Emberger Alm Task 3

A low pressure system is moving in fast.  High winds out of the south west means that any flying has to stay in the valley.  Crossing valleys is out of the question.  With this reality the rigids opt not to fly.  They want big tasks.  The committee is willing to try a short task up and down the valley for the flex wings.  While we are heading up the mountain high cirrus quickly turns the sky milky.  By the time we set up and receive the task it is totally overcast.  The forecast is a deteriorating one so I am anxious to launch early.  It doesn’t look easily and finishing the task is definitely questionable.  5 minutes before launch opens a couple of free fliers are floundering around in front of launch and couldn’t seem to climb out.  All the pilots are standing around watching with their hands in their pockets.   Anxious to launch I suited up as the window opened a launched.  A rigid, and a paraglider shared the air in front of launch with me as we struggled to get some altitude.  I let my zipper string slip into the harness and wasted some control and climb wrestling with that.  The final solution was to remove my glove, split the Velcro for the zipper, and get to the pull from the other side. [side note, today is cancelled and I will be fixing that worn grommet so I can’t lose the pull string again!].  The PG pilot is doing pretty well but the rigid free flier seems to always be behind the curve on reading the air.  This thermal seems to pulse on and off and come up the hill in waves drifting 45 up and to the left.  Eventually I get about 200m or so over launch and opt to head around the corner.   This courseline put me parallel to the start ring and in a lee valley.  I found a few bubble feeders that took quite a bit of work to climb in.  Lots of surging, yawing and yanking.  I love that my new glider is big but yet still very light, I can dissect lift like this very easily.  The drift back here is straight up this sub valley (90 to the main valley) so I slowly creep in deeper.  I find some real cores and hit cloudbase which is a great feeling on a totally overcast day.  Back at launch I can’t see much action.  Seems like only pilots hovering a couple hundred meters over launch.  I can’t take that for granted though. 

 

Waiting for the start open I am impatient.  The first turnpoint is on top of a finger off the main valley.  I really want to stay deeper in the ridges.  With this cloudbase a turn less then 10k away is impossible to see.  I know where it is so no biggie.  At CB I have a good tailwind so I am careful soaring up over the ridges that are perpendicular to this wind so I don’t get rotored behind them.  The air is buoyant and I am flying only best glide.  Close to the turnpoint it starts to rain and I think about landing.  I am still high and the rain is intermittent.  The forecast called for rain and no thunderstorms. There is still lift so I continue.  Thermalling with a wet glider proves to be very difficult and from now on I will always have some soap in my harness for days like these.  Near the turnpoint there is another glider climbing up and it looks like he will make that point as well.  Other then that one glider, the rest seem scattered in random places low. 

 

I head back towards launch and the second TP beyond.  I have that point on glide even though the numbers are negative.  The air is buoyant and the approach numbers are getting lower.  I get the feeling that the day is shutting down now.  I see a cross in the LZ and my heart sinks knowing that the task is cancelled.  Here I am with half the course easily under my belt and its done.  My ego is pushes me to hit the next turnpoint to prove something but halfway there the air feels past dying to dead.  Laziness prevails over ego and I turn around and glide back to the goal/campground/place where my food, computer, and internet are.  I am told the task was cancelled because it started to rain on launch.  Its easy for me to be disappointed in that decision because I was flying well.  Maybe under other circumstances emotions would sway me the other direction so I am over it.  The day wouldn’t have been worth many points but at least I would have been rewarded something for reading the day well and scratching ahead.  For me the biggest reward was practicing in the alps under such challenging conditions!  Now that I know more pilots read this, I can’t give away EVERY trick I figure out!

 

Kev