Day 3 – better weather but still couldn’t find the right thermals
On the next morning, the weather was finally better! But due to the last days of nearly non-stop walking the feet were a bit sour and so I took several attempts to fly from the smaller hills, which didn’t work out too good.
However, although the sun was shining a lot, conditions were very stable near ground level, so I couldn’t find good thermals to fly long distances. At this point we decided to take out the speed of the race, to get the mind clear again. With that mindset I hiked up again and flew down to our sleeping spot, where my supporters and I had a nice and cheerful dinner together.
I nearly forgot to mention that I was glad, that we brought my sewing machine with us – because we had to sew the harness at night too..
Sometimes it doesn’t work out as you would wish. That happened on day two when we took a wrong decision and were losing time and rankings:
But now from the beginning:
We started pretty nice with mountain hopping and little soaring sessions but then we made a mistake and I flew in the wrong direction, couldn’t get any heights anymore and had to land in a very tight valley. There were hardly any landing options, but I managed to land safe on a field with pretty high grass. But one of the biggest problem was, that I landed literally in the “end of nowhere”. It took such a long time to get out of there. When I finally hiked up and reached the top of the mountain, the rain started and I wasn’t able to fly anymore. Would I have been 30min. earlier, I could have made it – but yes – that wasn’t like that, so we had to walk down a bit again and stayed at a sheep-farm over night. The farmers were super nice and so we spent some time with them and were allowed to dry our wet equipment at their fireplace. Thanks to them for their perfect nice and warmly host!
Day over. Wet, pissed and not in a very good mood. But the next day brings new possibilities and new decisions. So let’s see what it brings!
Today I enjoyed a lot 😁 More hiking, nice chat with local police, finally lot of flying 🙏 My day is at the end just under Peña Montsnesa with some spare time until day stop. So we had a nice dinner with friends and now I’m happy to go sleep.”
Finally the forecast reported sun, OK winds, and hopefully good flying. We were in a good position to hike up mt Madelaine. At 800 meters this mountain is launchable in any direction.
I was early at the top but the clouds were still below, it probably needed some time to dry up from yesterday. So we decided to wait for better conditions. Wait and wait…
After too many hours waiting I decided to give it a go. No joy. Dead air. I glided southeast and landed high before hiking up another hill. Relaunched, still with a low cloudbase. I had some small thermals but they were really small and broken. I was right at the inversion layer and it was very obvious. Once again I had to land hillside and hike up again. Another try and I finally got some more altitude. Glided on track and was able to catch some weak lift, but not enough to jump over to more pronounced mountains. I was forced to land and continue walking the rest of the day. Frustrating!
I continued along the road and my team had parked the van on a small pass leading to TP2. Nice weather, great nature, and hopefully a flyable site for tomorrow morning. The idea was to be airborne early for a sweet glide.
Today was the day that we were supposed to move in the air,not on the ground. But my mistakes from the day before made it difficult. I was too far west and not at the higher ground I needed to be to take advantage of this day due to the strong inversion and humid air below. The race now split into two. The leading groups that were in position to fly well this day, and the rest who didn’t. Unfortunately I was in the latter group. Or maybe more precisely: I made too many errors the day before, and was not well enough updated on the forecast to take advantage of this day. But it’s difficult to be ahead of everything at all times. Last night we spent at a camping site where the owner was drunk. Really shitfaced. It took us a lot of time just to get settled, and there was no time to prepare well for today. Just a quick glance at the map and the general forecast. And again we didn’t get much sleep. Maybe two or three hours. The whole team was tired.
We finished this day being last in the competition. Not a good place to be. But as mentioned we made too many errors, and when making the first error it’s hard to get out of the loop. One mistake leads to another. We needed to reset!
This evening it was clear skies, and no thunderstorms, so I put up a tent to be able to sleep better. Very much needed! We found a beautiful place, made some food, and were able to get to rest quite early that evening.
