Serene September
August has come to an end as September serenely arrives with slightly cooler temperatures, and today… rain. It’s to be expected I suppose. Can’t complain about the rain with all the heat we’ve been having recently, I think everything could do with cooling down a bit…
We were out yesterday, where there were a few flying. Not many and not going anywhere but a couple of gentle floaty top to bottoms were had by most. We’re starting to wind down on the flying clientele just now although it’s not over yet! We do sometimes get some unexpectedly good flying days in September, October and on the rare occasion early November… although the days are shortening so not so long to fly.
contrast
We’ve had some nice pics from the Belgian Paragliding Open, where they sent us a link to the photo gallery… there are some great pictures amongst them, and we’re sorry we missed the presentation evening it looked like a great night.
I was having a look at a couple of photos taken here at one of the competitions earlier in the year and found this one… thought it looked really interesting with the lenticulars over snowy Mont Blanc and the contrasting dark green lower hills with climbing gliders in front, thought it captured the atmosphere pretty well… so here it is…. if you click on the pic the gliders will become visible.
Apologies for the lack of blogging recently, just found ourselves much busier than expected…
Journey Home
Mens Valley
Meanwhile, we left Laragne a couple of days early, as we had pending work to sort out, as well as get organsied for our next client. It was more beneficial for us to return home a couple of days early than to wait on what the weather charts dictated was going to be darn difficult to get to fly. A great big thankyou to the organisers though, because they did their absolute utmost, with an aoutstanding sterling effort to do all they possibly could to get us to fly, but sadly it never happened. It’s the nature of the game….
U-Boat mountain
On the drive home we came back through the Mens valley it’s a great view through there, we tried to find the launch area a time before but it was quite difficult to locate. The valley itself is so open with great xc potential I wonder why it’s not an area that is popular for competitions, maybe it’s a tad rural….? I just had to take a picture of the U-Boat mountain…. as we drove through you see what I mean.
Back at home, and getting organsied we have had a few relaxing days with family… but back to it tomorrow. The intensity of the summer months has subsided a bit now, we had some snow on the lower ridges of Varan and Les Quatre Tete, but it’s all cleared again… a slight autmumnal chill is making a minor appearance as we are nearing embarkation into the mellower month of September. The temperature change is very welcome as it has been stiflingly hot recently.
Question?
It’s absolutely pouring down this side of the Alps, so no flying for us…. However, it’s no biggie, why? because the XAlps is on, and we’ve been glued to our computers watching the tracks, it’s fanatastic!!! So here’s the thing, what are you doing looking at this blog when you should be here, where all the action is???
Normal, services will resume when the weather improves 
One snippet of news though, we’ve managed to secure our places at the British Open in St. Jean Monclar!
Stair Rods from Heaven!
I granted myself poetic licence for the Zeppelin influenced title, not bad eh?! Well that’s about the size of it, it’s been raining stair rods all day. Which is ok really, as it’s turnaround day for us, with both departures and arrivals. Today’s a washout, tomorrow’s a bit better but Monday looks like it might be looking ok. Certianly hope so…
Donkey’s Delight a Dreary Day
We were hoping for a flyable day… it looked remotely possible, but nothing came of it. We waited after some light showers had come and gone, but the laden sky was not looking like it was going anywhere in a hurry. Anyway, we headed up to launch with thin traces of optimism as the nearer to launch we got, the denser the cloud seemed to be.
Delightful Donkey's
I was just scanning the windscreen for rain spots, and sure enough they turned up. Lightly, but then much more definate. Lunch aboard the ‘Skylark’ and a turnabout down hill was all we managed.
We were hoping it might clear by this evening, but it never happened.
Dennis dropped me off at landing, as we’ve got both vehicles out so we can all fly given the opportunity. We’ve pilots with us now for a while, so no beginners keeping us grounded. Still it seems we don’t need beginners to keep us grounded as the weather is doing a pretty good job of that. Anyway, there were a couple of very lovely donkey’s taking up a tiny bit of the landing field… they’re so lovely, they put an ever so cheery smile on my face
Flowers and Fruits
lovely redcurrants not cranberries (now I've been corrected thanks Colin!) just along the road!
The weather’s worsening and has taken on a regular pattern of flyable in the morning and early afternoon before it OD’s. Cu-nimbs about, and people still flying!
