What you need to know about single-surface wings

Single-surface wings are incredible. They weigh nearly nothing, fit in to your hand luggage, and yet are still real paragliders, capable of soaring and even cross-country flights. Understandably, many pilots are considering buying one. This post exists to help you make that decision.

All wings are compromises. Traditionally the compromise has been between performance and passive safety as measured by certification. Single-surface (SS) wings are equally compromises, trading some disadvantages for other advantages over classical double-surface (DS) wings. Let's go through these.

Weight. SS wings are much lighter - but not half the weight, as you might have expected. There's no under-surface, but there is still a lot of fabric structure, more line, and the same risers as a DS wing. Consequently, you typically save about 40% of weight - significant, but not 50% - compared to a DS wing.

When considering weight, you need to consider the total weight of your gear, which includes your harness, reserve, helmet, flight clothing, and food. Dropping the wing weight from a 2.2kg DS to a 1.2kg SS sounds like at 45% saving, but is much less interesting if your total flying gear weight drops from 5.4kg to 4.5kg - that's just 17%.

Pack volume. Fabric is not heavy (typically 27g/m^2 for a lightweight cloth) but it does take volume. SS wings have much less fabric, and you can squeeze the air out of both ends, so they pack much smaller. You can pack them into 4-6 litres of space (that's a tiny backpack), easily half the volume required for a DS wing. When they're this small, there's no excuse for not having the wing with you on every trip.

Price. The cost of building a paraglider is the composition of many things. Fabric is expensive (which SS wings have less of), but so is line and construction complexity (which SS wings have the same or more of). Overall, like weight, expect an SS wing to be cheaper than a DS wing, but not by as much as you might initially expect.

Fragility. SS wings are built to be light, and feel very fragile in your hands. Yet, they still pass the same 8G load tests as normal wings. Made of light materials, you need to be more careful not to snag lines or fabric on rocks or bushes, but here they are no different to their DS cousins.

Inflation. SS wings love to fly. Like, they just wanna be up there above your head all the time, even in the lightest zephyr. This is fantastic in zero or light winds (and even backwinds) but becomes a problem in stronger winds. Specifically, DS wings are easy to pin down on the ground using the brakes or D-risers. SS wings are always trying to leap up into the air. Great if you're looking to fly from a tight spot, but if you're launching in wind you're gonna be fighting the wing all the time until you get off. Similarly, for landing in wind this is a problem: the only way to "kill" the wing can be to run downwind past it, gathering the wing up as you go. Doable on a solo wing but almost impossible on a tandem.

Launch. They're immediately above your head and inflated, but they're not lifting you yet. You still have to run, The runway needed to take off is perhaps slightly longer than a DS wing.

Calm-air glide. Here, they're pretty OK. They don't glide as well as DS wings, but modern SS wings get a comfortable 7:1 or so in still air.

Speed. First-generation SS wings were very slow (e.g. 26km/h, with no accelerator). Modern SS wings claim trim speeds closer to DS wings and have speed systems offering a few extra km/h. However, if you're considering a SS wing you should measure the trim and accelerated speeds yourself.

Turbulence. This is where the compromise happens. Many things are different.

Firstly, SS wings move around a lot. They don't contain the mass of air that DS wings do. The air in a DS wing easily weighs a few kilograms, SS wings have no air in them. SS wings move initially very quickly, and then stop. This makes the glider feel very nervous: they jump around, feeling like they're gonna dive too far, but then they just stop. This takes some getting used to. They can be more stressful to fly than CCC competition wings.

These damped responses make SS wings great wings to throw around: you can wingover and spiral as much as you want, but it takes perfect timing to get large-amplitude movements, and as soon as you stop, the wing immediately loses all energy and resumes normal straight flight.

Secondly, SS wings lose all performance in turbulence, period. Rough air is where glider performance differences are most evident, and here SS wings are the worst of the bunch. Once it gets even a little bit bumpy, SS wings perform significantly worse than a school EN A wing, At times, it can feel like you're descending vertically with no forward speed - and there's nothing you can do about it.

This is really important for your flight planning. If you launch a SS wing, you need to have a landing field within a 2-3:1 glide angle, unless you're very sure of the weather conditions.

Sink rate. SS gliders have higher sink rates (especially in thermals which are by their nature turbulent) and have less efficient turns, even in smooth dynamic lift. You get more feedback from the wing's nervousness, which compensates to a certain extent, but you're still going to climb less well than a school wing. Don't expect to be top of the stack, and you'll almost definitely be the first to sink out and land.

Landing. Older SS wings have very poor flares. You need to pull on the brakes fractions of a second before you touch down, and even then you get a hard and fast landing. Modern SS wings claim much better flare characteristics, but you should test the wing yourself before buying it.

In conclusion, SS wings are awesome. If you want a wing that you can take with you everywhere to fly in good conditions, then get one. They're not without compromise though. The range of conditions in which SS wings are safe and fun to fly is significantly smaller than the conditions for a lightweight DS wing. An SS wing is not a replacement for a DS wing, it is a complement to it.

4 days, 24 hours of flying, 580 kilometres XC and 3 kilos of cheese

The brief was simple: take off early, fly your socks off as far as you dared and then fly back again to land back at HQ. The Cat's Cradle Trophy is a new pure XC competition organised by Dezair Paragliding in Marlens, Annecy. I joined thirty French pilots and one New Zealander for what turned out to be one of the best XC weeks on record.

Pure cross country competitions have been gaining popularity with events like the XC Open and the Czech-organised XCamp. French and PWC Champion Patrick Bérod brought the format to his home site of Méruz at the south end of the Aravis mountains near Annecy in the French Alps in April. I signed up partly for a much-needed break from the day job and partly to get first-hand experience of the XC comp format.

The organisers promised less follow-the-leader gaggle flying, less mindless bar pushing and instead more flexibility, more decision making, and the opportunity to make the most of every day - in contrast to the hanging around and three-hour stress-fest of a traditional comp. I was skeptical. I had concerns about safety (XC comps have a much worse safety record than traditional comps), logistics (how do you organise retrieves when pilots scatter themselves to the four corners of the map?) and fairness (surely the local pilots would have a huge advantage?). As it turned out, I would be wrong on almost all counts.

The first day dawned with exceptionally clear skies and an excellent forecast. The deep blue was pure: an Icelandic volcano had scattered engine-eating ash into the upper atmosphere and there was not a single jet trail in the sky. Kiwi Glen Stevens had braved 36 hours of surface transport to get to the comp from London. With the magical sensation that the skies would be ours and uniquely ours the atmosphere on launch was palatable. We all knew the day would be special and it did not disappoint.

