David Corpas – Day 4
Searching where to launch in Pas de Salontere
Getting into France on the way to TP4
After a good day of flying, a small incident without consequences for me but some injuries to the paraglider.
Tag: 2022
Jordi Vilalta -Day 4 – summary of day 4
Tough luck with takeoff time. Going ahead has hurt him and ends the day discouraged.
Jordi Vilalta is doing a great X-Pyr with four days to go. 306 km to the finish.
Update on Day 4 (evening)
First some bad news: Lino Coló has withdrawn from the race. This leaves us with 37 teams in the competition.
News from the teams:
Tomas Matera
Yesterday Tomas was detained by police after flying across the border. Local police officers stopped him after landing and made him wait for the Guardia Civil to arrive. They waved him on, but he lost half an hour to progress.
Simon Oberrauner
His day was really good yesterday, challenging, but Simon flew for 8 hours and did 170 km to pass two turn points. The plan for today was to reach the Pic du Midi and depending on time and weather to continue onwards to TP5. At the moment he is struggling a bit with the strong south-westerly wind, he would like to fly but it is always a question of assessing the risk correctly. Otherwise, our motivation is still high and we are fully convinced that we will reach the Mediterranean by Saturday at the latest.
Xevi Bonet
Xevi starts at 7am and finishes at 9pm. According to his team he’s a machine! He hiked up the opposite hill to Chrigel, Maxime, Simon and Noe. He flew but had to do a top landing and hike up a little more. He then flew to Pena Montanesa, Castejon de Sos, into the Val d’Aran and on and on. He flew for 7 hours and 140 km.
Today he began with some small flights before hooking up with Tim Alongi and Tanguy Renaud-Goud. Cloudbase was low, only about 1300m, so they made the most of the morning. Xevi is currently in 7th place, so the day obviously went well.
Thibault Voglet
Today he got himself into a position to get to TP 4, but during the fly Thibault broke a line on his glider – a central B line; so he had land to check if it’s only a line or also the internal structure. The team had to replace the line and then they headed for the French border for a possible evening fly …
Mikolaj Kocot
The first flight was smooth, but he first had to wait, and then come down a bit too avoid the cloud. There valley was covered with clouds and the thermals were too weak to touch the TP2 cylinder in the air. Then he launched at Accous towards the next TP, but after entering into the valley the wind was too strong. He almost made it for a third flight, but was a bit too late to take off and land before 9PM. Overall he made around 17km by air, in 1:15 h
As for tomorrow, they know the forecasts are showing strong winds, but are hoping to find a gap to fly as much as we can – as they did this morning.
Greg Hamerton
Greg says he’s not a runner, so he chose mountain paths to make progress. He hoped to get into a good position to fly, but hiked into cloud. He finally did tag TP2 this morning and is hoping to reach the border by this evening. Tomorrow the plan is to get to Jaca and take the aerial motorway to Ainsa, in the hope of staying away from thunderstorms. Once at TP 3 it will depend on the weather how he will negotiate Pena Montanesa and beyond.
Patrick Sieber
It was difficult yesterday, the others around us also had problems and all had to land and walk. But in the end it turned out to be a stroke of luck, because they were able to start the ascent to the Candanchu pass just in time. They then made a final push to get to the pass and Patrick was rewarded with a super evening glide of 30 minutes and 15 km! He landed at 8.45pm and he and his supporter were just able to jog to the car….
Patrick flew briefly this morning, but it was foehny conditions so safety was their most important concern.
Johannes Helleland
They made some tricky decisions in the first couple of days to hike and fly and they did all of the hiking but none of the flying. But today they had a good day! He had three flights today and made it past TP2 and to the border with Spain. They are in good spirits and still smiling.
Today: Chrigel Maurer, Maxime Pinot, Pierre Rémy and Simon Oberrauner made it past TP 5.
As the day ended Noe Court was 7 km from the TP and also between TPs 4 and 5 were Tanguy Renaud-Goud, Xevi Bonet, Jordi Vilalta,
Decent progress was made by pilots heading north from TP3 Pena Montanesa, helped along by a southerly tailwind
As the 9pm compulsory stop ticked by, Tomas Matera, James Elliot, David Corpas and Fabian Umbricht were all between 1.7 and 6km short. Also on this leg we have Andreas Viehbock, Cedar Wright – who looks to have had a good day, Thibault Voglet and Sergi Claret.
