Today the forecast was for a slack Northerly breeze - no good at all for a ridge and wave site that needs a Westerly. But hang on, what's this? The airmass after the cold front promised good soaring in Wales and so we looked at some cross country tasks. Local guru Kevin suggested a 330km out and return task straight up and down the middle of Wales. That seemed along way to go South as we feared the day may weaken early or blue out(as it was neither happened although the wind did increase), so we set a yo-yo task of Lleweni Parc(LLE) - Llandrindod Wells(LLW) - Vyrnwy(VRY) - Rhayader(RHY) - Lleweni Parc(LLE) for 313km.
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| Going south on the first leg over the Llantysillo mountains |
Although Pete S in 230 needed a re-light(muppet), thermals from the off were good with climbs initially to 3000' locally which rapidly rose to 4000' then as the day progressed cloudbases rose to 6000' with the best of the climbs between 5 and 6kts.
The visibility was astonishing with the whole of Wales being visible laid out like a map around you.
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| The ridge just south of Barmouth |
While the task itself wasn't particularly difficult, the 6000' cloudbase is only relative to the terrain you're flying over and with some of it being almost 3000' some areas felt quite intimidating with landout options at times looking 'interesting', at least to Pete and Martin - Mountain Matt probably thought it was like East Anglia! Apart from the hills, every field had sheep in it. Pete S had one tricky bit on the last leg getting down to 3000' indicated in the lee of a ridge with a 2,800' hill in front of him - interesting. But M5, not wanting to miss a rare chance, decided to divert around the peak of Snowdon on the
return leg, wave to walkers and get a takeaway coffee from the cafe on
top as he went by and in so doing added an extra 40km to his task! A truly enterprising effort and the pictures
tell the story.
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| Abeam Barmouth looking south west to the Gower Peninsula |
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| Snowdon |
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| Looking west over Snowdon and the Lleyn Peninsula |
So everybody got home(Martin with no electrics for the last 80km), a couple of the other guys went further South and found the conditions around Hereford/Brecon/Talgarth even better.
A brilliant x-c day from somewhere you don't expect to go x-c so new terrain for all of us. I'm sure I saw Matts cheesy grin go 360 round his head and join up at the back and rightly so!
