HGFA Skysailor Magazine

SKY SAILOR 7 January | February 2019 The last week of September was upon us, I had another 50 hours under my belt, it was my last week and the weather forecast for Col Rodella in the centre of the Dolomites looked fantastic. It was a Monday morning in Bologna, and my body was broken from skydiving all weekend, but it was time to go for it, so we made the six-hour drive back through tiny passes and beautiful valleys to the famous Val di Fassa. We arrived late afternoon and were greeted by howling winds and temperatures of minus 6ºC in the little resort village below launch. We cruised around town looking for a discreet camping spot. None was to be found, so we pulled into the cable car parking and set up for the night. We awoke to the outside and inside of the car caked with thick frost and frozen condensation. How the hell were we going to fly at high altitude in these conditions? One of my gloves had been eaten by a cow earlier in the trip, so we traipsed around the local ski shops and hardware stores to find some adequate gloves that were less than 60 Euro. I chose to double up on some construction gloves, paired with ski gloves. In the afternoon of Day 1 we went up the cable car to spend hours watching crazy (or stupid?) pilots launch between the ski lift cables in 30km/h winds, fly around the back of the ridge through the rotor to land straight down in strong valley winds. We weren’t really down for this crazy business, so we got some cappuccinos, tried to stay warm and watched the entertainment. After much umming and aahing, we made a last chance sunset launch, avoiding the cables by launching from a walking trail. With the wind mostly dead, we crossed around the back into the valley and caught the last warm air off the western cliff faces, enjoying a relaxed little tour of the valley around the landing area. It wasn’t much, but after much fear and anticipation, we had survived our first flight in the famous Dollies! There was much less wind on Day 2 and we were slightly less frozen. We awoke surrounded by hundreds of RVs and vans. Apparently, this week was the Val di Fassa free-fly fest! Awesome, we thought, until we got to launch to find about 300 pilots set up all over the mountain – between lifts, around the café, down the ridge, on the hiking trails, literally everywhere! The sky didn’t seem any less crowded either. When in doubt, join in… We unpacked and kitted up out of the wind behind the café and made our way down the ridge to line up for our turn to launch. Waiting for the right cycle, I finally made it into the air. Straight off launch paragliders were coming at me from every direction. There was a small thermal out the front, weak broken lift with 100 pilots fighting to stay in it. It seemed there was some disagreement about which way one should circle in this thermal, every layer of the stack was orbiting in a different direction! Head on a swivel had never been more relevant. I was hanging on for dear life, trying not to get hit. The rule of ‘turn right if someone is coming towards you’ was a little hard to followwhen I was often boxed in from every side. I hung in there and managed to climb a few hundred metres, the traffic got worse and two gliders had a head-on collision right in front of me. They both bounced and spun off each other and recovered in about 200m. Time to leave this crazy shit! We landed after less than an hour. The afternoon saw the wind switch and we tried our hand at the south launch for a beautiful two- hour ridge soar until sunsety. The traffic was bad, but not as terrible as the morning. We landed with shot nerves and mentally exhausted. Word on the street was that Day 3, our last day of flying in Italy, was ‘the day’. So we slept in, got hydrated, ate some food and headed up the lift. More crazy bullshit on launch. We watched a pilot take a collapse 200m off the deck and toggle monkey his way spinning and stalling over and over again until he smashed into the side of the mountain right in front of us. The mountainside was steep and grassy and he slid for a long way before getting up with only a damaged ego. He chose the only part of the ridge with no avalanche barriers or rockfaces to put on his show. A little shaken by this display, we took off and went for it. Once again, hit crazy disorganised traffic from the start, but I flew into a ripper thermal and hit 3200m seven minutes after launch! Col Rodella, north launch