From the start the atmosphere amongst the competitors was positive. We all realised that the battle would be fought in the air but by sharing information and route ideas we would all benefit. The task was set informally by the pilots: blast down the East faces of the Bauges mountains, do the huge transition into the Chartreuse, bar down to Grenoble to the south, tag a turnpoint somewhere near the Fort St Eynard and then race back north. Big transition back into the Bauges, and then keep going: tag Annecy and then cruise into goal on the valley winds just before the window closed at 17h30. Having launched ten minutes after the first pilot (it was effectively a ground start from a one glider launch) it took me 10km to catch him but conditions were fantastic and once away from launch I made only sixty turns in the first 80km to Grenoble, spending the rest of the time on half bar. I lead out, falling into a natural rhythm with the thermals and the clouds, until about 160km into the task. If it was good I stayed, but as soon as the lift dropped below 2m/s on the 20s averager I put on the bar and glided to the next source. Finally, bizarrely, it was at one of the most reliable thermals in Annecy (the rocks above Bluffy) that I finally fell out of cycle and was caught by Nicola di Bernardo (Mac Magus) and Sylvain Dhonneur (Aircross Usport) who had been chasing hard. After six hours of racing we fumbled our way up to base and headed in different directions to maximise our distances as the final minutes ticked away and goal beckoned. As it was we all made different decisions. Nicola claimed the longest flight but was 130 metres short of the line as goal closed. Similarly for Sylvain. Not getting to goal in time was costly. I'd blasted in with two minutes to spare to take my first 1000-point task win in an FAI Cat 2 competition. Day 1: 180km and 6.5 hours of flying.

Day two was very different. Cloudy. Over-development later. Pilots were tired from destroying their personal bests the day before. An earlier land-by time was set. Despite the tricky conditions this would prove to be the defining task of the competition.

With the forecast of big clouds in the mountains I'd planned a route that took me to the edge of the flying area during the strongest part of the day. The goal was to head towards the flats, clock up the kilometres on the lower ridges away from the main massifs, and then cruise back into Marlens on the valley winds before land-by time. It wasn't easy and I would have bombed out early on had I not been working low slopes with the eventual female winner, Christine Metais (Gin Boomerang 6 X-Alps). But it worked. In a dance of patience and planning I flew from sunny spot to sunny spot, occasionally relying on the magical lift-sniffing abilities of my Axis Mercury 08, and sometimes counting only on its raw speed and stability when jumping from mountain to mountain. Christine doubled back at the Montagne de Banges but I continued. The game was sunshine and shadow. Working large-scale weak lift I got rained on and hailed on, but it was only light. I flew into goal with just over five hours on the clock and a slow 105km on the counter. An insignificant distance compared to the previous day but hard-fought and enough to hand me my second 1000-point task win. Day two: 105km, 5.5 hours.

For day three the excitement was manifest. Almost the entire field (including me) had broken their personal best on day one, and Wednesday was looking even better. It was. The game was kilometres and everyone (except local XC hound Betrand Bellet (Gradient Avax XC2)) opted to follow the same flight as the first day but to extend it further north. I was once again a bit late to launch and it took me 80km to catch up with the ten-minute first launch advantage of task leader Maxime Pinot (Aircross U4) at Grenoble at the extreme south end of the defined flying area. The flying was fast - not dumb balls-out fast but intelligent fast - using the best lift, gliding at speed to fly. My impatience was on my side as a left Mont Granier below cloudbase for the big transition into the Bauges. This proved to be the decisive moment in the flight as I led out alone but in cycle, tagging the summit of Sur Cou at the extreme north end of the flying area before relying on raw bar speed to get me back to HQ with ten minutes to spare. I could have flown further. As it was, I ticked off the longest flight of the day with 211km in 7.5 hours, another personal best and a tidy average speed of almost 30km/h for a XC flight flown predominately alone. That day, four pilots flew over 200km circuits despite having a land-by time that still left 1.5 hours - 45km - of flying time. As you can probably imagine, the atmosphere in goal was electric. Almost everyone made it back in time having broken - no, destroyed - their personal best. Those who didn't make it in time landed in goal later, with fewer points but with even wider smiles. There was a barbecue at the HQ at the Auberge des Aravis and you can imagine as well as well as I the atmosphere amongst thirty pilots who had each just flown the best flight of their lives so far. For the third day in three, I won with 1000 points and the French were beginning to get annoyed.

The Meet Director Patrick Bérod announced that Thursday would be the last day. The accumulation of twenty hours flying in the best conditions that the French Alps have to offer was beginning to show in the eyes of the competitors. Of course, it's never easy. The beloved French President Sarko was in the area and this meant that there was an air exclusion zone around our normal playground of the Bauges until 13h30. We headed further away to take off - the ski resort of les Saises with it's south-facing slopes at 2000m - but it was still a game to make the most of the day.

Flush from three days of success, I got it horribly wrong. In my mind the goal was simple: don't take any risks, fly well enough to score 600 points which given my 400-point lead over second place Julien Senzier would be sufficient to secure the competition win. Even with this, we discussed tactics beforehand, freely sharing our information. But this day would not be mine. In the air, sensing a weakening of conditions, I took the conservative option of flying in the Bornes and Aravis mountains with a guaranteed return to goal in the Annecy valley. I got trapped under an inversion. Twice. On a weak day that would also be worth 1000 points like the others, in a four hour task I spent two hours scratching, going nowhere. I limped into goal, a few km under the belt but doubtful whether it would be enough.

While I had been stuck surviving, Kiwi Glen had been blasting up and down the East faces of the Bauges as fast as his Niviuk Peak would take him. Not bad for a non-local pilot who'd just learned the entire area in three days flat. While I'd done a mere 80km in four hours he'd clocked up 120km in the same amount of time but had been agonisingly a couple of kilometres short of goal when the time ran out. Nicola di Bernardo had got it right. He'd flown at speed-to-fly and blasted into goal a little early due to confusion about the land-by time. Having won three days in succession, was I about to lose it all?

On that final day I was 18th out of thirty. Everybody else was celebrating finally beating me. I was gutted that I'd fallen short, failing at the last hurdle. In those tense few hours before the final results came out I was not a good person to be around. My mood had changed from loving the flying and the atmosphere to playing zero-sum games of your win is my loss. It was not a proud moment.

Friday dawned cloudy and inverted. There would be no task. Despite my errors the previous day I had kept my first place albeit giving away two hundred points to second-placed Julien. I topped off the week by landing on the spot in the local stadium in Ugine to thank the local commune for letting us use the launch and adding a kilo of mature Tomme cheese to my pile of delicious Reblochons from three task wins and my first FAI Cat 2 win.

