Day 4 started out looking promising with a blue sky. James woke up just south of the France border and was looking to tag turnpoint 4, Arbas, by at least the end of the day. When he got in the air he quickly realized that the air was rather stable and decided to hike and sledder from ridge to ridge until finally, late afternoon, he was able to get a short thermic flight and land at the base of the backside of the ridge just south of Arbas. Unfortunately it was a little late in the day when he tagged the waypoint, and had to finish the day in the middle of a forest. Team Canada is really pleased with James’ performance and how he’s placing on the scoreboard. If he does his best to continue to be consistent as well as take care care of his health, then he should place well by the end of the race.
The weather for day 5 doesn’t look so promising and James is not looking forward to hiking down the road all day, so hopefully the weather won’t be absolutely terrible.
We had taken a strategic choice yesterday by hiking over high mountains to be in a position where we could glide out the altitude instead of hiking/running downhill, which is a pain to my knee. Wind could be an issue but most prognoses indicated it should be a flyable window in the morning.
Knut and I got ready at 07:00 and walked around the corner on top of the valley. We were both optimistic for a long sweet morning glide. We were even discussing soaring the ridges to extend the flight quite a bit. But as we approached our planned area of launching we realized the wind was not perpendicular to the valley, but it was funneled into the valley and compressed through this area. Strong and gusty! We waited a bit, but the conditions only got worse. Knut was crystal clear: This is not safe! In addition it was headwind so I would probably not make any progress at all. Now I had a long walk downhill ahead…no good.
Windy morning…
Some way down the valley we decided to have another go at flying. We found a suitable take off and I was able to fly down to the valley floor, and landed on the sandbanks of a lake. Still quite windy so I didn’t make much forward progress, and the landing was vertically due to the strong wind. But it was OK and at least I didn’t have to walk downhill. Then it was just to saddle up and continue along the road for another 15 km.
After a while we grabbed a meal, and discussed how the day actually seemed to improve, despite the forecast saying wind, rain and overdevelopment. As we discuss we see two gliders in the air. Livetrack showed that they are part of the competition. They had chosen a much more southerly route yesterday, and were in a better position to avoid the wind. But now we were in the same spot and we had no time to lose. We planned which mountain to climb and went up.
The others that had flown over us a little earlier had landed in the valley towards TP3, and were hiking. It was late in the afternoon and we had to try to catch them.
In the air the thermals were weak, and a bit broken by the wind, but they worked. Luckily I had some tailwind component and was drifting almost in the correct direction. Now it was my turn to overfly the others. It shifts quickly in a competition like this. I was in the mood to go far and fast. Too much in the mode maybe…
Late in the evening I was able to soar up a west facing ridge and just had enough height to drift over the top and drop over at the back to shortcut the route. Lee side. Flushed down. I was prepared for this. It was expected. What I didn’t expect was the lack of alternative landings. Absolutely nothing! High pine trees as far as I could see. I continued on the speedbar to avoid the flush while I was calculating my options. I was too low to land on the summit above the trees, and my glide ratio was far from good enough to reach the open areas in the valley. Conditions would probably improve the further away from the lee I came, but I didn’t risk it. I didn’t want to continue downwind either to see if there was an opening in the forest somewhere. A three landing in these high trees would probably damage my gear, and potentially myself, and the race would be over.
I decided to set up for landing in a small open area on a mud road that was winding up on an otherwise tree covered hill. Not much space at all. Difficult as the wind made it turbulent, and it was not an ideal area to land a paraglider. I was able to pump myself down to the ground, but I was not quick enough to catch/pull in all parts of my glider and my right wing tip got stuck up in a tree.
Some lines caught quite high up in the trees…
The opening in the road was due to some work they had done, and part of that was to remove the bottom branches from the trees to clear the road. In my case that was a good thing because I was able to land there, but it was also frustrating because I was not able to climb the tree in a good way to get my glider loose. I tried to get it down by myself, but soon realized I needed help from my team. A rope and some manpower were required.
But where was I? And where were they? And where is the cell phone coverage in Spain?
I was able to get some coverage, got in touch with my team, and sent them a pin on my location. This would probably take some time since they had to walk quite far to get to me. (Approximately 10 kms). I was not allowed to move since it was past 21.00. I tried to relax, eat, drink, and enjoy the sky that was on fire that evening.
Late in the evening, or more precisely early at night they arrived. Well equipped with camping gear for me, food, headlamps, and repair kit for the glider.
After some time we managed to get the glider down from the trees, but not without some force, and some repair was required. Then it’s great to have a team member with skills and know how to repair gliders. Kudos to Nikolas for a well done field repair performed in the forest in the middle of the night!
a 25 cm tear and 2 new lines fixed! Thanks Nik!
Finally it was time to catch some sleep. At least I did get a few hours of sleep. Knut and Nikolas had to hike back down to the van, and they were not back before 04:00.
But hey! The bright side is that I was in a quite good position for the next day! Only 500 meters elevation to hike up to the summit and suitable area to launch. It was now a Vol Bivouac or perhaps a Bivouac Vol trip:)
On the fourth day of the race, Xevi Bonet has had a great day in which he was able to advance several kilometers by air, in difficult terrain with a very low ceiling and dense forest, after having marked the TP Arbas early in the day.
To the surprise of the team, after positioning himself in a good place to mark the next TP, at the Beyrède pass, the organization announced a 24-hour inactivity sanction for Xevi for having flown over a protected area. On this fifth day, the team is resting and we are following the progress of the rest of the teams and studying the possibilities for the penultimate day of the race
Today we decided to stop our race because of a growing pain in Édouard’s foot. It is a shame because the body, mind and spirit wanted to continue and go on.
Day 3 started in the clouds. We finished day 2 earlier with a few teams gathering in a small village named Mayerau. That place, Mayerau, stays in our memories like a dream. We arrived in the fog, at night, exhausted. We left in the fog, in the morning, a little bit less exhausted. A place that will stay levitating somewhere out of time.
Our strategy was to hike early and the less possible to keep our energy as much as we can. Man those two days walking were something. So no climbing to the TP2, rather we’ll hike behind reaching 2200m and hoping to catch a better weather system.
I can tell you that, from the valley, the sea of cloud is not appealing at all. We’ve seen it for quite a while now… What is blue? How is yellow and heat?
But on we go through a beautiful beech forest. Some of those trees have hundreds of years, and it is quite a dream-like atmosphere with the fog adding to this effect.
And then, for a brief moment, suddenly a mountain appears. Not all at once, just reflections of the water dripping from its vertical faces but gigantic, overcoming us completely. And the we saw some blue (it exists!) and after a moment we were above the clouds and into another world. Mountains and sunshine and flying conditions!! Hell yeah.
Day 3 is always a turnpoint. It’s the hard one. And it ended with Édouard landing at 20:56pm right next to a sleeping spot. As a Frenchman once said : fumant!!
Yesterday Logan made good distance in the air, but decided to be conservative and prioritize safety while approaching the crest on the way to TP4. As a result, he landed and had to hike over into France. He only has four years of paragliding experience, but is performing incredibly well. His takeaway was that he should push a little harder in the air and plan on doing more hike and fly in Europe, since the terrain and weather at home in California are very different from what we have here in the Pyrenees. He made some good moves in the air on the French side, but eventually hit too much north valley wind to continue making progress flying. Shortly after he landed, three sailplanes that he had been flying with landed at the nearby aerodrome, so conditions were clearly deteriorating. The weather for day 5 looks very challenging for making distance in the air, but he will take any opportunities that present themselves.
