British Open PG 2003 - Laragne, France

Day 0 - Saturday


looking W along Chabre ridge

Arrive at Laragne Chabre take off early Saturday afternoon. Its a long E-W ridge. Vertical in some places on the N side and shallow on the S side. Lots of trees on S side with only 2 landing options. According to Zabdi (my original PG instructor who has been out for the women's training camp) conditions have been fantastic for the last week. The sky looks nice - good clouds must mean pretty unstable conditions... There's a NW breeze but strong thermals are kicking up the S side... The odd dusty goes through...rolling along the ridge top. We watch the fun. People are lobbing off the S side (picking their moment) and taking HUGE surges in lee side thermals quite close to the hill. 3 pilots take off too close together and get massive pendulums (all synchronous fortunately) as they push away from the hill. The guy turning hardest into the surges gets up the best but later when way high above the ridge he overdoes it and spins (2 or 3 full revolutions). One guy gets psyched out and pushes out away from the hill. Massive sink into the trees - he had chosen badly on which landing field to go for in the W breeze in the valley S of take off. We decide not to fly but find out later that one of the guys who got to base just above us flew to St Andre about 50k? to the SW After we left (to check out our accommodation) another guy got whacked on take off and dragged through a little tree. When he looked down he had a branch sticking into one side of his thigh and out the other. It missed the big pipes.

Day 1 - Sunday

a rather busy bergies take off

We go to Bergies to the W of Laragne and a 20k? task is called back to the campsite landing field. You could push forward and get on the main ridge and soar all the way to Laragne (but it looks hard to get there) Or you could go with the continuation ridge of Bergies which will get you to within a few k of goal but the ridge is not very defined at several points

Conditions look weak and all the top boys go early along the continuation ridge. An orographic cloud forming to the left of TO makes it feel very Scottish! We hang about waiting for the air to get a little less busy. The orographic disappears after our late lunch as the day dries. Bob Drury seems obsessed with the fact that there should be a climb where the orographic was. Out he goes, down, back to hill, scratch like hell to get back up, over and over. Eventually he bombs. Kai Coleman and a couple of the polish boys get more height than others above TO and get a "lucky" (senor hamon) thermal over the valley and to within a k of goal - an amazing effort. I get 4.5k or somesuch against Senor H's 10 or 12. We get involved in a rescue of a Polish pilot who crash landed in some small trees while scratching too close on a thermic slope about 10k from goal. When we get to him (gps coordinates relayed by radio) he has walked gingerly down about 100m from his glider and I have a hard time convincing him to stand still and wait for the doctor who is scrambling up the hill just below. The doc reckons he's OK and we help Jatzek to walk slowly about half a k down a reasonable path where he is met by the Pompiers and stretcher. Shock takes hold and he withdraws a little and submits to being trussed up quietly. It turned out to be bad bruising only. Meanwhile his Polish mate has got the glider no problem, "I land trees 14 times - now I keep saw in harness!".

Day 2 - Monday

top dogs russell ogden and adrian thomas admiring the N side. Its a bit less steep further down the ridge

Up to TO and its a fearsome mass of gliders getting unpacked! Some people are fluffing their gliders up right on the edge in the thermic S breeze. A 46k? task is called.... running along the ridge to the W for 10k to a turnpoint then over in NE direction from TO with a NW leg thrown in at the end. With a start cylinder 3k from the first turnpoint and a start window open in only 15 minutes all the top boys are off within seconds of the hooter. My glider is still in its bag and i am still punching GPS buttons.... David T has gone for an early fly and is now having a devil of a job top landing... its lifty and there are gliders streaming out...

I wait nervously in the queue and get off a bit untidily but climb out well and get under a nice dark cloud near TO. Hmmnnn Cb's possible for later in the afternoon by the forecast and I get on the ears nice and early (still going up) and miss the edge of the cloud nicely. The top boys are gone but there are a fair no. of gliders around. I push W into the strengthening SW wind. Soon there are just me and a blue firebird (Abi Barr it turns out) groveling along the ridge crabbing sideways and giving it full speed bar sometimes just to stay forward. This doesn't feel like typical french flying .... Oh, oh the turnpoint's gonna be hard its in a col and the winds gonna be worse than ever. I get it OK and then start working back along the ridge.... but get enthusiastic and try and stay with a big rough thermal. One turn later and I have lost it and am mid-compression and sinking. No place for heroics and I flee downwind into the friendly looking valley over the back before the rotor monster can reach me. Smooth and easy landing. Abi gets half way to the second turnpoint before landing....

