Not the office - Les Cornettes de Bise

In the spirit of keeping working weeks to four days, I decided to take Tuesday off. That was a good decision as it rained quite heavily on Monday.

There were still a lot of clouds sticking to the sides of the valleys on Tuesday, but the forecast was for good weather, and we took the direction of Vacheresse in Alex car.

We leave the car and start walking at Bise, as group of chalets used exculsively during summer, as the road isn't cleared in winter, and the cows don't graze snow ;-)
The climb is pretty steep at first, allowing us to gain altitude quite fast. We're in the shade, so the air is rather fresh, and we can enjoy the sunshine on the opposite side of the valley.

Alex speeds up ahead, and I lose sight of him, he's in a training phase and I have no will to follow him.

Shortly after the pass, as the climb gets steeper, I come accross a troup of Chamois, our local wild mountain goats. As I start to snap a few pics, the camera shuts down: the temperature is too low for the batteries. So I take them out, warm them up (no, I did not insert the batteries _there_, I just put them under my armpit). I take a few pics, then have to warm up the batteries again, and so on for about twenty minutes. After a while, the models are tired of this game, and I resume the climb.

There are places where the snow is frozen solid. We are reaching altitudes where the temperature was well below zero a few hours ago. I progress cautiously, a fall would not be fun, too quick to enjoy without a good wing overhead.

I finaly reach the top, after two hours climb (I'm trying to remember if last year's time with Maryse was two hours or twho hours and fifteen minutes). Alex is sitting at the top. I guess his time was just over an hour. We're at 2432m altitude, the sun is beating and very warm. As always, we take in the breathtaking view.


The valley where we left the car is completely filled with a thick cloud layer, so we decide to wait and see if it's going to lift. In the meantime, I take a nap.

Time marches on and there's no sign of the cloud layer lifting above Bise, so we decide to fly in the Abondance valley,
we know we're going to get some stong valley wind, but at least we'll see the ground before we touch it.

There is a breeze coming from the East, that's perpendicular to our take off zone, but it's gentle enough, and there are regular thermal bubbles wafting up in front of us, so we're failry confident that take off won't be a problem.

We lay out, get ready, and soon we're airborne. The air is very calm, we're having a good flight. The panorama is amazing.
We fly side by side, and soon circle over Abondance. The plan is to land on the soccer field, but as we get a bit closer, I realise I'm about 10 meters too low, and with a wind that strong, I'm not going to make it. So I turn around, whizz out of the village downwind at high speed and find a nice field on the other side of the houses. The wind is so strong that I don't make any headway. It's a very slow vertical landing with a gentle touchdown.



Another good day spent much better than going to the office...

Technical data: Flight duration 0:20, Take-off altitude: 2400, Maximum altitude reached: 2400, Total climb during flight: 200, Max rate of climb: +3.4m/s, Max descent rate: -4.2m/s, Landing altitude: 800m (to be checked).

Le Désert de Platé

It's the week-end, and Mickael has organised an outing at "Le Désert de Platé". It's an impressive spot just above Passy, near Sallanches and Chamonix, just at the foot of "Le Mont Blanc".

We plan on leaving early, meeting is set for 6:00 at the paragliding club in Orcier. Due to some unforeseen circumstance, we leave much later than that (Alex is still in pennance on that one ;-) and we all pile up in the truck when we get to Passy in order to leave one car at the bottom. We'll only walk a thousand meters, as we're quite late on the plan already.

As we leave the car, we climb though the forest, but soon emerge in the full sun. Today is going to be a scorcher.

On the way up there are a lot of pretty flowers.
As we're going up at a good rythm, we soon get to the plateau but an unpleasant surprise awaits us there. A cold wind is sweeping the whole plateau downhill. Taking off in these conditions is impossible. We check on the hill a bit higher if the conditions are better, but no luck. There we meet another paragliding pilot, and he has flown here before and suggest we check lower on the slope a while later, when the thermals have overcome the cold breeze flowing down. Most of that air is flowing down because it is cooled down by the snow still on the ground.

The plateau is a huge slab of limestone, with a multitude of furrows carved by flowing waters. There is still quite a bit of snow as we're quite high and the temperature isn't very high. In places, the snow sports pink streaks. They are sand deposits. The closest known place where sand of that colour and composition can be found is in the Sahara desert, several thousand kilometers away. It gets carried by hot winds (called Foehn here) and deposited when the winds slow down.

