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...
