JB and Matt arrived in La Motte Du Caire on Tuesday afternoon. The 880 mile journey from Devon passed uneventfully and was broken-up by multitude stops for tea and an overnighter in a quiet Aire somewhere near Troyes. The advance party of Phil and David J (from Nympsfield) had already set up our portable mansion in prime position in the camp site. Rowan the straggler gets here on Saturday to complete the contingent.
Wednesday was wet, not what we ordered but never-the-less was put to good use with a not so quick trip to the supermarket for supplies and synchronising our Oudies with French airspace, metric altitudes and outlanding fields. Late in the afternoon the cold front finally went through and we were treated to a wonderful display of colour.
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| Our own pot of gold |
Thursday morning we awoke to mist shrouding the valley but it wasn't long before the sun burnt it off and by the 10:15 briefing the sky was clear with a couple of lingering vapour trails the only blemishes. The meteo forecast a westerly wind increasing with altitude which might produce wave but which also might interfere with otherwise reliable ridges, so Christian had advised caution.
Check flights out of the way, we pushed Phil to the front of the launch queue and sacrificed him to the thermal god of Early Morning who was obviously in a benign mood as she let us all get away from the first launch. Matt chased after a glider that he thought was Phil and was soon playing on the Parcour only to discover, when Phil finally responded to radio calls that he was still exploring the mountains near the club. Conditions were not filling us with confidence to go far as the thermals were often very hard to centre and Christian's warning ever present in the back of our minds.
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| Over the Vallee de Champoleon looking north to the Ecrin in wave |
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| JB over the Parcour |
David, JB and Matt all found wave albeit in different places and climbed well above 10 000' soaking in the spectacular views. Later in the afternoon cumulus clouds helped indicate the thermals and Phil led us into a booming 8 knotter over the Malup at about 6pm.
A great first day of many hopefully.
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| Putting the gliders to bed with cumulus over the Malup |