I get picked up about 5 mins after landing by the mini bus and we pick up a couple more who have been pinned and washed over the back including Snowy who gives us a full run down on his triple SIV course in the rotor - I wonder how much lower to the ridge he went over....

Turns out the task was cancelled about the same time I made base because of strong winds i.e about 10 mins after I launched. Lesson; make sure you are getting the safety freq and if you see a few gliders doing a few turns of big ears for no reason that means task cancelled.

The cynics pronounce it a task that never was....

Day 3 - Tuesday


St Vincent-le-Fort panorama

The MISTRAL is here as predicted..... With Low to the SE and High to the W the only way for a whole wadge of air N of the alps to get S is to whoosh down the rhone valley to the W of the alps. Although Laragne is E of the main Rhone valley it still gets some Mistral....

Up in the morning and the wind is howling. We go to St Vincent le Fort which is about an hour E of Laragne... more in the mountains and legendary as the one place you can fly when the Mistral is strong in this part of the country.... (also Gourdon but thats 3 hrs plus away). St V is about 40k? N of St Andre.

Its an amazing place - not quite as spectacular as Annecy but up there... You take off from a lump beside a nice top landing field, soar right to thermal above the old village and ancient fort , get some height and then run back left onto the shallow, wooded spur leading up to the Dormillouse (>2000m).



looking back at take off

A cautious committee set a 40k? task cats cradle in the valley and avoid taking us along any of the big hills where there might be stronger winds. There are lenticulars all over the place. And wave bars. I have a GPS scramble but find out after entering the new waypoint about 20 times that i have jogged it off the correct map datum and thereafter the hassle subsides...

Biggest thermal experience of my life as I get established in a decent one over the fort and at least 50 gliders come to join me.... Perhaps 10 of them at same level as me. After 15 minutes we are high and my mouth is as dry.. I am still mid gaggle.... but have been flying gliders way more than my vario. I decide to go for some chill time and leave the thermal earlier than some others to glide over to St Vincent mountain... Up again and I get to about 2100 metres and fly the 4k or so over to the start gate and watch my gps click on to the next waypoint (for the first time ever). Unfortunately the first leg is into wind and only 2 of our gaggle of 8 get over a small ridge the windward side of which would give an easy route down to the first turnpoint - we are stuck in the lee without a great place to look for a thermal and go down.



after the task going across the lake for some mellow evening soaring

I get picked up promptly and zoom back to TO where i meet David who had had a similar fate. Gordon is still flying having been trying desperately for the previous 2 hours to get away from the TO ridge... We both want to go for a chill but not sure if in the air or on the ground will be more relaxed! Both of us fly however, and it turns out to be one to remember... Opposite St V and over the lake is a huge bowl of exposed rock reaching up to 2200m. Even better its facing both the mild valley breeze and the lowering setting sun... We had heard you need 300m above to TO to cross the lake but get 280 and go for it with Gordon giving up on the task (he has missed the start window anyway) and joining us. The next half hour is dream flying.... lift is mild and friendly. We fly in close to the rock elevators and complex bowls and spires and cliffs and work our way up to the summit of the mountain with S turns as much as circles. The lift starts to die as I approach the rim of red rocks on the summit ridge (raven squawking) and we float back across to join the crowd of gliders above TO feeling like winners (having the most fun!). When gordon lands he gets hassle for not checking in as its now after the "land by" time!

Bruce G wins with 24k.

Day 4 - Wednesday



MISTRAL howling last night and this morning. However, we are more cheerful knowing that St Vincent holds an option.... We get there a bit early and David T goes for a fly before the task. In the distance the lenticulars and wave cloud are not so pronounced today. Stronger wind at TO than yesterday but he hops back onto the mountain to check things out with about half a dozen other pilots. Suddenly there are white horses on the lake 500m below launch and the gliders in the air are gale hanging.