We have a leasurely lunch admiring the vista on the Mont-Blanc facing us and then seek a new take off spot. We find some reasonable conditions about a 100m lower than the original spot, and start laying the wings. The experienced guy takes off first in a magistral demonstration of glider control. His wing must have seen quite a few flying hours already... Mickael then prepares to take off with his passenger, followed by Annie and then myself. Alex closes the door behind ;-)

Takeoff is fairly smooth, but just as we get away from the ridge, we are swept by the thermals rising off the stone slopes below. It's pretty powerful stuff and we quickly gain altitude. Annie prefers heading for the landing field and she heads off towards the valley. There are three of us left to play around and we take advantage of these generous thermals. There are a few times where my vario starts screaming a bit too much for my comfort and I exit the area by going toward the valley, away from the forming clouds. We are indeed at cloudbase.

For the first time I get a serious asymetric wing collapse. As I'm circling in a thermal as a fairly decent ascent rate, I fly over a ridge in the terrain, and I must have had half my wing exit the ascending flux, the complete half collapses. Pretty hair raising moment, where the first thought that flashes in my mind is "these things are supposed to reinflate and fly again without pilot intervention". The wait for the return to normal seems pretty long, and I wish I'd bough a DHV 0.5 ;-)
All in all, the fall must have lasted just over a second, as my vario only registered a falling rate of 9.8m/s. The speed attained is impressive, and it takes me at least two to three more seconds to regain a steady controlled flight regime. I was lucky I had quite a bit of spare height to deal with this incident...

My first thought is to regain the lost altitude as quickly as possible, in case it should happen again. I circle in the area a few times, then go back to the first area in front of our take-off.

We keep playing for a while, and then I see Mickael and Alex head for the landing field. After a brief hesitation, I follow them. We've build up a nice height, and we have plenty time to circle around and enjoy the scenery while we loose a bit of altitude.

As we're over the town of Passy, I feel quite a bit of thermal activity and change my mind. I cirle a few times and regain a bit of altitude. I want to play some more. I see Alex also circles and regains height. We cross paths a few times, waving and shouting at each other. When I finaly head for the landing field, I see he's doing the same. We actually do our approach together and land almost at the same time.

This has been a momentous flight...

On the way home, we all pile up into the truck as Annie is going another way, and Alex gets to ride at the back.

Technical data: Flight duration 0:58, Take-off altitude: 2103m, Maximum altitude reached: 2411m, Total climb during flight: 1810m, Max rate of climb: +4.6m/s, Max descent rate: -9.7m/s, Landing altitude: 460m(to be checked).

I'll add photos later when I've had time to upload them to Flickr.

Still not the office, trying a tandem prototype.

Alex was lent a prototype of the “Bionic 2”, a revolutionary design of paraglider. From a distance, it has a very distinctive profile, featuring a keel in the middle of the wing, separating in effect the airfoil in two separate wings, as it should be. I’m playing potato bag in this one, so my hands are free to snap plenty shots The wing flies beautifully, and Alex is quite thrilled, although he complains a couple of times about it being heavy on the controls. We get to the vertical of the landing field, and he takes the wing through a couple of tight turns. To me, it feels like everything is pretty much the way it should be. Alex then lines up for the landing, and it’s then that I realize we’re flying at a hell of a speed. At the last minute, Alex pulls the brakes in a nice flare and we conclude this exciting flight safely in a heap…
That was the final note to a beautiful day. Working definitely gets in the way of such activities, I can’t wait for the week-end…

Not the office, an outing to “La Chapelle des Hermones”.

It’s almost three in the afternoon. The crowd gathering at the paragliding club is growing restless, everybody wants to go up to Très-le-Mont on this sunny day, but there are road works on the way there, and we’re not sure of which road to take. A small group finally decides to attempt the normal road, hoping we’ll be able to bypass the roadwork area as some did the previous day.
We’re not that lucky, so we drive to Jouvernaisinaz and leave the car a few hundred meters from Le Col du Feu. The climb in the hot sun is far less pleasant than this morning, but it still beats going to the office…

We get to the chapel in about an hour, and we’re soon taking off. I’m the last one left on the ground, closing the site, and the wind is very capricious. It takes me quite a few attempts to get airborne, as the wind is Westerly, not an optimal orientation for this site. When I finally manage to fly off, the others have landed already. I fight a little bit in the thermals, but they’re not formed enough for me to gain or even maintain my altitude. I’m hot and bothered, so I take the direction of the landing field and drop down to the paragliding club, ending an average flight.

