SAFA Skysailor Magazine

18 SKY SAILOR September | October 2019 Day 11: Crans Montana to Andermatt, Switzerland Due to the high stability, it was imperative to launch as late and as high as possible, so I headed for the Crans Montana ski resort above Sion. A night in the village and an hour hike in the morning to a cable car to 2200m was a good start. Two more hours of hiking got me to 2900m and a better chance to climb out above the valley haze. It was a lot of effort to get to launch, but I was rewarded with a stonking climb to 3600m with a couple of gliders for company and the Rhone valley was my highway. Tailwind glides had me sailing over the mighty Fiesch glacier as the peaks rise to the 4000m mark and the snowy ridges made for stunning scenery. The climbs were dropping to 3000m as I pushed east until the Furka pass got in the way. At 2500m it is a major hurdle in the middle of Switzerland and blocked my path. So I landed at its base and caught a train under the pass to Andermatt for a late camp and a great pizza with a fine Belgian ale to savour a most memorable lap down the snow shrouded Rhone valley. My flying kit was reasonably light with the basics of glider, harness, reserve and pack weighing nine kilos, including my Ozone Alpina and Ozium harness. All additional flying items added about three kilograms. The rest of my gear – my camp kit, clothes, food, stove, repair and first aid, power and chargers – were all as light as possible, but still about 18kg all up, which came to 22kg when fully loaded with food and water for several days. That’s nearly a third of my body weight, so hiking was slow, but easier than I’d thought, once I embraced the plod – one foot after the other. Day 14: Davos, Switzerland, to Merano, Italy A day in Davos spent waiting out the strong north Föhn wind finally brought a day of high base, light winds and hot temps. I was getting jumpy, my three week window was sailing by and I had to make good use of the two day weather window. The area east of Davos is a collection of different valley systems with tricky navigation, so I studied the next 100km beforehand, plotting a route through the peaks and valleys, so I could remember it in the air. The morning shaped up as expected, with a great climb out and a clean crossing over the snow covered Fluela pass towards the Italian border. I managed to remember my navigation as I ap- proached the corner boundaries of three countries. I had a choice to make on the fly, to either head left to Austria to tighter valleys, or to Italy with a clearer ridge but a 40km long valley packed with apple orchards. In the end, my desire for a good pizza won out and I chucked a right and braved the valley of the eternal orchard. The high ground worked well, I managed to stay high and put in a memorable 115km flight until the valley wind at Merano reached up and grabbed me. The valley was still chock full of apple orchards, so I landed a little way up the slope, which, as luck would have it, had a pub directly across from my landing. One quick pub tag beer, and I headed down to the village of Parcines across the valley for a fine Italian pizza in a lovely open air Italian piazza and a camp under a random apple tree at the base of the gondola for tomorrow’s flight. One of the keys to vol biv flying for me is staying in the air. You want to fly efficiently of course, but time in the air is worth so much more than speed in the air. An hour flying is worth roughly a day of hiking, so staying alive in the air is pivotal. Like- wise, if you get stuck, then landing high gives you some options, while landing low kind of resets the process and locks in a big hike before you can make decent distances again. Having said that, later in the day, there is probably a lot more mileage to be gained by flying on to the valley and maximising the day and the distance. The late day buoyancy can hang around, so more often than not I pushed on for maximum distance and only landed high if it was a difficult day. Day 20: Obertilliach to Kameritsch, Austria Another southerly forecast for the day, blowing across the main valley, but the sky was sunny and the air warm. With two days and some 90km remaining, I was feeling the time pressure, and the day delivered in ways I never expect. It gave me highs and lows that perhaps summed up my whole trip. After a late start to the day from the 2000m launch, the southerly made for slower going but good climbs to good clouds, albeit long glides between climbs. A few locals joined me over launch, so I had air buddies, which was rare during the entire trip. Only at St Andrés and Chamonix had Pilgrimage – A Solo Alpine Traverse