So, how were the logistics? Pretty good. The retrieve was organised using a minibus in each area. I got back to goal each day in time so didn't get to test out the retrieve system myself, but no-one was late back and everybody was happy. Safety? There was one reserve deployment with no injury, which given the 1000 hours of flying in strong Alpine conditions accumulated by the pilots was about par for the course. The emphasis on personal decision making meant that each pilot made his/her own individual decision to fly or land rather than being told what to do. Fairness? Well, the jury's still out on this one. I knew the area well and did well, but Kiwi Glen arrived with no local knowledge and nearly won the last day. As a non-local pilot you're unlikely to win but you'll certainly walk away having learned a fantastic amount.

Rumours are that they'll be another Cat's Cradle at St Jean de Montclar (site of the 2009 British Open) towards the end of the summer, and maybe a wider series to follow. See you there?

Full results.

The X-Alps: The Inside Story

Judith Mole and I have just done the follow-up podcast on the race and it's aftermath. Have a listen to it on Judith Mole's paragliding podcast page.

The race was very tough but I was very happy to still be in the race at its end. The podcast covers a lot of topics, but if I've missed anything then email me at twpayne at gmail dot com and I'll answer your questions here.

Photo credit: ©Vitek Ludvik / Red Bull Photofiles

Final stage of preparations, first glimpse of the race weather

Alex and I leave for Austria next weekend. In the meantime we're frantically getting together the remaining equipment. Last night we put a lighter set of risers on the glider (thanks Martin Orlik at Axis Para) and I test flew the glider with them this morning at the Saleve mountain near Geneva before the storms arrived and stopped play. The afternoon was spent putting stickers on the glider. There's a lot of them and the Red Bull logos are really fiddly. However, by the third sticker we were starting to get the hang of it and can now put them on quickly and cleanly.

On Wednesday I'll finally be able to collect the harness from Sup'air. I've chosen to use a third generation Altirando XP. Sup'air are producing a special version for the X-Alps which is a couple of hundred of grams lighter than the standard version. It's a really nice harness in the air, nicely aerodynamic with the removable leg cover and with some excellent back protection in the form of an airbag. Equally importantly, it reverses to become a very comfortable rucksack. I've asked for a couple of minor modifications to adapt it better to my rather skinny body shape. Stay tuned for a more detailed description of the X-Alps gear towards the end of the week.

Finally, the race start is just fourteen days away now. It's scarily close and the first long term forecasts have just been published. Two weeks is an eternity in weather forecasting and you can't really believe anything they say, but I can't resist peeking! The current forecast is that Austria will get quite a lot of rain the day before the race but race day itself will be dry with light winds at 1500m, which means that we'll be able to fly from the first turnpoint above Salzburg, the Gaisberg. The winds at altitude are moderately strong Westerlies, which could be a problem for making progress in the air. We're racing from East to West, against the prevailing winds and consequently the 'hard' way. This is the Red Bull X-Alps, after all...

X-Alps Podcast

Judith Mole interviewed me for a podcast about the X-Alps. She asked a lot of difficult questions! You can listen to the podcast online or download it at Judith Mole's podcast page.

Three good days in Annecy

It's been a pretty windy Spring in the French Alps, but a ridge of high pressure built over the France and the Western Alps over the weekend and I took a half day of holiday from work on Friday to take advantage of it.

On Friday I took off with my friend and fellow Axis pilot Damien de Baenst from the Planfait take off. It's my favourite site. It's relatively low (900m) but the aerology is fantastic, meaning that as you climb up to the Dents de Lanfon you look down on take off. It's a real escape. The other main Annecy take off - Col de la Forclaz - is higher, and is a better choice in some weather conditions, but you don't get the same sense of "climbing out" as you do from Planfait.

From the Dents de Lanfon (usually called "the Teeth") we headed north to Parmelan where great 3m/s climbs catapulted us up to over 2000m. The air was exceptionally clear that day, and it felt like you could reach out and touch Mont Blanc, over 50km away to the West.

We headed back to the Teeth and then crossed over the lake to the Roc des Boeufs. Anyone who has flown in Annecy will know that these are classic flying routes. Here it took some time to find a way through the inversion at 1600m, but we both eventually made it through and headed for Margeriaz. I arrived somewhat ahead but found that the north tip of the ridge was only working weakly, so I continued round to the west face. Which was dead. Not a single peep from the vario. Now without enough altitude to get back to the north side, and stuck in the stability, it was suddenly all over and I was left with just enough time to chose a landing field. I radioed back to Damien to warn him and he was able to stay on the north side and continue his flight, eventually landing at the entrance of the Maurienne valley.

At this point I cheated. It was late in the day and there was no time to walk up to another take off, so I stuck my thumb out. Anyone who's landed in the Bauges mountains knows that there is very little traffic and getting home can take a long time. However, I was lucky, and after just 20 minutes a young guy stopped. His beaten up Peugeot 205 barely held together, no doubt shaken apart by the thumping hardcore techno music he was playing. The tempo of the music was matched only by the speed of his driving (and he was a local who knew the roads). It was great fun (and I loved the music), he kindly dropped me off at the Revard (4 Vallees) take off, and just one hour after having landed I was back in the air again.

Here the goal was clear: get back to Annecy. It was late in the day but I knew the route. The stability was still there, but my Axis Mercury climbs and glides amazingly so, despite being a lot lower than I would have wanted for several of the transitions, I was still able to make it back. In the landing field I met fellow first-time X-Alps competitor Ronny Geijsen who was in Annecy to test his newly-arrived wing and fly in the PWC. There's no book about how to prepare for the X-Alps, so we eagerly swapped notes about gear, training and strategy. He's also a thoroughly nice chap.

On Saturday I headed, again with Damien, to a new take off for us both at the south end of the Aravis mountains. Not much more than a small clearing in a forest with magically fewer line-snagging rocks than your average mountains side, it was a real discovery. We launched, once again, in to stable air on the wild, steep SE face of Mont Chavin.

It took an age to climb out. Every metre was hard won in the 0.3m/s thermals, and ten minutes work would every now and then be wiped out by a few seconds of -3m/s sink. It was galling. After several attempts to break through the inversion at 1800m I gave up and decided to do something different. With another Mercury (not Damien) and two DHV 2s headed West over the classic site of Marlens and on to the SE faces of Tournette. This was a flight that I had heard was possible, but I'd never tried before. On this day, with the stability, I fully expected to land early.

