We had been watching the weather forecast for a few days and the stiff North-Easterly, good visibility and a sunny sky forecast for Sunday looked just the job for soaring the east slopes of the Malvern Hills, Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons. A bit more ‘east' would have been better but Trevor Stuart (from Nympsfield) was confident that it would be OK and was also going with Alan Price in his Nimbus 3DT. So Nick and JB braved an icy, early morning start and headed to Nympsfield with the Duo Discus DD3 for another ridge running adventure.
On arrival we were met by Trevor Stuart who presented us with a large gluten free ‘Ridge-runner’s cake’ made by his wife Jill. Trevor helped us rig, but then we were delayed from launching for a while because we were using different Oudies to the usual ones fitted to DD3 and they were being positively unsociable and wouldn’t communicate at all!
Finally we got one working on its internal GPS and set off on tow towards Gloucester. We released at about 3500ft, and after a longish glide arrived at the south end of the Malvern hills about 1000ft above the top. At that height they were just about working and we ambled along to Great Malvern before stuffing the nose down for a couple of quicker runs and a few hello waves to the walkers. But time was short and we wanted to do the Black Mountains too, so we climbed as high as we could by Great Malvern, where the ridge is highest and better suited to the north easterly wind, then with the aid of the turbo headed west to join the east facing slopes of the Black mountains.
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| Heading northwest to Hay Bluff (JB) |
Having reached the ridge we headed NW to Hay Bluff to start our run south, along the ‘Pandy run’ til the ridge runs out just north of Pandy village. There we made a small jump west on to the little ridges that run south, then across the valley at Abergavenny to the Blorange mountain just south of the town. The Blorange is a fine old lump of a mountain and works pretty well, but we were still quite high, so continued south to Pontypool.
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| JB and Nick Jones in DD3 (JB) |
We were conscious that the ridge from Pontypool south to Cwmbran doesn’t work very well in a Northeasterly, especially on the return leg into wind and as the landing options down there are almost non-existent, we decided to play safe and stay as high as possible. On reaching Pontypool there’s quite a jump across the town into the big bowl to the SW, but its down-wind and we didn’t lose any height and headed on south past Cwmbran town to Pant-yr-eos Resevoir which was our turning point (CWS - Cwmbran South West).
We were jolly glad we had the extra height because the return leg to Pontypool was fairly into wind and not giving much lift as the wind was tending to funnel along the ridge rather than rising up over. But we arrived at a comfortable height for the into-wind jump across Pontypool and on to the ridge northbound to the Blorange which worked quite well.
The jump across Abergavenny northwards usually feels like a complete act of faith, but this time we had loads of height so it was quite a relaxed affair and allowed us to make the into-wind jump on to the Pandy ridge with height to spare. From there on the ridge is a monster and the lift was pumping almost all the way back to Hay Bluff.
We had intended to do another trip down to CWS and back, but time was against us and Trevor had finished his 220k task and was already climbing up at Abergavenny, looking for a wave to get home from. So we climbed as high as we could on the way down to Abergavenny but couldn’t find a decent wave. Meanwhile Trevor had tiptoed downwind to Llangorse hill on the east side of the Cwmdu valley (just south of Talgarth) and managed to catch the wave there and climb up. But we weren’t high enough to go exploring downwind and with only about an hour and a half of daylight left, we fired up the iron thermal and headed for home (Nympsfield).
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| Ross on Wye and the lengthening shadows on the long way home (JB) |
It was a long and slow old slog at 25kts ground speed into the 30kt+ headwind requiring three longish engine runs to get back. We finally arrived with 1200ft and 1litre of fuel to spare - maybe next time we’ll make sure the tank is filled right up!
Meanwhile Trevor had climbed to 11,000 ft in the wave and beat us home without needing the engine.
A lovely french man called Christophe helped us de-rig and then we retired to the club kitchen to thaw out with a nice cup of tea and some of Jill’s gluten free ‘ridge-runner’s cake’!
A great day out - thanks to John Pursey for the initial weather warning, Phil for covering my Instructor duty at short notice, Nick for the Duo Discus and getting us there, Trevor and Christophe for encouragement and rigging services and Jill Stuart for her delicious Ridge-runner’s cake’! We will definitely be back! - JB