Gradually, gradually they push out towards the many bottom landing fields... a big crowd of pilots gather at the front of TO all wishing that they get down safely....all the wings are going backwards during 5 minute long strong periods. All but the slowest glider a local student on an atom managed to make it forward and land (getting rounds of applause from the assembled pilots) but the atom is blown backwards over the takeoff spur and a big posse of pilots run over the back of the hill to try and help. Its very steep and we are fully expecting a nasty rotor event but arrive at the lip to see a little yellow atom landing with big ears still on about 400m below us down by the river. Woo hoo!

The wind calms and Bruce G and others go for test flies but the task committee cans the day. A later survey of hands reveals the vast majority as "don't knows" but those who voted agreed with the committee. You can tell the comp panel want to move to Gourdon to escape the strong winds but for those who have booked gites rather than brought tents this is hardly fair.

Day 5 - Thursday

Back at St Vincent and there is optimistic talk because the winds were lighter overnight back in Laragne. A 60k task is called from St Vincent S about 20k to a turnpoint on the Dormillouse chain (should be a ridge run?) back past TO to a turnpoint over the lake (near where we were 2 days ago) and then back to the main landing field. I feel excited - maybe we can get to goal today.

It turns out to be a bad day for everybody. Its a more stable day and this has a dramatic contribution to events. Its much harder to climb out from TO and when the thermal cycle weakens a bit everybody drops down into a compressed volume of air to soar above the village and the fort. The strong inversion at 2200m means that the strong afternoon anabatic flow up the W facing side of the mountain which is expected fails to materialise. In fact, instead of nice thermals next to the mountain on this side there will be horrible rotor due to the met wind (NE) coming over and down - especially next to low points/cols on the main ridge.

While David and I are fighting to climb through the inversion (about a 2 hour fight!) on the lower slopes of Dormillouse and Gordon is over TO we hear on the radio of a mid-air PG/HG above TO. The PGer is Vivian (not flying in the comp but friend of many here) and the HGer is a local pilot. We hear later that Vivian crash landed on the top of the fort while the the HG, still suspended in her lines, dangled over the E wall. Vivian got broken bits (legs, ribs) but the HGer died. We continue to fly as helicopters are going to be buzzing TO soon anyway. Eventually we give up fighting the inversion (I had a 3.5m/s on the averager stop dead) and work round the mountain low on the W side. We work hard in lumpy lift over trees at the margins of "easy glide" to landing fields lower in the valley and get about 10k down the course. Later we hear that Natalia (a Venuzuelan girl in the comp) is unconcious and needs heli rescue from near the first turnpoint. When they got there she was dead too and was found dangling over a cliff face with trees at the top (tucking in too close and caught a wing tip on a tree perhaps? Don't know)

Many people get caught by strong and turbulent winds near the first turnpoint and land out in gullies high above the treeline. 6 are still out when we check in at Laragne but all are back by 4am. "worst flying conditions of my life" type comments float around that evening.

5 make goal. 1st in Mark Watts - the guys who got really high above the ridge had a smooth run.

Day 6 - Friday


chabre N side
No task. An explanation of the task and meteo by BD - CB was still giving statements to the police. We free fly from Laragne about 3pm in the afternoon in the handsome conditions (blue) getting down to Sisteron in a Northerly drift (about 20k).

Day 7 - Saturday

The sky looks even better than yesterday with some Cu popping by 12 but we have to leave to get our plane at 2pm sharp. We launch about 1pm and at 2pm sharp I'm at 1800m (above Gordon who has just landed in a field near Sisteron) and am wondering how tight our time limit is. Sigh, spiral dive, wing over, spiral dive.

Actually the description above was for Sunday which means I've lost a day.... Worrying how the memory goes .... Overall impression of competition flying is that its stressful for early xc pilots like me.... and this comp was tricky. Going free flying xc on the last two days felt like evening floating by comparison...

EDIT: reading this report again many years later it doesn't seem to treat the events that happened with the right tone or respect. Perhaps a sudden bereavement in my own family earlier in 2003 explains that in part.