But somehow, despite the weak and broken thermals, we were able to soar up in the slope breeze and finally broke through to more unstable air above. To get through an inversion on a paraglider you've generally got two options: either find a large and strong enough thermal that's powerful enough to break through to the air above, or tuck in tight to the terrain, kick trees, and work the slope breeze. Today, only the second option was possible. But it worked! The slope breeze gave way to reasonable thermals and eventually we popped through in to steady 3m/s climbs up to cloud base now at 2500m.

This was a new route for me, and I remembered Aidan Toase's advice for the X-Alps: "You have to be happy flying alone over unknown terrain", so I resolved to explore as much as I could on this flight. I flew straight past Annecy, not bothering to turn in a thermal full of competition pilots preparing for the Paragliding World Cup. Alone at Parmelan, I found an incredible 4m/s thermal that launched me in to orbit and used this to head north.

Despite having lived in the area for several years, I had never flown these mountains before. Sous Dine, Sur Cou and the Pointe d'Andey came up and I cruised past them. My only knowledge of this area came from driving to the ski resorts of La Clusaz and Grand Bornand, and my memories consisted mainly of narrow tree-lined valleys with no landing options.

Several pilots have remarked on Alex Hofer's flying attitude: he flies with total confidence. There's no need to worry about having nowhere to land if you're not going to land. If there have been thermals in all the south-facing bowls so far, then so will the next one, even if it doesn't have a big grassy field to land in at the bottom. So, I adopted a new mental tactic. At each decision point, I asked myself: "what would Alex Hofer do?".

It's scary at first, but it works. I chose a remote col where there should have been convergence between the southerly thermal breeze and the northerly meteo wind, and indeed it worked. Elsewhere I flew into a high a tree-lined bowl and it worked as well. When you're high there are landing options that you can't see from the ground: the glide angle of your paraglider means that you have a large search radius, and you only need one decent field in that area to be safe. But you shouldn't worry about the details of identifying an actual landing field. Instead, I think the trick is to focus not on what happens if you don't find any lift, but rather the focus on where the lift actually is.

Finally I ended up flushed through some sink and too low in the low level stability to get up again and landed out. Five quick and easy hitches with several interesting people got me back to the valley below my car, but I knew (and had planned) to walk up from the valley floor to where my car was.

1000m height gain, 15km along the road, all with 25kg (40% of my body weight) of competition wing and harness on my back took just under three hours, fuelled only by a bit of leftover couscous and half a litre of energy drink. It was a good slog and almost dark when I got to the top. Incidentally, the road has 41 hairpin corners. It's reassuring that I can do it, and the only damage was a small blister on one toe because I was stupidly wearing normal cotton socks. It'll be a lot easier with Alex supporting me: proper nutrition, moral and tactical support, and a change of socks and shoes every now and then.

Sunday was the first day of the Paragliding World Cup. It's a long-term personal goal to compete in the PWC. I went along to the competition to catch up with friends there and to meet several of the X-Alps competitors. Watch out for the British Force of Mark Hayman, Jamie Messenger and Craig Morgan. Of this year's X-Alps athletes, five are there: Toma Coconea, Vincent Sprungli, Primoz Susa, Ronny Geijsen and Helmut Eichholzer. It was great to finally meet the legend that is Toma Coconea and his supported Gigi. Toma, the poor fellow, wanted to run up to take off but had been told that he had to take the bus! My friend and 2007 X-Alps competitor Ulric Jessop was also there and it wad great to catch up with him and get loads of tips gear and tactics.

I had the privilege of wind dummying for the competition, taking off just before window open to find out if anything, anywhere was going up. Luckily for me, the inversion at 1260m was just begining to break as the competitors launched, and I got a bird's eye view by parking myself over the middle of the course and watching the race. I've got to say, these PWC guys (and gals) are really fast. It's a great ambience on the ground, but once in the air everyone is focused on maximising every thermal and pushing as much bar as possible on every glide.

Flying competitions is definitely a different set of skills to the cross country which I've been focusing on. In fast and full-on competition you have a defined task, you're flying during the strongest part of the day, and you have the world's fastest pilots around you to help you find lift. Flying XC, typically on your own or in a small group, flying all day long, and adapting your route to the terrain and the changing weather conditions is another set of skills. It's a real sign of maturity in the sport that paragliding has now evolved in so many different directions.

Alex arrives in Geneva on Wednesday for the final month of preparation. The race start feels awfully close now.

Aidan Toase and the Simplon Pass

On Thursday I met up with two-times X-Alps veteran and 2009 competitor Aidan Toase to check out route around the area of the Simplon Pass and the valley to the Matterhorn. We explored potential take offs and landing areas, and discussed route options in the area. Although it's a classic paragliding highway, it will still be a complex section to negotiate during the race: we have to fly around airspace at Sion (the same airspace that cost Martin Müller the title in 2007), we're flighting the strong valley winds, and the area around Martigny where we need to cross to Chamonix Mont-Blanc takes the full brunt of the valley wind and is always very, very windy indeed.

You can follow Aidan's blog at www.flyingtoast.co.uk.

Wing arrives, Swiss League Cup

My X-Alps wing arrived on Friday! Thank you Axis UK! She's a beauty: 6.3:1 flat aspect ratio and racing trim giving her accessible comp wing performance and weighing just 4.8kg.

No simple top-to-bottom to get to know her, instead I took her to Frutigen near Interlaken in Switzerland for a round of the Swiss League Cup. For me it was an opportunity to discover a new flying area, get to know the wing, try out the X-Bus and meet a few of the big names in Swiss paragliding.

Saturday, day 1. Conditions were expected to be tricky and indeed they were! Although the airmass was unstable, rising atmospheric pressure restricted their upward movement. The result was small, weak, snotty thermals that seemed to form randomly and then peter out after a few turns. You'd occasionally hit a 2m/s thermal, but most of your time was spent grovelling over the trees in 0.2m/s. The Task Committee set a 49km task around the local area. Most of the field, including me, bombed out at around 20km, simply running out of options at the third turnpoint, but a few pilots persevered. PWC Champion Anja Kroll won the day, getting to goal in 3h20m and 35 minutes ahead of the only other pilot to complete the course.

I was really happy with the wing. I was flying in my normal cocoon harness which put me 5kg over the top of the weight range and yet I was still able to climb well. The air was turbulent behind the spurs in the lee of the valley wind and yet on a day when two wings ended up in the trees I had nothing more than a tip collapse.

On Saturday night I got to test the X-Bus, my first night in the support vehicle. It's brilliant! Comfortable, plenty of space to stand up and cook inside, light, heating, music, and a warm night spent in my down sleeping bag. It's a home away from home.