No pictures on this flight, as I was too busy concentrating ot catch whatever thermals I could...

Not the office, an outing to La Pointe d’Ireuse.

Having taken to the taste of four working days weeks, I decided to take Thursday off, and met Alex to fly from La Point D’Ireuse. That peak is in the background of many of my paragliding photographs, as it is situated a few kilometers South of Très-le-Mont, our paragliding playground.

On this picture taken in January this year, you can see the take off site.

We leave almost early, at 7:30 and start walking at 8:10. The sign at the spot we leave the car says it’s a three hour climb. We take courage in thinking that a whole troop of competitors actually ran up that hill last Sunday. This is a small portion of “Le trial des Allobroges”, a grueling race that is run over five hours…

The beginning of the climb is very steep, and after a short while, Alex, who’s been doing some heavy sport lately, suffers from hypoglycemia. We take a short break to much on some chocolate candies and have a sip of water, and we’re off again.

We get to the plateau pretty quickly, at “Niflon d’en Bas” and in the shaded areas there is still snow on the ground.


On the way up, there are plenty of flowers, from the "Gentiane Bleue" with its deep striking blue (that I still haven't been able to reproduce, it's probably due to a UV component) and "Crocus" just out of the snow to the "Boutons d'Or flowering in full heat.
As we get to “Niflon d’en Haut” we suddenly discover “Le Mont Blanc”, it’s about fifteen kilometers away as the crow flies, and the view is breathtaking, as always.
It’s another twenty minutes before we get to the top of “La Pointe d’Ireuse” and we can admire the lake in all its breadth, and the Swiss Alps, the Mont-Blanc, “Les Aravis” in the distance, all the mountains around Annecy, a real feast for the eyes.

There is a bit of thermal activity on the South-East ridge, from the late morning sun beating on the exposed side of the valley. We intend to fly on the North side, so we’re a bit worried about being downwind, but on that side there is absolutely no activity. The take off should be fairly easy.

After laying out our wings, we take off. It takes me a long while to turn as I’m busy trying to extract my camera from my pants pocket, hindered by the harness. As I turn left hard, I see I’ve flown pretty far from the hill, and Alex is way up there. Will he manage to round the pass above “Niflon d’en Bas”? From where I am, it seems possible, but I’m very low and the angle is deceptive, and I see him turn around to round the cliff on the North side.


We are approaching the field next to the parking area where we left the truck. I line up and circle the intended landing area once to see if there any crosswind, and all seems quiet, the leaves in the trees are still. After a last turn over the trees, I round up my final approach and join the biped race again. A minute later and it's Alex turn to join me on hte ground.

This has been a good outing, with a nice walk crowned by breathtaking views and a gorgeous flight. Beats going to the office anytime…

Quick flight - Très-le-Mont

The conditions aren't very good today. The windvanes are proclaiming strong South Westerly winds all around our region, and we know that our North Westerly is going to swing soon, so it's with a certain sense of urgency that we go to Très-le-Mont. As we get to the parking lot, we can immediately see that the windvane is already oriented from the South. As we mull about, we see the vane swing around, stay in that position for a few seconds, and then swing back. This is all we need. It will be a short flight, maybe even bumpy, but it'll be a flight nevertheless.

I help Alex kit up his passenger, let him take off, and then I'm on the slope, helped by Francis to layout. It's important to get ready quickly, the "good" cycles are getting shorter and shorter, and there's more and more time in-between, a sure indication that it's a matter of minutes before the site becomes unflyable.