All pilots are now past TP2 and are heading down the southern side of the course, in small groups with Kinga Maszterlaz leading the charge.
Chrigel Maurer is staying high in a mountain refuge at 2800m tonight. His supporter Ramon Krebs carried up everything he needs, batteries, food, water, etc. His live tracker does not work there, but we can see him on his satellite tracking device.
Live tracking in the Pyrenees… this is not the Alps. The Pyrenees are wilder and less populated. There just isn’t the same GSM coverage here. All athletes must carry both our live trackers and a backup satellite tracker (Spot or inReach), so the organisation always knows they are safe. It may be frustrating for the folks at home not to have perfect live tracking and for that we apologise, but it’s the mobile signal in the mountains, not the X-Pyr website.
More action from 7am tomorrow.
Day 4 – Type 2-3 fun – Fabian Umbricht
The day started leisurely with a nice walk up to Peña Montanesa. I waited another hour or so at take-off to make sure that conditions were really on. Then I joined Tomas, David and Thibault in the air and together we flew towards France. Conditions were really sporty with very strong climbs and very strong winds. Fortunately, it was tailwind for us.
At the northern end of Val d’Aran, the stable air from the north started to spill over in the lower layer. I didn’t managed to get a final climb, so i had to slopeland, wich turned out to be quite tricky in the high farn – you can’t see the ground. I hit my back a little bit, not bad but enough to mess with my head, so I was making to much errors in the next flight and lost some ground again. A nice hike up to a foggy take-off and the subsequential hike down rounded off this rather particular day.
At least we got a hot shower at the campsite, which rarely felt so good…
Unfortunately I didn’t got any pictures, i was just to scared in air to let the breaks free…
Racing to find Pizza in the Pyrenees
Since the beginning of the race (okay, maybe day 2), we wanted to treat ourselves to a pizza in the evening and never found an open restaurant. The despair was great! Today it was finally time – after 1 week ofpasta finally some pizza! 😉
But now to the important things: after yesterday’s flight in the evening we were in a good position to fly further towards TP 3. The wind was quite strong early on, but seemed flyable.
In the air, however, it became very uncomfortable (very windy), so Patrick and Rich (Team Australia), who had started together, decided to land early.
Some teams took high risks today, we decided for more safety and took 3 passes on foot! And when the supporters called to say there will be pizza waiting at the sleeping place Patrick could even jog again. What a day! For us a day full of responsible and smart decisions, tomorrow is a new day – maybe a day to fly.
Jordi Vilalta – Summary of day 4 and forecast for day 5
Jordi summarises today’s day, in which he hasn’t had much luck, and tells us his forecast for tomorrow.
Reto Reiser – Day 3 Day 4
Day 3 started very cloudy. Together with Patrick Sieber we hiked up to Cap de Leuba, where we had to wait 2 hoirs in the clouds. Finally it cleared up and we could gly to TP2 and headed to the south. Sadly there was no chance to cross the wild protection area by flying, so we had to land and hike again.
Day 4 started with a nice hike to „Pico de las Tres Guegas“. In the air, thermals were very good, but the South wind was also very strong – to strong for me. I decided that it‘s not safe anymore to fly and landed at „Sallent de Gallego“, not a good position for the race progress but a safe place to land. Well, we really hope for some good flying weather 🤞
Perfect Tuesday, difficult Wednesday
Ok Tuesday morning we had to hike fast from Accous to the Col de Somport to reach the spanish side of the pyrenees. The weather there was 10 times better, perfect flying conditions. This allowed a 6 hour flight back to France by almost reaching TP4 Arbas.
On Wednesday the cloudbase was very low, what made the transitions very difficult. And when once landed, possibilities for re-takeoff are sparse. Everywhere forest and the mountain tops in the clouds.
And no better weather forecastet, this will be a hard rest of the week. Keeping Tuesday in mind may help!
X-PYR: Day 4.
Today our plan was set. First a hike and glide from our base for the night. Then another hike as high as possible (still low cloudbase) with the idea to glide as far as possible towards Accous (TP2). These two steps went perfect, and I landed just at the foot of TP2 in Accous.
