L'Achat de la Biere est Obligatoire!

Je suis en train de deguster mes vacances - therefore I have been avoiding computers with zeal. It was time to check into cyberspace again though, so here's a bit of a Chamonix flying story from my perspective. After some "challenges" in California that usually come with an adventure (like dead batteries and "personalizing" my glider bag and camping gear with a motorcycle exhaust pipe) and the interminable flight to Zurich, I finally landed in Europe on a Monday morning.

A short walk down an escalator brought me to the train station to get a Fahrschein to Chamonix. Train leaves in 10 minutes. Public transportation that actually works - what a concept! A relaxing ride on a near silent train through the stunningly beautiful Swiss countryside brought me to the even more stunning Chamonix valley. I managed to reach Adrianna, Yolie, and Donna on the radio as they being tortured on a leetle, leetle hike by Jeannine, and also heard some more intermittent monkey chatter in the distant background.

Too late to fly that day, I was itching to fly the next day and went up to fly from the Plan Praz launch for an extended sled ride that was repeated at Plaine Joux in the afternoon - conditions were just a bit too high pressure. Nothing to complain about though - I have had only two soaring flight in the Chamonix valley on my previous 3 trips to this area and didn't mind a bit as this destination is just so spectacular that it is unforgettable no matter what the outcome of the flying.

The next day conditions improved slightly due to a front that would be approaching in a few days. The early morning flight was a sled ride as usual, but I could tell that it was on the verge of getting soarable, in fact it might have been possible to climb out if I had big enough "oeufs" to circle extremely close to the trees and rocks.

Prudence dictated that I go land and relaunch, this time from the south launch to mix it up with a huge crowd of gliders working a rock face a short distance away. I just could not get into this kind of thermaling where I kept seeing others doing a sort of ridge soaring thing and getting up and when I did the same thing, I just sank out. I did much better hooking into a thermal and circling until more of the ridge soaring types came along and squeezed me out of the thermal I was tenaciously clinging to.

After two and a half hours of this thing that kept me at or below the 6700 ft launch height, I was getting a bit discouraged when I hooked a somewhat better thermal and after only a couple of turns I was well above the ridge soaring mob and could keep climbing. Soon I was at 8400 above Le Brevant, the top of the mountain!

I had heard over the radio that Alex and Reaper had sunk out into some sort of pit, while Mad Dog, Duck, and Sidehill had flown to Plaine Joux. I was looking around, wondering what the hell do I do now? Flying Monkeys came to my aide telling me to follow the ridge to the south where I could see Plaine Joux, and if I had 8000, I could easily glide there.

Of course, as soon as I left my thermal I encountered massive sink and saw all my hard earned altitude disappear. The end of the ridge was a massive thermal trigger though, and after working 200-300 ft/min lift all day, seeing 1200 ft/min on my vario was changing the color of my shorts. Even flying straight through that lift brought me back up to 8400 ft and on my way to Plain Joux.

I was ecstatic to be able to make this XC hop and also release the death grip off my controls to snap some pictures and make a triumphant if somewhat sketchy face-plant top landing at Plaine Joux. Sure, it cost me a round of grandes bieres, but man it was worth it!

Conditions improved even more the next day and I was able to stick with the first thermal I found all the way to 8600 ft., high above the top of the Brevant lift. Of course, Mad Dog had already been up there with a few other gliders, and they had all disappeared shortly before I got there.

Before I had launched we had run into Dennis Trott, a British expat that runs a B&B in the area that caters to paraglider pilots and who I knew from previous visits to Chamonix. He claimed one could glide straight to Plaine Joux if you were 600 ft above the Brevant, and that conversation replayed itself in my head as I found myself at just that altitude.

Departing straight over the back of Le Brevant, I ran into sink for a while, but along this more direct route to Plaine Joux one crosses over a second ridge, and Mad Dog was above this ridge tanking up on more altitude, so I thought everything was just peachy. Well, it seems that Mad Dog had used up all the lift that ridge had to offer, and I found nothing there except for maybe some “inverted lift”.

By the time I decided that patience would not serve me well in this spot I had lost a considerable amount of altitude, and I made a run for Plaine Joux. Sighting across a finger anchored to a riser indicated I could still reach Plaine Joux high enough to top land and join Alex, Duck and company who were already decimating the local beverage supply after taking the more circuitous but more reliable route along the Brevant ridge.

But, this day it was not to be: As I approached Plaine Joux, I was getting seriously flushed, and my hopes of top-landing disappeared behind a row of trees. I skirted around the launch to find even more sink and I was even beginning to get worried about making it to the Plaine Joux LZ as there was nothing but tall trees below me.

Things were looking grim when I heard some beeps on the vario and I clung to these beeps like a drowning man until it looked like I had a shot at top-landing after all! The lift fizzled out where I was just short of feeling comfortable about swooping over the trees surrounding the launch, and I ingloriously ran for the LZ where I found Big Island John.

I eventually did reach the launch after employing some undoubtedly mangled French several times to beg a ride. This was fortunate as I was able to buy a new helmet and then have great late afternoon flight soaring the rock faces that rise high behind the launch and then boat around for some time in quasi magic-air.

The following day conditions “improved” to the point where I didn’t take long for me to announce that things were beyond my comfort level as I was heading in to land. I soon found everyone else had followed me to the LZ, except, of course, Mad Dog, who went on to set a new personal record for himself. Nonetheless, I was happy to be on the ground so that I could fly Annecy the next day – but that’s a story for another day! (Snuck in a few pics of that into the slideshow behind the picture.)