Dennis was working with Ed again this morning, and early afternoon then the conditions strengthened beyond a safe level for his experience, so that was it for the day. Meanwhile I fancied a bit of a change so went on our usual walking route with Tizzy but decided to do a spot of botanical photography as I haven’t been using the ‘Macro’ feature on the camera much so wanted to re-acquaint myself with the workings.
I took quite a few lovely and colourful flora and fruit pics which have turned out quite well… never knew there was so much juicy colour about on our regular little walk. Well… it makes a change from taking pictures of paragliders! 
Skiing Anyone?!
Les Houches Piste!
Well I never, who’d have thought it, snow on the 1st June! Never mind flying how about getting those skis back out! The Les Houche piste had settled snow on it this morning, as well as Varan… it’ll probably be gone by late afternoon, but it certainly was a surprise first thing!
Snow on Varan!
With all this weather, the British Open task was set then cancelled so there’s a change in the weather in Slovenia, as was forecast. Still there’s a few days left they may yet get to squeeze another one in. The weather here is set to improve from tomorrow, but still remaining a bit of a mixed bag.
Computer Comp!
Pouring down with rain all day today… no matter, we have enjoyed watching the live play at the British Open in Slovenia… as well as get on with chalet stuff we tend to put off during sunny flyable days, although it looks like we might have a few more days in the chalet to come… Not sure about the Slovenian weather, looks like tasking is going to be difficult here on in.
No Flying but a Fun Photo..
Weather has been weather, much needed rain… everything was beginning to look parched, the grass was drying out and taking on a distinct dried sand complexion, but all has been refreshed.
What is it? arigato gozaimasu or syonara..?
Consequently no flying. Over the weekend a small group ventured into Italy to check if it was any better the other side of the mountain, which turned out to be a bit of a wasted trip. A couple of beats along from the Plan d’Aguille to Flegere was all that was permitted by the weather. Since then not much else, except a lowering snow line!!
Today is not looking too good we already have lenticulars over the mountain with darkening cloud cover, and alto cumulus with dropping temperatures. Still looking on the bright side it’s en route to improvement.
We received a few photos from Alex and Natalies visit, have to say this one got me guffawing! anyone would have thought we were connected!! Very polite from a Japanese etiquette perspective don’t you think? Well that’s the full extent of my Japanese O, except that I can count to 10 as well!
High Hike to Cloudbase
It’s been a while since my last blog so a bit of updating.
Well first off, I’m so happy to report that my camera and radio have been found and returned! when I thought they’d gone for good… so normal services will hopefully be resumed. One of Roland’s students found them… they were returned on Tuesday, and I’m extremely thankful.
* * *
The weather has been worsenening with stronger winds and risks of storms so the flying has been limited in this area, just early morning windows, which is probably the way it will continue for the next few days, flyable in the morning although with possible rapid deterioration later. However, further south they have, and still are enjoying some flyable conditions. Not much in the way of distances have been achieved this week.
On Thursday, we took a walk up to Tête de la Sallaz, to have a look at the launch area… it was a much further walk than we anticipated. We knew the weather was forecast to rain later and although we did get snowed on at cloudbase, and later rained on… it wasn’t too bad we managed to get back in time to miss the deluge!!
..."if we're going to be trudging through snow, I'm just not interested!"
What we planned was a forty minute walk up to the chalets, we didn’t intend to walk the whole way up to 2026 meters a climb of 700 meters, from our start point, turned out to be a four hour walk to the top and back down again… it was funny though… Dennis said… “if we’re going to be trudging through snow, I’m just not interested!” meanwhile… trudging through snow… what a laugh !! Dennis suitably attired in his boy scout shorts, and me in my regular jeans which got muddier the higher we went, eventually looking like festival jeans after a mud bath! was just hilarious! On the way down were members of the ‘Rambling Society!’ all with their weather proofed gore tex clothing! but they were also in shorts, so no one was expecting snow then?!
It was a fun day out, and I’d prepared a couple of my own recipe Popeye Drinks, to keep us pepped up which worked brilliantly.. not even a shred of fatigue set in! The descent was much quicker as one would expect. Unfortunately, due to the cloud coming in, our view was obscured so we didn’t get a good view of the launch area. It certainly is a great place to launch from but access is a bit tough, we could go partway up in the vehicle but the hike from there with full xc glider set up would be a bit excessive for most.
As the weather isn’t too good at the moment, we’ve been looking at some other alternative launch sites which we’d like to try out some time.