A hike up to the main launch in Accous, then a quick meal, and I launched in OK conditions. Cloudbase approximately 100m above the launch, and I caught a weak thermal that took me to base. Then glide across the valley where I was able to soar on the NW wind back up to base. Jumped over the ridge to the next valley. Flushed down due to lee side, but further in the valley local conditions were more dominating and I was able to continue all the way to the airspace restrictions.
Now it was all about hiking again. First up to the Astun ski resort then across the mountains to Pourtalet. This last part was really exciting. More exciting than we wanted…
First issue: We just had enough time to get across the mountains before deadline at 21:00. Second issue: There was fog approaching from both the Spanish and French side of the mountains. Third issue: It was forecasted thunderstorms in the evening. We had no time to lose! Maps and routes were downloaded on the phone, extra battery, food, warm clothes, and raincoats were packed and we were ready to go.
This hike was epiq in many ways. The fog approaching from both sides with the sunny high peaks of the Pyrenees above, and a beautiful landscape made it really special. Both me and Knut enjoyed this hike a lot.
When walking through the fog at 2500 meters altitude we suddenly hear these insane sounds of a predator eating on its prey. It was really close, and by the sounds it was something big. The sounds from splashing intestines went to deep and intense growling, and then suddenly quiet. In the fog. Only a few meters of visibility. Knut and I looked at eachother and we were both really scared. Intense sounds from a big predator this close, without any visuals, and then totally quiet. This was the moment with the highest pulse during the whole race. Definitely!
We slowly walked away without talking to each other. Only gestures. It was difficult to find the path in the fog, but the pre downloaded FatMap route was brilliant for the purpose. Once below the fog and a longer time without hearing any more horrifying sounds we needed to talk about this happening. What the f*** was this? Knut described it well when he said iIt sounded like something from a horror movie. We talked about how we instinctively reacted to how to survive. We both lifted our hiking poles up, ready to protect ourselves. But it would probably not help us much. In this case it would most likely be like carbon toothpicks for this creature.
We arrived in Pourtalet just as the thunderstorms bagan. We found shelter, and cell phone coverage. We had to search the web for which predators were living in these mountains. A quick search gave us the answer that this was an area with the most bears in the Pyrenees. And by the deep growling and intense sounds we concluded that we probably walked by a bear that had just taken its prey. We walked with headwinds and that’s probably why we got that close.
Nikolas arrived with the van shortly after. A very needed shower and dinner accompanied by a light show from the thunderstorms nearby. A cool way to end this eventful day! And it’s worth mentioning that we did quite well in the competition today.
Life in the mid-pack (team Australia)
Those who made it early into Spain to utilize the the good flying conditions on Tuesday quickly raced away, and split the pack.
Many of the rest of us left behind formed a close group scattered every few kilometers from Accous to the Spanish ski resorts.
Every small town or village, every road side car park. We’d pull up beside a van, share stories of exciting flights and scary landings, swap tactics, routes, plans and words of encouragement.
This is the beauty of a race like the X-Pyr. For some, it’s fiercely competitive. For most, it’s an adventure which you share with your team and you end with new friends from all over the world.
A far from easy withdrawal – Luis Linde – Day 4
And my right knee said enough.
On the fourth day of the X-Pyr we abandoned “very much” to my regret. A right knee injury that hadn’t appeared since 2017 and that I had completely forgotten about, started on the second day of the race. Even so, I continued on every climb and above all on every descent, like the one this morning to the 📍Tobazo, where I had to go backwards down a lot of slope. We think that this has also led to an inflammation of one of the tendons in my ankle. The pain hasn’t stopped these days and making the decision is not easy. I climbed the 📍Bacún with the idea of being able to fly towards Peña Montañesa, the third of the waypoints. But the pace of ascent was getting slower and slower until I reached the refuge before the peak and I called my support Nacho Recas to see how he could pick me up. A race where we have poured a lot of energy and enthusiasm, making this decision is not easy for me.
Noé Court launches trying to reach TP5
Today Noé Court, in the early afternoon, climbed up to 2,000 metres at Plo del Naou, at the east of the Col d’Aspin, to take off in an attempt to escape the thermal immersion layer. His intention was to glide through the cloud to the end of the valley and then gain height to go directly to the Midi de Bigorre.
Mikolaj Kocot – Day 4 – Gaining height before continuing forward.
At 20:00 he is 38.30 km from TP3 (Peña Montañesa) 443.86 km from the goal.