Sunday was forecast to be marginal: sunny in the morning but with Foehn winds in the Valais and moderately strong SW'ly winds at altitude. Fellow X-Alps competitor Chrigel Maurer was here today (he lives just down the road) and I was eager to find out more about his preparations. He's designed his own wing and sewn his own harness: the combination is very compact and weighs only 10kg. As we arrived a take off the race committee realised that with the strong winds it wasn't going to be taskable and made a quick and correct decision to can the day so we could get a short free flight before conditions got too bad.

Many launched quickly (although a few decided to take the bus down) and those who did fly were rewarded with a stunningly beautiful flight. The weak thermals of yesterday had been replaced with solid two and three metre per second climbs. I took one to over three thousand metres and with stunning views in all directions, including the lakes of Interlaken and the unmistakeable 4000m trio of the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau peaks, one of the turnpoints in the 2007 race: see the photo at the top of the post.

The forecast was spot on, however, and with a Foehn wall visible tumbling over the cols between the peaks, a brisk 30km/h wind at 3000m, lenticular clouds forming, and a forecast of storms in the afternoon it wasn't a day to hang around so I spiralled down to land back at base.

It was a real pleasure to meet Anja Kroll, Joerg Ewald, and Swiss paragliding guru Martin Scheel. The organisation by the local school Cloud 7 paragliding was excellent, and thanks to all of the pilots who made me feel so welcome. While I was walking back on Saturday a car full of pilots spontaneously stopped for me and I had to explain that, in fact, I didn't want a lift and actually wanted to walk back...

Update: Martin Scheel's beautiful photos of the event are now online at his site www.azoom.ch.

Alpine flying podcast

Judith Mole has put together a series of excellent podcasts on various paragliding topics and has just interviewed me about alpine flying. You can download it or listen to it online at Judith's podcast page.

First photos of the wing

Axis have sent me the first photos of my X-Alps wings. All being well I should receive her next week.

Map collecting

According to Cross Country magazine (edition 119, page 62), competing in the X-Alps costs €7,150, of which €750, over 10% of your budget, goes on maps. I can well believe it! You need every part of the Alps covered at 1:100 000, the turnpoints at 1:50 000, and the most difficult sections at 1:25 000. When you realise that you're likely to walk or fly 1,600km, i.e. one thousand miles, that's a lot of cartography.

The Race Organisation announced the final route recently and there were a couple of surprises.

As announced previously, we start in the Mozartplatz in the centre of Salzburg. We head up to the Gaisberg, the local mountain where we'll run though one of Red Bull's inflatable arches on to the take off. Weather permitting, we'll be taking of at about 1pm, the perfect time to start a long cross country flight.

The first turpoint is the Watzmann peak in Southern Germany. We have to get within 1km of the summit. It's a decent mountain summit and quite steep on both sides so this first turnpoint will be a challenge. If flying conditions are good the leaders might tag it in the early afternoon around 3-4pm , but if we're on the ground then the lead runners won't be clipping the cylinder until the early hours of the morning.

Next up is the Größglocker, Austria's highest peak. I say "next up" but there's a lot of mountain terrain to cover before you get there! Here we need to pass within 5km of the summit. It's high mountain terrain so actually getting physically within 5km of a 4000m+ summit is quite hard. The Größglocker lies on the primary alpine spine so it's a long climb up to it and a long way down on the other side. If you load up my Google Earth file of the route you'll see that, if you're on foot, you'll have to leave the road and follow mountain paths just to get the cylinder. There's nothing difficult about mountain paths per se, it's just that they're a really inefficient way to cover ground compared to slogging along straight tarmac roads, or, better, flying down a straight valley at cloudbase.

After that we're passing south of the Marmolada in the Dolomites, as expected and as in 2007, but it's the next turnpoint that holds the biggest surprise. We have to approach and leave the Matterhorn through a quarter-cylinder North East of the summit. After a straight run/fly across Northern Italy (it sounds so simple put that way but it's several hundred kilometres!) this rule means that we're effectively forced to cross the backbone of the Alps again to connect with the Upper Rhone Valley. There are several options here: you could cross very early into Switzerland to Chur, or later via one of the Gottard Pass, Nufenpass, or Simplon Pass. You could even head directly towards the Matterhorn but then you have to climb the Monte Rosa. The best option during the race will depend very much on the weather, and it's likely that different althetes will chose different strategies depending on their personal strengths and weaknesses. I'd expect the Swiss to cross early in to their home territory where the flying could potentially be very good, whereas the runners might talk a more direct but less flyable route. Whatever turns out to be best on the day, you'll need to have considered every possibility beforehand so you can make an informed decision.

We have to tag the Matterhorn turnpoint from the NE, so we'll end up walking or flying along the valley to Zermatt. It'll make for some spectacular images with the iconic peak in the background, but we have to leave by the same side as well. Given that Zermatt is surrounded by 4000m+ peaks in every direction except NE this is not surprising, but it does limit options that would otherwise have been open to the mountaineers.

The final part, blasting along the Rhone Valley to Mont Blanc (carefully avoiding the Sion airspace of course!) and then turning south for the sprint to Monaco, is the same as in previous years so you know it already :-)

If you haven't read it already, be sure to read Cross Country magazine's interviews with the 2007 athletes.

Preparations update

Work's been really hectic over the last month so I've had very little time to update the blog. Here's a quick summary of what's been happening:

• Red Bull have announced the final route, including the details of the turnpoint cylinders. I've made a Google Earth file of the route to help my route planning which you can download from here. The start is at 11:30am in the Mozartplatz in the centre of Salzburg on 19 July and Red Bull estimate that we'll be taking off from the local mountain, the Gaisberg, at about 1pm. After having run up it, of course!
  
• The Axis Mountain Masterclass was a great success: three days, six sites and nine hours airtime in everything from snotty thermals below an inversion to screaming 6m/s climbs to magic evening restitution soaring to gentle XC conditions. Congratulations to our Axis "Mountain Master" Adam Stanfield and our two Axis "Mountain Stars" Colin Hawke and H.H. Tsai.
• XC season is here and I've been out enjoying the feisty spring conditions in Annecy and St Hilare. The flying is currently best in the Pre-Alps, but come the Summer and the time of the race it's likely to be quite stable and inverted in the Pre-Alps so the best flying route will follow the high mountains. The photo at the top of this post was taken during a great XC day in Annecy with my friends Damien, Pascal and Esa.
  
• Axis have finished building my glider and it's just waiting for its test flight. I should have it next week. During the Masterclass I got the opportunity to fly an Venus 2 RX like I'll be using in the race, albeit with normal materials, and it's brilliant: solid, fast, and despite being over the weight range it still climbs really well. Compared to a competition wing it's much easier to handle but still has excellent performance. Given that I'll be flying tired this is big advantage.
• Pal Takats (HUN) and I are interviewed in the latest issue of Dragonfly magazine. You can read the magazine here.
• I've found a camper van and it's just going through its checks. All being well I'll have it on the road in a couple of weeks. It's a Ford Transit Nugget Westfalia with a 2.5l diesel engine and 130,000km on the clock.
  
