...

I have a new wing and I'm just starting to put her through her paces. It's a Factor 2 (the blue one) and so far, so good. 

I've been flying a Factor 1 but my new wing brings two big differences. It's a a 3 liner, rather than a 4 liner, and should fly a little faster and glide a little better. And, more important, I'm now flying a Small rather than a Medium wing. 

I have really liked my Factor 1; reasonable performance, tons of feedback, very few collapses and (like all Novas) very agile. It has seen me through thick and thin. But, due to personal and equipment weight loss, I'm now only 30% of the way through the weight range. For the flying I do, that doesn't make sense. With my new wing I'm at 80 - 90%, and that's much better for St Andre!

I had a hike and fly yesterday (the wind was predicted to pick up in the afternoon, so I flew early) and all seemed well. Today's forecast looked really good, but reality was different. What looked like a 3000m platform turned out to be 2000m - and it was bloody hard to get that high! But all the better for trying out my new wing; it performed very well in difficult conditions. A little more speed, lighter controls and speed bar, easier to spiral, big ears that work, no collapses when other pilots were having them, working weak lift over the LZ - not bad! There's still plenty to learn, but so far, so good.

A not very impressive tracklog.

Hiking Weekend

The Mistral blew strong on Friday and Saturday and was still strong enough to stop any flying (except early morning sledders) on Sunday. What's bad for flying is great for hiking and I took full advantage this weekend. Blue skies, big views and just the beginnings of fall colors - lovely.

It was strange to see no snow at all on the highest peaks - the end of the summer has been very dry. The sheep have left the high pastures and are making their way back to the lowlands.  Back home, I put the central heating on for a few minutes on Saturday night. There's definitely a feeling of the seasons changing.

Some Saturday pics and Sunday pics