Saturday in spring with a good RASP for the W Highlands and Team Haggis were up for trying something special. So Paolo, Trias, Daniel, Adrian, Jules, Khaled & Duncan crashed at my Dad's house near Dingwall on Friday night which put us in good postion with less than an hour's drive to our proposed start point on Moruisg in Glencarron (a hill that nobody had flown before). The morning dawned grey with wet ground and base well below the tops of the hills. Expectations were dampened slightly but we were on the road by 9am and drove West through a succession of showers. Trias helpfully pointed out that showers so early in the day must mean a really good airmass especially since it was high pressure and that the rain drops getting bigger meant that the lift was getting better :) After a bacon butty stop at the surprisingly grand hotel in Achnasheen (which also has a bunk house), we walked up the sodden hillside just as the sky started to improve and were joined by Ian and Mike from Aviemore. We got reports of strong and gusty conditions 30k further north from Andy and Ed at Quinag but it was light to soarable if anything where we setup.
Jules and I gained height rapidly after take off as did Trias, Daniel and Khaled and soon we were mincing on the back ridge and pondering the 25k with no roads to come. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and soon Jules and I were over the back to a small hill with a NW face with Daniel and Trias close behind.
Jules and I gained height rapidly after take off as did Trias, Daniel and Khaled and soon we were mincing on the back ridge and pondering the 25k with no roads to come. Nothing ventured, nothing gained and soon Jules and I were over the back to a small hill with a NW face with Daniel and Trias close behind.
That first hill (Creag Dhubh Mor) was a bit of a beast as it had a very WNW flow coming up the tight little valley which was almost along the hill and the climbs were broken and difficult. It felt like there was a risk of going down initially. Although wind speeds were ok (15 to 20kph drift) there may have been some unhelpful wave influence as well. After a while, Jules and I worked one hill to the W onto Carn nam Fiaclan in order to try and get a climb off a higher peak that might go higher - the next transition into the super-boonies over Loch Monar was going to be a key one for the day. I felt i was flying badly at this point doing too much following of Jules and indeed I got in his way in one thermal and got shouted at - oops!
Leaving together from the top of a climb at 1400m to start our glide S felt like only just enough (the hills hereabouts are +/-1000m) and we chose different directions to different clouds (forming from the S-side leeside bowls) which we hoped would give us a boost during the transition and a higher arrival on the S shore of Loch Monar. A few k to the E Trias
had found a faster climb out and shot ahead while Daniel had also gained height and was only just behind. The views of the mountains with snow pockets in the N-facing coires were spectacular. There were no roads visible in any direction and it was time to get the camera out to capture some great scenery.
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| Looking W at the W end of Loch Monar and Jules |
Neither cloud worked and our glide paths came together again and we teamed up to try and find a climb out from two pimples on the S shore - we didn't have the reach to get to the main NW faces further S and higher up. Pimple no.1 offered a very WNW breeze flowing along the valley and a couple of fake beeps but realising I was going to land on it and in the absence of any other option when only 20m off the deck I ran for pimple no.2. Slightly in the lee of the valley breeze, between the two pimples, a weak thermal was drifting which Jules and I got 2 or 3 turns in before the extra 10m I had made the difference and Jules dropped out the bottom and landed with Daniel on pimple 2 (They re-launched later and had great second flights with Daniel getting to the flat lands around Cannich and Jules crossing
to Newtonmore).
to Newtonmore).
My half up stayed together long enough to drift me the 2km or so to the NW face of Rubha na Spreidhe and I was able to soar a few beats and gain a few metres before the slope breeze dropped off badly and i started to sink out. A thermal out front? Time to gamble again and it paid off with a good but very rough climb with a very pronounced drift from almost due W which got me back up to hill top height again with the whole of Loch Monar below and Loch Mullardoch now visible in the valley to the S. The high pressure conditions were making the thermals snaky and devious and they were showing a pronounced tendency to track E across the NW faces of even the biggest hills before releasing to the E of the main peaks. The drift up high was consistently NNW. Realising this helped me make the next two transitions over the remote but spectacular valleys with Loch Mullardoch and Loch Affric and I was starting to believe that a big flight might be on the cards - we had jokingly set Glencoe as the goal the day before.
