10 Jun 05

Site design by Aircross Ltd

10 Jun 05

Second Best is Still Good...
More pair-flying for Ariane and me. There had been talk at briefing about the best routes to the Mt Blanc, so hopes were high when we launched at around 12:30pm. We established ourselves at cloudbase (7000ft) and headed off for Colombis and Morgon, but once there we realised that the low cloudbase would have made the lead-and-follow riskier than we would have liked, so we followed plan B, which was a run along the parcours and on towards the lac Ste Croix.	Montagne Ste Victoire

Lac d'Esparron, west of Ste Croix	Ariane then headed off northwards again while I carried on to the south. My track took me to the Aix/Cannes autoroute where I headed east to the Montagne Ste Victoire before heading north again past Vinon, Puismosson and back to the parcours. Cloudbase at les Trois Eveches was now over 9000ft and I decided to take another look at the St Crepin valley.

The wind at Guillaume was a northerly so it didn't work too well - I had to fly into a wind-shadow gully at the far end of its main face before connecting with a thermal, but I was soon above the top again at 9500ft. A mistake then lost me 500ft in a couple of seconds as I flew through heavy sink on the way to Clotinailles and Furan, before another climb got me to the tête de Vautise, near St Crepin.

After spending 10 minutes there trying to get a thermal to work, I gave it up as a bad job and retreated to Clotinailles where I topped up to 10,000 ft and decided to explore the main spine of the Ecrins, managing to keep at roughly the same altitude as I twisted and turned amongst the dark rocks and white snow. Many of the peaks were in cloud, adding to the feeling of desolation.

I left the Ecrins via the Valguademar and after a short tour of the pic de Bure and the col de la Croix Haute, returned to base for a landing. In summary, a good day, slightly disappointing because of the early low cloudbase over the Ecrins but more than made up for by the later exploration of the western Ecrins.

In the Valgaudemar