Condor Racing
The Tuesday afternoon Condor Racers group was a little depleted today, but the task was set as moderate difficulty - 271kms triangle in the Swiss Alps.
After a briefing with a couple of route options discussed, Stewart, David, Geoff, John and Jill prepared to start airborne at Meringen, but John had a problem with the joystick controls and ended up spectating.
The first leg was a good run along the ridges in a northwesterly wind, with Stewart and Geoff stopping for a thermal topup just before the turnpoint, David and Jill had pressed on to the turn but ended up going back to the sunny ridge to gain height. Once everyone was high enough we jumped over the ridge and across the Rhine valley.
On the second leg, we picked up a decent windward facing ridge east along the Rhine valley and then diverted southeast into Italy to turn Locarno.
The final leg was into wind across multiple mountain ranges and a good thermal would have been nice, but nowhere to be seen except over the unreachable high mountains. So plan B was to jump from valley to valley using all the into-wind spurs, and clear two passes at 8,100ft and 7,100ft. This turned out to be a good plan (thanks Stewart!) and we all arrived back with height to spare. A more challenging task than of late, but great to complete. - J&P
