We followed the hordes down from glencoe to ben lawers and after an hours walk up I spent at least 25 minutes sorting out the bracken clusterfuck that i had collected the day before in my lines. The thin lines on the xc2 love to tangle...
sorting out my lines in a sheltered spot as trias and another glider explore the south bowls
david t up and away
Meanwhile Trias was up and away with a few tip rustles and andy b scared the crap out of me flying the lee side of the spur and taking both hands off to get into his harness when only 10m up... David T was up as well and i chuckled as he rose up to my level from a take off lower on the spur exclaiming "f**king hell" as he rose erratically in the slightly leeside air (high level air was coming in from WNW as shown by the cracking cloud on the NW side of the mountain but at low levels the wind was WSW)
I waited for a good thermal and when i felt a cycle coming up the Tarmachan side of the spur launched and climbed out immediately without having to go near the anabatic lee side flow in the sunny bowls on the SSE face of the spur.
Apparently others were not enjoying the sporty conditions and there was radio chat to this effect which prevented some taking off. Ha! one of the advantages of not having a radio! I guess I wasnt in the same air as some because none of it felt even uncomfortable to me.... A push forward after the first climb got me into a climb above chris who had just taken off just after me and soon we got to base and headed downwind almost due west taking a little of the white room on the way.
I used the white room to push n over the main ridge and this got me a much better line than chris but it didnt hold him back much as he found a good one from lowish over a lee bowl a glide later to get back in the game. That put us both at base under a good cloud peeking out over the wide valley at the e end of loch tay which heads past the village of Kenmore.
Chris was in pootle mode not wanting to venture into the huge blue hole but i was impatient and went for it unaware that david t (as i found later from his igc file) had gone a similar route and we both got a weak climb off the bump in the middle of the valley (drummond hill) just past kenmore.
Disgusted at my move into the blue, chris was eventually forced into a route along the high ground on the n side of the valley and he found a bit of lift as he got level with me. Having climbed a bit i now had enough height to make a move a couple of k n to connect with the same spot and it was one of those unfair ones where i was high enough to get up but chris was low in the disorganised stuff and couldn't climb.
From there I made a bold move over the high ground covered in forestry to the n of weem hill - it was a necessary step to get back to the clouds and I eventually got a slow but good climb off the convergence cloud over farragon hill (slightly nw met wind meeting southerly anabatic). By this time i was aware of an inversion around 900m and a very distinct shear layer between the more northerly upper level winds and the lower winds at maybe 1200m.
It was definitely slow down and circle mode as the climbs were weak and it was impossible (for me) to stay in the same core through the various layers. Drift was as low as 10kph at times now in spite of being 20+ at take off but by being patient I had good height to cross the a9 over pitlochry. Although i was very tempted to push nw to a great cloud over ben vrackie (thats what decked david t) the clouds were cycling so fast i decided i would be better to head for wisps due e where there was more ground clearance.
Although that worked short term (for the next couple of glides) I got suckered into following wisps more and more se which i eventually realised were not true cumulus but the edge of the sea breeze front. My last glides were approaching the Drumderg windfarm still going due e but the windmills were showing wind on the surface due s and when i got low in the glenshee valley I was pushed north in the sea breeze for a k or so before landing (65k ish)
If only I had pushed NW earlier (would have been tricky... it was quite blue there) i might have been able to connect with the sea breeze convergence at glenshee proper where the air coming up from tbe braemar side meets the southerly flow... and flown over lochnagar.
Next time!
landing spot in glenshee after squeaking over power lines to avoid landing in a sheep field
the remains of the sea breeze front which suckered me too far south