• Finding a harness is proving to be problematic, but there are potentially good options from both Sup'air and Woody Valley. There are numerous comfortable harnesses, several light harnesses, a few reversible harness/backpack combinations, but not very many that are all of the above.

That's it for now, the good news is that work (real life) should be less demanding this month so normal blogging service should resume.

Axis Mountain Masterclass dates

The dates for the Axis Mountain Masterclass, the advanced XC course for experienced pilots looking to develop their alpine flying skills, have been announced:

14-17 April: Mayrhofen, Austria with Kelly Farina.
23-26 April: Annecy, France with me. Backup dates are 28-31 May.

You can attend one or both courses. The Mayrhofen course is immediately followed by the Zillertal Open competition. The courses are non profit-making and are run at cost.

For the Annecy course we will meet at Geneva Airport on the evening of Wednesday 22 April. We will travel to wherever the conditions are best, and return you to Geneva Airport by about 10pm on the evening of Sunday 26 April.

There's more information about the Mountain Masterclass on the Axis UK website, contact Axis UK to register your interest.

Axis Mountain Masterclass

As part of Team Axis UK, I'll be leading the an advanced mountain cross country course around the Northern French Alps (Annecy, Chamonix, St. Hilare du Touvet) next Spring.

The goal is to develop your mountain flying knowledge and skills so that you can complete long XC flights in the mountains. We'll be in the Alps at the best time of year for XC flying and will cover all aspects, including mental and physical preparation, meteorology, aerology, route planning and decision making. It is not a beginner's course. You must be an autonomous XC pilot with some mountain or flatland flying experience.

The course is non profit-making and will be run at cost, i.e. cheap, with a full budget breakdown presented to all participants.

To find out more visit the Axis Mountain Masterclass website and contact Axis UK to register your interest.

Red Bull X-Alps 2009

Yes! We're in!

Alex Raymont and I have been selected to compete in the the Red Bull X-Alps, one of the World's toughest and most spectacular adventure races. We start in Salzburg, Austria and race, day and night for two weeks, the full length of the European Alps to goal on the Mediterranean coast in Monaco. If the weather is good we hope to cover 100km or more each day by paraglider, but if the weather's bad it'll be pounding along the ground with the paraglider on the back.

We're a team of two. I'll be running and flying, Alex will be the supporter, driving the support vehicle, fueling me for the race and making critical strategic decisions.

I'm delighted to announce that thanks to the gracious support of Nicky Moss and Mark "Wagga" Watts at Axis Paragliding UK I'll be flying a ultralight Venus II paraglider. Les Grands Espaces, the paragliding shop and school at the Planfait landing field in Annecy, France have also pledged their support with gear, and XContest, the international cross country league will be providing valuable route information.

Up to the race start on 19 July 2009, we're be keeping you informed through this blog. We'll look at the specialist equipment in detail, cover our preparations and share with you the highs and lows of the training. Once the race starts you'll be able to follow us live on the Internet through the Red Bull X-Alps website and Google Earth, with blog updates, audio clips and video. It'll be an adventure!

Raiders of the Lost Chamois

Paragliding, hiking, mountain biking and roller blading. There can be few races in the world that combine all of these sports, but the annual Raid Chamois, now in its fourth year, manages it. Starting from the picturesque French alpine town of Thônes, halfway between Annecy and Grand Bornand, this unique race sees competitors using varied modes of transport to complete a challenging but beautiful 50km circuit around Lake Annecy before the final sprint back to base at Thônes.

Having discovered and done reasonably well in the event in 2007, I returned in 2008 with my non-flying but very fit friend Stephen March to have a crack at winning it. We collected together my old Gin Bongo tandem, a couple of lightweight harnesses, mountain bikes from here and there, and our roller blades to arrive in Thônes early on Saturday morning with a car full of toys. A mixed bunch of about seventy people, in teams of two or three, bustled about on the start line. Everyone from honed ultramarathon runners to father-and-daughter teams was there, and with a quick countdown from the starter we were off!

A short sprint to the bikes, and we leapt upon them. The first stage was a 12km mountain bike section from the centre of Thônes to the village of Alex. Instructions were simple: follow the Police car through the village, and when it stops, keep going on the track following green splotches of paint! The pace from the start was full-on: clearly Stephen and I weren't the only ones in it to win it! The wide forest track soon gave way to narrow, twisting trail and I struggled to maintain speed on the muddy ground. Dismayed to see others already zooming ahead, I focused on riding as hard as I could, albeit seeming a snail's pace compared to the other competitors, reassuring myself that the bike was my weakest discipline and that we'd make time back up on the hill.

We finally exited the forest and I welcomed the smoothness of cycle path and road to the church in Alex. Here we dumped the bikes (to be collected on our way back), hastily unpacked our walking poles and set off up the first climb of the day.

Pushing hard up the back of the Dents de Lanfon, the familiar limestone cliffs perched above us were our next destination. The lethargic sunshine was slowly burning off the low cloud to reveal a perfect autumn day. We knew that our first rest would be the flight across the lake. Game on!

Stephen, carrying the heavier pack, set a brisk pace up the hill; I scurried behind, cursing the vicious cold I'd been fighting that had left me unable to eat a proper meal all week. We were in fourth or fifth place, not where we wanted to be! The focused climbing started to have effect, and we quickly overhauled one team. The temperature in the autumnal woodland was perfect and the blue skies above beckoned us up the steep forest track to the first take off. Bantering with a fellow Raider, we broke through the tree line to be greeted by a secret hanging valley, well hidden from the distant clamour of real life below. A kilometre or so ahead we could just make out the lead team with their sacks and as we chased them we glanced over our shoulders to see who was chasing us. We had breathing space, but not much.

We crested the Col des Frêtes, now having hauled ourselves into fourth place, to see the first wings inflating and lobbing off on glide. There's an enforced ten minute wait at each take off to give you time to prepare safely. So, after about 35 minutes of biking and 1000m ascent in 1h20, we were ten minutes behind the leaders. The organisers on take off handed us a welcome chocolate bar each and Stephen and I quickly set about our pre-planned tasks, Steve unpacking the harnesses while I readied the wing. We were clipped in and ready to go on the dot of our ten minutes allotted time and launched immediately.