I'm in the slope, ready, watching the windvane. After a few more oscillation, I see "my" cycle startup, and I get the wing inflated above my head. A quick run, and I'm airborne. No lift in front of the take-off today. I want to get away from that zone fairly quickly: when the wind swings to South, I want to be as far away as possible from this area where some nasty downdrafts develop. I cross the thalweg and near the front of the hill, and there is a feeble updraft in the area where I was expecting it. I take a couple of turns, but it's too bumpy to get any decent altitude gain, and I go to the next spot on the front of the hill. There it's the same story, so my flight gets summed up in a set of jumps between bumpy areas. I've lost too much altitude, so I head toward the landing field while I have some altitude. There are a couple of excercises I haven't ried in a while that I want to practice on this flight.

Technical data: Flight duration 0:17, Take-off altitude: 1349m, Maximum altitude reached: 1387m, Total climb during flight: 150m, Max rate of climb: +1m/s, Max descent rate: -3.2m/s, Landing altitude: 620m.

Going home

One of the great thrills (at least for me, humble beginner) is to land in the field right next to my house. The distance isn't very big, 6 kilometers as the crow flies (about 4 miles, for crows that don't speak metric ;-) by car it takes about twenty five minutes, as you have to travel 15 kilometers on country and mountain roads.
On this Sunday afternoon, I've already had an early flight, with mediocre conditions. I thought the weather wouldn't improve so I grabbed what I could early. On the landing field in Orcier, Alex asks me to fly with him, as he only has his tandem glider. I was planning on flying solo, but I've had two solo flights today, and flying with him is always fun, so he doesn't have to insist for me to accept.
We're at the take off in Très-le-Mont, and the wind is quite gusty. There are clouds overhead, and thicker, blacker ones to the left, in the West. We quickly set-up and take off, and straight away climb ten meters in a gust in front of the crowd. Wooo-hoooo... this is going to be a bumpy, but good flight.

We keep gaining altitude in front of the take off, and then Alex decides to cross over, going West to "Les Roches Pourries", a cliff with steep crumbly rock faces. With the wind blowing from the West today, this is a fairly sure bet. When we get there, the lift takes a long time to materialise, but we eventually gain altitude, allowing us to go all the way to "Les Moises", the hill that is on one side of the pass "Le Col du Cou". On the way there we get a beautiful view of the Green Valley (La Vallee Verte), and we fly over the gliders take-off strip of Les Moises. We do two passes over the area to maximise our altitude gain, and return to Très-le-Mont. We make it there very low, but very quickly regain our altitude and once again find ourselves over the take-off field. After playing for a while, we progress to the North and decide to "go home". We think we have just enough altitude, so fervently hope we'll get some lift on the way. My brother is at home, so he can drive us back to retrieve our cars and Alex agrees that we'll land at my place.
Half-way there, our prospects aren't too good, and we doubt we'll even make it to Alex's place unless we find some lift very quickly. As we round "La Maladière", we get some dynamic lift, and breathe a sight of relief. At that time, my camera memory is full, and Alex has to let go the controls to retrieve his camera from the bottom of my harness. We're well on the way to the castle, with altitude to spare. We fly over the castle and the village, and I mention to Alex that there's no more beers in my refrigerator. That and my recent landing near my house swing his decision: we'll land at his place. While we fly over Commelinges, where his girlfriend stays, we both look left and I off-handedly mention to Alex that I'm sure we could regain some height if we went back to the lift area on the side of "La Maladière". I feel the pressure of the direction change as I finish uttering these words: Alex has swung the wing in that direction. We spend the next fifteen minutes playing in the dynamic lift area.
We land in the field bordering his house, a few neighbours come to chat while we fold the wing, and Alex realises his house keys are in his car, in Orcier, together with his phone, and my phone isn't working for some reason, so we set off for a walk to his girlfriend's house... Nice conclusion to a great day.
Technical data: Flight duration 1:20, Take-off altitude: 1355m, Maximum altitude reached: 1600m, Total climb during flight: ???m, Max rate of climb: +?m/s, Max descent rate: -?m/s, Landing altitude: 460m.

