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Lac Castellane
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JAC
was still on the ground at midday; normally it would have launched well
before it became soarable. We thought maybe Roger must be ill or
something. Thirty minutes later, normality was restored and a grid was
constructed behind the Duo. It turned
out (for me, anyway) that launching at 1pm was only just do-able. After
some low scraping on Authon, I was away. The cumulus looked good on the
parcours and further east, so I decided to take a look at the lac
Castellane, near St Andre des Alps. Cloudbase dropped a little here, but
8000ft was still perfectly adequate. One day I'll make it all the way to
Fayence again. |
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Near les Pics d'Aneaux
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Back
to the north, I flew along the Colmars valley to the col d'Allos, the
Chapeau de Gendarme and across the Barcelonnette valley to Grand Berard.
As I flew to the col de Vars, someone was following me just above and very
close behind; in the world of Flarm, this counts as really annoying as I
was getting a continuous collision alert until I decided to throw a 360 to
shake him off. Grrr! I wanted to
avoid needing to use Prachaval; my experience is that while it is easy to
stay airborne using the mountain, it isn't always easy to get the extra
height to be able to glide to the good lift further north, which is why I
try to stay as high as possible so that when I reach the central Queyras I
still have enough margin to pick off a good climb. Today I was rewarded by
the fact that this didn't work, so I ended up rock-scraping once again. |
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Barre des Ecrins
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I
did manage to get away to 12,000ft and carried on to Plampinet, the small
mountain village in the next valley north of Briancon. Wave influenced
thermals got me to 13,000ft but I was unable to gain proper access to the
wave, so I decided to take a Cook's Tour for the way home. A lovely climb
to 12,000ft at the entrance to the Glacier Blanc allowed me to run the
cirque to the Barre des Ecrins and back around the corner to Palvoux.
Stunning views, as always. My first
run to the pas de Cavale failed - I was about 500ft too low. I
back-tracked along the ridge, gave myself a good margin for my second go,
and flew across the col and onwards to the parcours via the tete de Lucy.
From the Trois Eveches it was an easy run home to, once again, a deserted
airfield. |
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Over the Glacier Blanc
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