This was our first breather, our first real moment to admire the cadre of the natural amphitheatre hosting our sport. To our right the imposing vertical limestone precipices of the "teeth" rose out of the high alpage, slowly shedding its summer greenery. At our feet the forests were in full turn, a splendid mix of fall colours from green to brown to yellow to red. In front of us the still deep blue lake waited, and the familiar silhouettes of the Northern Alps marked the horizon in all directions. Steve handed me a chunk of chocolate bar and life was good.

Here was the first strategic decision of the race. We had to fly over the old château at Dunigt, but after that we had two options. Either land at Duingt and continue to the Doussard landing field on roller blades, or try to fly directly to Doussard. Stephen spotted a couple of wings scratching at Entrevernes, but the air looked stable so, rather than risk a long walk if we landed short, we headed to the declared landing field where our skates waited.

We arrived with loads of height, and with the leaders visibly packing up below us I threw the Bongo into a deep spiral to gain time and Steve leaned inwards to help. Idly I wondered whether the skinny lightweight mallions would take the increased G-force but they didn't budge. Squeezing the old bus into the landing field I missed the 4m radius target, but put us down briskly but comfortably inside the 8m radius, thus avoiding the four minute penalty but picking up the two minute.

As planned, we split tasks in packing up the wing and harnesses, and strapping on our blades. There were refreshments to be had here, but we didn't wait. We were still in fourth place, and other teams were now landing around us, no rest for the slow! One fellow, having spot landed on the target and thus avoided the time penalty, was now ahead of us, and we were delighted and amused to see that he was going to do the next 6km stage to Doussard on a mini scooter! After what seemed like an eternity our two minute time penalty expired and we shot off. The blades were a welcome way to cover ground quickly, even with the bulky paraglider kit on our backs, and we soon overtook first the mini scooter fellow and then another team to move up to third place. Working together really helped here, with Stephen taking the lighter bag and me slipstreaming behind him. Steve had been practising his blading, having only started this year, and it was a real morale boost to gain places on this section.

Doussard landing field and time to dump the skates. We shouldered the packs and readied the poles for a 1km run on the flat before the climb up to the Col de la Forclaz began in earnest. We were only just ahead of fourth place, and second was out of sight. We learned later that the top two teams had swapped places on the blading section, no doubt partly helped by the fact that the faster team was made up of professional skiers!

The 800m climb up to the Col de la Forclaz from Doussard is about as pleasant as an ascent can be. At just the right gradient, never too steep, you gain height quickly, brushing a million fallen leaves aside as you go. Every now and then a small clearing gives you a glimpse of the lake and height you've gained. Here, for the first time in the race, I finally found my rhythm, no doubt assisted by a few mouthfuls of Isostar energy bar and a squeeze of Steve's carbohydrate gel. I must have been tired because it actually tasted good.

From the solitude of the forest you arrive suddenly at civilisation at the Col itself. Only a hundred metres or so remain, amongst farms and cafés, to the take off but those last few metres are steep and brutal in the blazing sunshine. Thinking ahead, I note that no-one's soaring around take off and so the second flight will likely be a top-to-bottom.

The Forclaz take off has just been refurbished and is now a paraglider's dream of astroturf at the perfect gradient. No time for us to admire the landscaping though, we've just seen the second place team launch so we're still ten minutes behind them. We're unlikely to make this up on the ground, but a good flight could make all the difference. The next goal is the mountain bikes back in Alex. It's about 10km as the crow flies, a trivial flight in the summer but now, it's now autumn, the thermals are weak or non-existent, and there's a high plateau to cross. Will we be able to squeak out enough of a flight to gain back a place?

The flight preparations are smooth and efficient and you don't need to tell Steve twice to run on take off. We're flying again with a perfect launch, heading directly for the bikes and the penultimate leg of the Raid Chamois. Flying straight, once again we have a moment to relax and see huge smiles on each other's faces as we continue on this magical adventure, flying though the stunning mountain scenery.

Lady Luck, however, seemed to have temporarily forgotten us, perhaps overwhelmed by the autumnal splendor herself. There are only two pips on the vario, not enough to gain height with the lumbering tandem, so the only choice is to fly straight, maximising our glide and racing our shadow over the ground. Below us on the ground I see another Raider, seemingly alone and separated from his team. I wave and he waves back, then I turn my attention back to our flight. It's touch and go whether we'll make it over the edge of the plateau, and as we approach I see that the edge is a mix of trees and power lines. No question then, I put us down in a large field on the plateau. From here it'll be a downhill run to the bikes, but it'll be a long run.

Everything packed away, I stare at the map, trying to plot an efficient route. Direct and over the hill or longer and around it? We opt for the second and we're half running half walking again. I've never been here before and despite our haste we notice scattered details: a babbling brook, an decrepit barn crammed with rusting farm machinery, a lone summer leaf caught in a ray of sunshine, green and gold against the russet backdrop. Another time I'd stop to explore but there's no time now. Our route takes us below the cliffs in front of the Planfait take off. Gliders scratch above our heads, clinging tentatively to the rare slivers of lift, but I know that the conditions in the air are too weak for us and we've made the right choice. Later we learn that another Raider, having landed near we landed, walked up to the Planfait takeoff and flew from there, for a third flight of the day. We, however, have ground to cover.

Steve races ahead, almost dancing down the path despite the ten kilos of wing on his back. Normally I'm the quicker one on the descents, but this time it's all I can do to keep up with him. We walk each uphill and jog each downhill, sweeping under the rocks at Bluffy, one of the best thermal triggers in the area in Summer, but unfettered with gliders now. A missed turning brings us out on the road, not quite where we expect, but fortuitously closer to our destination and after a quick check of the map we push on. My energy levels are zero but somehow I keep going. Steve looks as fresh as a daisy.

We arrive in back in the village of Alex, unfamiliar from this new direction. A lone volunteer has spent the afternoon keeping an eye on the bikes and we thank her as we collect ours. Those doing the short route landed near here after flying from the Col des Frêtes hours ago. We, however, are doing the long course and are still in third place.

Swooping downhill on the bikes with the wind in our hair, our eyes water after the self-propelled effort of the run. The speedometer peaks at 40km/h, and it's great to be covering ground so fast. We swap leads, taking turns to slipstream each other. Approaching Thônes, the route turns off road and on to wide track again. It seems like a hundred years ago that we were frantically pedalling in the opposite direction, but it was only this morning. My legs are empty lead pipes and I cry in frustration as I will myself to go faster and my body responds with mute refusal. There's only one stage left.

We hang hard left at the roundabout, following signs for the Adventure Park. Plunging into the park we skid to a halt at the foot of a tall tree and we're handed a climbing harness and a via ferrata kit. We haul ourselves up the hanging rope ladder and clip into a huge aerial slide that whisks us across the river with whoops of joy. A second slide takes us back across and we hand back the harnesses and jump back on the bikes for the final sprint to the finish.