Destination Unknown

The weather had set us up perfectly for the big one.... some good thermalling flights to get acquainted with the area, then 3 overcast days to get us keen followed by a big cloud day where we didn't dare go too far from the calming influence of the lake. So Friday arrived with a perfect forecast. Irwyn had given us some really useful advice on how and where to fly and had set up an 80k out and return route in our GPSs to follow which went over the back to Lachat, across to the Aravis and then back down to Annecy but we would end up following our own noses from nearly the start...

I took off first at 1:45, anxious to get going as soon as we saw other people staying up at Plan Fait, and got a good thermal up to the Teeth (1800m) almost immediately where i waited for Andy and Owen.


Andy is the bigger one with the littler shorts and Owen is the littler one with the bigger shorts. Plan Fait is just off top of shot.


View from over the Dent de Lanfon (teeth of the wolf) with Forclaz the other (higher) take off just off shot to top right. When things are working well like here you don't even have to go close into the rock to step on the up elevator!

Its not the most relaxed place to wait as the thermals are pretty punchy and getting the camera out required faith in my wing and plenty space! Here's Andy who has climbed up to about 2200m near the teeth.

We topped up to about 2500m before going for the transition to Mont Lachat which involved a long curving arc over the back down the Cruez making sure that the last and lowest bit of the transition would be helped by the valley wind. Here Andy is ahead on the red glider approaching the shoulder of Lachat. Our proposed route was to Pte Percy via Tete du Danay


Irwyn had warned that the climb out could be difficult early on in the day as this mountain is a long ridge facing N-S and therefore without a big rock face looking at the early afternoon sun. It was a bit snotty but once up to the level of the first rocks the only way was up to 2500m and cloudbase again! Andy was first up and didn't want to hang about for me and Owen as he was getting pasted with a few collapses and having trouble staying out of the grey room so he set off on a glide following his gps bearing to the waypoint at the other end of the ridge and then the next waypoint on Tete du Danay. When I arrived at base I cruised along the summit ridge (about 5km long although you wouldn't know it from this photo) flirting with the cloud edge to keep my height topped up and encouraged Owen who was just behind to work the first snotty bit of the climb.


By the other end of Lachat still at base the Aravis were looking closer but I didn't like the look of the amount of shadow on the ground on route. Andy had already glided to T du D.


But I was thinking of the sunny bit out of shot to the left... Continuing N there seemed to be lots of sunny rock walls to go for and Owen ended up joining me.... We heard on the radio that Andy had found a climb low over Danay despite the cloud but he was now feeling a bit under the weather and a bit freaked by the huge cloud above him so he went for an audacious top landing on Grand Bornand before flying down later and hitching back to Annecy. Owen and I had to work hard in lumpy "half thermals" the nearest rock faces finding out later from Irwyn that because the valley on the L has a sudden end that valley wind can flow up and through between these two sometimes. We finally found that the left hand edge of the second sunny face had a strong thermal. After getting to base again we flew to Pointe D'andey which is hidden behind the the furthest away rock point on the L. None of the rock walls on the way worked that well and we were cruising close into the rocks at times and wondering if we had worked ourselves into a trap.... The big beast in the middle behind Jallourvre is called Bargy and looked a bit scary. You can just see Mieussy (the home of the first ever paragliding flights and where I flew just after getting my club pilot rating with Zabdi and Chris in September 99). We had great fun thermalling with kites and eagles over Pointe D'andey - they consistently showed us where the cores were for about 1000m of climb! It was best to come in just above or below them as if you came too close they would bugger off and find another core nearby!


Looking E from Pointe D'Andey at Owen and the Mont Blanc Massif way beyond.

Now we had a bit of a quandary. Irwyn's route was right out the window and we had to make some decisions about where to go next. I got the map out of its carefully folded map case state and after getting it back in control (not easy mid thermal with an A2 sized map!) announced to Owen that the mountain on the other side of the valley was called the Mole and was sure that Irwyn had mentioned it as the route to Cham (nonsense it turns out).

So with whoops and shouts of "did you bring your passport" we set off on the valley crossing northward towards the mole.