Pertuiset

With the uncertain weather and the South - South-West wind forecast, Mickael organised an outing near Mieussy (birthplace of paragliding). Our destination is the crestline to Le Marcelly. We leave one car at the landing field in Mieussy, and all pile up into my truck to drive to La Chapelle St-Gras, a couple of hundred meters higher on the side of the valley. From there, we ascend in the thalweg, in the shade of the forrest. Halfway up, we come upon some derelict chalets. After drinking a sip of water, we resume the hike and reach the lower limit of the grazing fields of Le Pertuiset. This is where we normally drive up to go flying from Mieussy. From the parking area of Roche Palud, it's another ten to fifteen minutes to the take off area. There are some pilots in the air already. We go to the chalets nearby and unpack our lunch. Young boys in full growth like us need to be careful about our diet: missing a meal might stunt our growth! ;-)
We decide to no go further, as the wind on the crest leading to Le Marcelly is strong and gusty, and we're carrying our mountaineering equipment, not as comfortable as the strandard flying equipment. Alex is flying in tandem with his girlfriend, Fabienne, and they are first to take off. Maurice takes off next, I follow him and Mickael closes the group.
The flight is rather bumpy, and I have my hands tied up with the controls, so there are no pictures of this flight.
Despite the gusts, and in part thanks to them, the flight is rather pleasant. I follow Alex when he decides to land, but as I see him near the landing field, I change my mind and go back to the side of the valley to play in the ascendences and spend another twenty minutes in the air. A very good outing overall...
Technical data: Flight duration 0:48, Take-off altitude: 1635m, Maximum altitude reached: 1675m, Total climb during flight: 1557m, Max rate of climb: +4.6m/s, Max descent rate: -4.8m/s, Landing altitude: 640m.

Long week-end

Well, the French gummint wants us (workers) to work on Pentecost day, so I take the Monday AND Friday off, just to make a point. I'm not alone in making that point, and on Thursday night I get a message in my voicemail from Mickael, proposing to meet on the top parking lot at Le Môle. The weather forecast is not very good, and when I get up on Friday morning, the clouds are very low, rain is not far. I phone Mickael, checking that the plan is still on. He's already on the way to the landing area, where, together with his wife, he'll have a quick walk to the top parking lot. This way we'll have a car at the bottom for after the flight. Just before 10:00, I clear the last curve before the parking lot, and I see Mickael and Olivia waiting for me. They've just arrived there, and it takes a minute or so for me to lock up the truck and we're on the path. It's a pleasant morning, the clouds are very low, but we can see it's a fairly thin layer and we should emerge in the sunshine above pretty quickly. It's a pleasant walk in the shade at first, and then it get harder as Olivia accelerates and we don't want to get left behind...
Mickael's analysis of the weather conditions is spot on. We break through in the sunshine, and we can see that the area at the South of the mountain is clearing. To the North, my colleagues are slaving under the cloud layer. I briefly experience a smug feeling ...
The climb is uneventful, Olivia and Mickael get to the top pretty quickly, with me a little less quickly. The view is breathtaking, with the Mont-Blanc in front of us. There is only one person at the top, but we can see a troup of retirees at the bottom. This is a very popular walk, the climb is very easy, the view from here is beautiful and the access is very convenient.
We quickly set up for the flight, and in a few minutes we're ready... to wait. This is the sport that my instructor renamed "ParaWaiting". The wind is not established yet, and the thermals are bubbling up the slope. We want to catch a few of those to get us as high as possible, but it's still early in the day, and the bottom of the valley has been in the shade of the cloud layer, so we don't expect too much.
The magic moment of take-off arrives soon enough, and we're off on a wonderful flight.
As suspected, there isn't much thermal activity, and it's a fairly quiet glide until we get to the turbulences as we reach the top of the cloud layer. We flirt with that zone and soon we're through, looking for our landing spot, just behind the cemetary in Ayse. As I take that direction, following Mickael and Olivia in front of me, I feel a bit of lift on the right. I turn in that direction, and after a little bit of searching I gain enough height to play around for a bit, but the wind in strengthening, and after another few minutes I decide to join Olivia and Mickael that are waiting for me at the landing spot.
Overall, this starts a good day, with a nice outing to a pleasant mountain, and a good 30 minutes flight to crown the morning.
The afternoon will bring us more flying in Orcier, but that's for a different entry...

Technical data: Flight duration 0:30, Take-off altitude: 1857m, Maximum altitude reached: 1895m, Total climb during flight: 637m, Max rate of climb: +3.4m/s, Max descent rate: -4.4m/s, Landing altitude: 460m.
If you want to see more photos (or the ones above in different sizes) go to Flickr: ParaScubaSailor's photos