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Annecy - Jason's 2nd dbag - final day
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Annecy (the sequel!) - 2005

This was a great trip. I got to fly with my twin brother Jason, parents Janet and Brian, girlfriend Emmalyn and friends Suzanne, Andy and Chris DAYS NUMBERED AS -4,-3 etc WERE BEFORE THE TRIP (this was confusing Jason a little bit)
(Day -4) (Day -3) (Day -2) (Day -1) (Day 1) (Day 2) (Day 3) (Day 4) (Day 5) (Day 6) (Day 7) (Day 8)

Day 7

Monday 1st August 2005

After Jason`s successful `petite tour du lac` earlier in the week I was keen to try the route for myself. The only thing holding me back was knowing how high I needed to be over Les Dentes before making my glide across the lake. Since this would be the last flying day of the trip I figured I had to do it this time, after all if Jason can do it how hard can it be?

Conditions were very good at the launch mat. We arrived early and saw that many pilots were sitting about chatting, but few were actually clipped in and ready to go. As I have mentioned before, I always get myself ready to go before sitting down and waiting. I am there to fly and I don`t want to be waiting around when the launch mat starts filling up. I want to be ready to launch as soon as conditions are good enough. The thermals were setting up much earlier today and I was in the air by 12:50. Just after I launched the mat was swarming with pilots jostling for position.

The air was silky smooth and I made a hard right to run down the ridge towards La Tournette. After gaining and losing height in a succession of small weak thermals I eventually got enough height to make an attempt to follow the house thermal that forms near La Tournette. I should have known better. With conditions as weak as they were I was optimistically hoping I would hook up with a thermal to carry me above La Tournette. Jason?s advice had been to reach the zig-zag path just past the restaurant. He reckons it never fails to get you above La Tournette. Bang went that theory, as I came running back real low hoping to beat the wind and return to the main ridge to top up on my altitude. I got back lower than all the other pilots and spent the next few minutes scratching around hoping I wouldn?t bomb out in the middle of nowhere. Fortunately I hooked a nice thermal and was soon up with the rest. Jason was now among those pilots and after we were high enough we headed off to cross the gap between the main ridge and the rocky outcrop that sits before Les Dents.

I knew he would be going for a Lake crossing soon, so I just followed him. He has been flying much less than me, but has flown Annecy much more and actually knows the site quite well (although I hate to say it!). We played around in good thermals heading for Les Dentes and were soon catching some stonkers. We were nice and high now and I was sure we had enough height to make it across the lake. Jason made his move and I watched. He was a bit higher than me, but realizing this was the last chance of the trip I decided to follow. I was immediately rewarded with a smooth altitude gain as I headed out towards the lake. This was very handy and gave me a much better margin to play with.

The glide across the lake was awesome. It gave me a chance to sit back and take in the view as I slowly changed my perspective.

I got to see the whole place from a totally new view point. It was fantastic. I had no idea if I had enough height or not, but I guessed I was ok. Being so high and far from any reference points (and not having a gps) it is difficult to gauge your forward motion. I seemed to be doing ok so at the half way point I pushed on. I was starting to look at the ridge I was headed for.

I had to change direction slightly as the wind seemed to be carrying me towards the lee side. On my final approach I was clear of the lake, but I saw that the ridge was completely tree-covered. If I made it to the ridge too low there would be nowhere to land. I was, at this point, seriously considering bailing out and landing in a field somewhere. Looking behind me to see other pilots following lower down, combined with seeing Jason make it to the ridge and gain height, I decided I would be fine. When I reached the ridge I was quite low. The first beeps of my vario were very reassuring. I was going up again. This was something completely new to me. I had never flown this ridge before, or seen Annecy from such a different perspective. Now we just needed to get enough height to go `over the back`. I took the opportunity to have a pee (using the patented `evian bottle` technique) and then worked on gaining the height I needed. Jason shouted over to me that he was heading for the landing field so we made our final glide.

For those of you that get to fly more frequently than me (without an engine) this kind of flight is no big deal, but considering I had no free-flown for close to a year and a half prior to the trip, I was very pleased to end with such a nice flight. It wasn`t quite the epic cross country adventure that I dream of, but it was enough to keep me happy...for now.

The content of this site is ï¿½ Mark Andrews 2005-12, mandrews1973@gmail.com