This is taken about half way across looking at lake geneva in the distance. In fact it must be looking right at Evian les Bains where the G8 meeting was happening the next day (shoot out of the sky warnings were due to come into operation at 2200 that night and we had heard that surface to air missiles had been installed on some hills!).

We tracked well left for the valley wind again on a buoyant glide before getting 5 down sink close to the cliffs bottom right but they were working! We worked our way up to the summit of the Mole. By now I was feeling a bit frazzled. I had had a severe dose of the shits the night before and about 2 hours sleep and it was catching up on me.

I told Owen I was feeling rough and would "follow" him for a bit but failed to follow my own advice as he climbed out to 2600m from about 10m above my head to a freshly forming cloud while I tried every spur on the Mole for about the next hour before I finally realised which one Owen's good climb had come from (the other side from where we had arrived). My brain was definitely on slow about then.

Owen gallantly offered to wait for me at base but I told him he should take the opportunity to make the next crossing. About this time radio talk got difficult - I later found out that this was because my radio had slipped out of my pocket was hanging on the safety cord on my lap somewhere and probably with the ariel touching some bit of metal or other - the odd word came through but nothing coherent. I was concentrating so hard on climbing up that I couldn't take the time to sort it out....

I was desperate to know where Owen had got to and which route of the two we had discussed he had taken but couldn't get any answer.

This is the view from close to base looking NE from the mole. Mieussy take off is above the rock bands on the left and it turned out later Owen was cranking above a cross at top of the big rock face (pointe de Marcelly) on the right and desperately asking me if I thought the cloud he was under was too big! What do you reckon?!?

Looking back to the SE from the Mole and the N end of the Aravis chain in the background. The big cloud that had caused the route change has dissipated (but it is now late afternoon).

I was in a quandry and in spite of wanting to go direct for Mieussy I thought Owen had been advising the "little triangular peak" in garbled radio messages which is shown here bottom right.. Pointe de Marcelly is off to the left of shot.

I went for little triangle which turned out to be a big mistake as when I arrived above it there was a hooting wind (trees waving) but NO thermals. Turns out Owen had found the same about an hour or maybe more earlier and that we both made the same move next dropping down to the tichy little rock face in the middle of the valley which is middle left in the photo above. The tichy little rock face can also be seen in the photo about 3 above of Mieussy and Pointe de Marcelly (right hand side middle).

Now I knew it was a race against time to get up as the sun had gone round so far that Marcelly was only getting a glancing heat ray. I worked every scrap off the tichy little rock face and got in a steady half up (it turned out that Owen had got a 5 up from a little church near here onto Marcelly) and drifted with the valley wind back to the RH spur of Marcelly. Here I left my crappy thermal and tried really hard to soar the face but couldn't get higher than 850m whatever I did and however close i swooped into the trees and ribs. This was just about the bottom of the rock fingers on the RHS of the face - frustrating as I was sure if I could just get level with the rock I would step on the up elevator. After about 20 minutes of this I was feeling pretty drained again and ran down wind (up valley to the right) towards Samoens picking up a half up again.

Its amazing how little thermals drift in the alps! I spent about another half an hour in that half up getting back up to about 1100m near Taninges - the village in the middle of the valley (above).

View from over Taninges. I probably should have tried for thermals over the shallow spur to my left but the shallow slope and tree cover put me off I think (plus my knackered state) and I went for a glide along the valley landing just past the lake on the right.... [The slopey point extreme top right of the picture is Samoens ... another site I flew ttb's at in 99!].

I land beside the road in a hay field and suddenly I am back in the world of cars and stares. Its 6:30pm and I am dying for a pee! I phone Owen but no answer. I phone again a minute later and he answers to say he has just landed that minute but doesn't know where! Turns out it was Montriond near Morzine about 25k off to the left of the view in this photo. He had run from the big cloud over Marcelly and got another another 6up (m/s) climb at 6pm over Les Gets! He was in lift when he decided to land and was looking up the Avoriaz valley to Switzerland. The sports field where he landed had a locked 2m fence all around!

Tired but happy we laughed and swore before grovelling to Andy for a lift home....

Thanks to Irwyn for all the weather and thermal lore...