Tag: 2022

Good morning! We’re checking back in after days two and three of seven.

Day two again brought unfavorable weather for flying – this meant that Rob (and the entire field) was pounding pavement for most of the day, although he did manage to get in five short flights. Each of these was a welcome (albeit brief) respite from the monotony of walking and jogging the road systems. Some of his flights had shallow, sporty launches, but Rob did a great job navigating these and pressing forward down course. Both by air and on foot, he charged hard and managed to gain ground on those in front of him. In the evening, Rob tagged TP2 in Accous, France, hiking up to launch and gliding out to the main road to walk a few more miles and end the day in a great position.

Day three was a tough one. The weather was better and Rob was feeling good when he set out, aiming for a nearby ski resort from which to fly. Rob and Keith hiked up, found a good spot, and Rob set up to launch. However, they ended up having to backtrack and find a new launch, as it turned out that they were just inside a no-fly zone. Once back in flyable terrain, Rob launched and tracked east, but ended up back on the ground. He hiked up and took a couple more flights from other spots, but once the west wind set in, Rob found himself in a tough position and it was difficult to climb out. He ended up gliding out of that zone to meet back up with Keith and I at the van.

Although he didn’t make as much progress down course as he would’ve liked, Rob’s still in good spirits and morale is high. There are still four more days of the race and we’re confident he’ll get some excellent flights in the days to come.

The X-Pyr Adventure started this time very hard. The two days hiking were tough, so flying never felt better than on day 3!!! On top of that, it was possible to cross the border twice in a day. The flight over 8,5 hours and a cloudbase on 3400m gives us a beautiful view over the Pyrenees! On to the next one!! 

After a difficult day with a lot of walking on the road and small glides in the rain, today Xevi has been able to take advantage of a good day of flying, with about 140km flown between the great mountains of the central Pyrenees and a few kilometers from the TP4.

We started the day with a 4h walk from Aretta to the summit Cap de Leuba. 1,500 metres in altitude later, we found ourselves in the fog…

Patience is a virtue and we waited a good three hours at the launch site until visibility slowly improved.

We hoped to take Accous while flying and then go straight on in the direction of Candanchú, because the group on the south side certainly wasn’t sleeping either… Luckily Patrick and Reto were able to take the turnpoint in the air- we were catching up!

Shortly before the pass up to Candanchú, however, we had to land and take another hike. It was already close to 6pm at the time. Up to the pass and ready for take-off in two hours? No problem!

And what a reward we got: a breathtaking evening flight of 15 kilometres until 8.45 p.m.!

But the Pyrenees are wild, let’s see what they have in store for us tomorrow!

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..

Team Heli Schrempf

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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!

Team Heli Schrempf

@heli_schrem_pf on Instagram