I got lucky with good climbs just before and just after leaving the high ground (Trias was not so fortunate and landed in Glen Affric) and that put me in great postion to head out SSE across the sinky down going air on the first part of the flat lands (the hills are only 500-600m here) leading from Affric over to Glen Morriston and the Great Glen. I was starting to seriously regret having my sunglasses in the back of my harness as I had forgotten that flying S on a bright day was so uncomfortable. I rested my eyes by practising thermalling with my eyes shut - it seemed to work ok in the smooth ones.
Soon I was gliding for a good convergence cloud over the head of Loch Lochy with Loch Ness over my left shoulder. I had to cut across wind to the west a bit. In going that direction I was worried about getting low and dropping into SW sea breeze coming up from Fort William but due downwind was a big blue hole about 30km across and if I could make it to Loch Lochy I would be able to dive S into the Glen Roy hills to the W of Creagh Megaidh and nice clouds again. The glide worked out and from there I jumped to Carn na Larach where i arrived back in hilltop soaring mode for the first time since Loch Monar in a hooting wind. A step climb found me a good core and then two turns later I was committed over the back with a great view of the heather burning fires on the lee sides of the Glen Roy hills just to the west of me. From base I had thoughts about jumping crosswind SW onto the Grey Corries range which would lead to more familiar hills in the Mamores and Glencoe but beautiful cumulus beckoned due down wind as did Rannoch Moor and that would keep me away from the significant smoke from the fires for longer.
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| Looking back N at the heather burning fires on the lee side of Glen Roy. The Glen Affric Hills which are 20km short of our take off in Glencarron are on the horizon far right |
An internal dialogue started between Mr Cautious and Mr Go-For-It about how sensible it was to be heading for another large area without roads quite late in the day at the end of March. Fortunately I couldn't get my watch out from under all the layers of clothing. In the absence of hard info and after a surprisingly small amount of nagging ("How many times are you going to get this opportunity?") Mr Cautious caved. Gliding at base S down the west shore of Loch Treig was fun as it was a new angle on the flights of last year but the air that followed was fierce and there was 5km or so where I had to catch the glider numerous times. The smoke from the fires far from the North had dissipated across a large area and it seemed to have really disturbed the air. I followed the sunny W edge of a cloud street which led me right out into the middle of Rannoch Moor - I didn't find much lift but there was only mild sink on the way. It was touch and go but I just had enough height to squeeze over Stob na Cruaiche (Mike Cavanagh's saviour on his big triangle last year) and the hoped for climb was there on the lower ground of the sunny protected side as I glided across Loch Laidon. I was tired now but turned on full concentration to maximise the climb and got good height to try for a baby cumulus on Creag Riabhach at the S rim of Rannoch Moor where it meets the Glen Lyon hills. One climb there would have got me to Glen Lyon and two would have got me to Glen Lochay or even Glen Dochart (Killin-ish). But it was too late in the day and although I went deep onto the rather flat topped hill I couldn't reach the cloud. Diving over the col with 100m clearance in 25-35 kph of wind might have spoiled a good day so I turned back into wind and landed high on the flat col at about 700m. I think I had some other options but was bursting for a pee and couldn't think straight.
What a day! A dream flight that we have been thinking about for a couple of years now and over 100km through some of the best terrain in Scotland.
After pondering a map I managed to walk up for about 10mins onto Meall Cruinn and then glide NE for about 3k then repeat for another glide down to Bridge of Gaur at the W end of Loch Rannoch and a road by 7:50pm. As I knew it would be a while until the car arrived and the temperature was already dropping fast I decided to walk/hitch but no cars passed and I had a nice few hours of tramping along the N shore of Loch Rannoch in the moonlight listening to the owls, oystercatchers, geese, roe deer and the country music and fireside chat of the wild campers on the shore of the loch.
Thanks T for the pick up! Home by 2am.
After an early start, Sunday was some flatland Englandshire flying from Bradwell in the Peak District - another new site for us. The flying was technically very easy but the airspace kept me occupied. My Garmin shows all the airspace up to 25,000ft so had to push buttons hundreds of times to keep checking the lower layers. The dry ploughed fields of the East of England (they are having a drought) kept working all through the day. Great fun and great to be caught by Trias at 80k unexpectedly (he's a hard man to get ahead of). In the last section of the flight I pushed faster downwind into the blue rather than going crosswind to stay with the clouds and ended just under 150k at the town of Wisbech. We met up at Peterborough train station with Alex Butler who had also had a good flight.
Home by 1am.