Riding as hard as we can, we retrace our earlier steps to base and cruise over the finish line to third place. Waiting for the prize giving we enjoy a massage from the on-site physios and share our experiences over a beer with our fellow Raiders. What a day!

All photos courtesy of Tristana Crespo, find out more about the Raid Chamois at http://raidchamois.free.fr, and maybe see you there in 2009?!

An Incredible Privilege

It was a good day. The forecast was slightly dubious: all week they had been saying that it would be more humid on Sunday and would storm. Secretly, I was quite looking forward to a day off. However, Laurence Stein was keeping a close eye on the weather and called us over for a 11am start from Chamonix when the forecast suddenly looked much, much better on Saturday night. The stated goal was out-and-return to Annecy.

Quentin King, Laurence and I arrived at take-off as the wind was deliberating between the two sides. A fast run eventually got me launched, straight into a 3m/s thermal marked by several pilots in the air. Leaving the Brevant at a shade under 3000m, the glide across and climb up to the Rochers de Fiz was straightforward. There was no visible inversion in the valley below which was a good sign, the only question was whether it would storm later in the day.

Flying across to the Aiguille de Varan, the lift always seemed to be where I wasn't. Finally I managed to climb up to 2700m, still a hundred metres from base and 400m below where I wanted to be. However, I decided that this was as good as I was going to get and so set off for the Quatre Tetes on the end of the Aravis. The slight sink was compensated for by a gentle tailwind and I arrived on the SE-facing slopes at about 1650m. It was a long slow, struggle to gain altitiude in the weak slope breeze, but finally I got enough height to soar around to the S side where a reasonable but rough thermal took me above the peak. Another couple of turns before Point Percée set me up to glide down the Aravis.

Or so I thought. The hanging valley below was still full of snow but the cliffs above were clear and I assumed they would be working. I was wrong. I flew along the cliffs, finding nothing, and I when I arrived at the snow line I knew it was all over and it was going to be a long walk out. Turning tail I flew low over the snow fields and just escaped the valley where I blundered into a solid 4m/s climb that took me back to the height of Point Percée. Laurence and Quentin, having taken off fifteen minutes after me, had now overtaken me and were gliding along the Aravis so I toped up until I lost the climb and chased after them, leaving 200m higher this time and detemined not to make the same mistake again.

But I got it wrong again. There was nothing, even above the cliffs. Quickly I had to decide whether to try to make it over the next col and around the corner or turn around again. It was touch-and-go but, figuring that the day was already over with the time I had wasted, decided to go for it. Flying through the col with literally three metres to spare I expected to be greeted by S-facing scree slopes and an easy climb. But no, it was another snow-filled bowl! Quentin and Laurence were climbing weakly on the cliffs ahead and above me, but for me all was lost. I glided around the bowl, just one metre off the snow, not expecting anything and not finding anything. Suddenly, I spotted a white glider climbing out from the bottom of the bowl and I headed over to be greated by a weak, broken, ratty thermal but it was my only ticket out of the back of beyond so I hung on.

Finally climbing above the tops I popped out a couple of k behind Laurence and Quentin and, despite the rough, lifty air above the Aravis I could finally breathe a sigh of relief and focus on the next stage.

From here on the flying got a lot easier. Good climbs on the Etale, Charvin and Sulens got the three of us to Tournette above Annecy at 2pm. We looked down onto the lake to see people starting to climb out Planfait and Forclaz, and yet we had already flown all the way from Chamonix! A bit of radio chatter revealed an uncertainty as to whether it was in fact too early for Roc de Boeufs. However, we were high, the day was looking classic, and there was already a good breeze on the lake so we went for it.

The Roc was working, but it wasn't easy. Taking one climb and thinking it was in the bag, I headed for the peak for what I expected to be a rocket launch to the forming cloud above. It wasn't working. I got stuck short of the second electricity line and got battered in the rough air. I couldn't find anything solid enough to turn in and so fled back North. Laurence had a similar experience and had to fly back the full length of the mountain to get back up again. Quentin had climbed out with ease, earlier.

Finally getting above the peak I was suddenly on my own. Laurence was now a long way behind, Quentin's radio was now dead and I didn't know where he was. It was time to start back to Chamonix but which way? Back across Annecy or south fo the Dent d'Arclusaz?

I'd flown the Dent d'Arclusaz a few times in the past week and there was a good (almost too good cloud above it). Looking to my left I saw Marlens, Charvin and the Aravis chain stretching towards Mont Blanc and Chamonix in the distance. I knew the long route home and I believed it possible.

Now on my own, 70km from home and seeing the now epic sky it was time to race. Full bar and a tailwind whisked me to the Dent d'Arclusaz with only a few turns in a stonking 6m/s climb at the Dent de Pleuven. There I was joined by a blue Sigma 6 who Laurence had told me was in fact Lucas Bernadin from Chamonix. We raced each other to base in 5m/s climbs at the Dent d'Arclusaz and then headed different ways back. Lucas crossed to a big cloud in the middle of the Bauges whereas I took my traditional line along the Albertville valley.

In the distance I saw a red and yellow Airwave glider scraping the clouds and thought it might be Quentin. I raced on, taking good climbs and gliding on the bar. I wasn't quite as high as I would have liked for the long transition to Marlens, but had always had a tailwind here and knew that Marlens worked from very low down. Arriving just a couple of hundred metres behind Quentin we were both delighted to see each other and whooped our way up in the slope breeze and thermals to base above Charvin. It was 40km to Chamonix and it still looked achievable. But it wasn't going to be easy. A storm had brewed and was dumping rain on the north end of the Aravis. Over our route home there was a large but not too tall cloud shading the entire Megeve valley. It was going to be close.

Lucas had set of first and I waited for Quentin at base before heading off together. Not sure where to aim for we saw that Lucas had a climb and we joined below him. However, it soon petered out after a few turns and we headed off to the last bit of sun on the Megeve airport, instincitively spreading out 100m apart to search for lift. Finally we found it, and we climbed together in a smooth but weak 1m/s. Suddenly I felt a few spots of water and realised that it was raining on us! We continued climbing together and as we rose the rain turned slowly to light hail. Immediately to our west a huge twisting funnel of rain was dumping on Megeve itself. The sun illuminated it from behind and it was truly stunning to behold.

Toping out just below cloudbase we set off on glide over the shaded valley, still in light rain, aiming for the sunny slopes of Mont Joly in the distance. We just made it, connecting with the slope breeze which released into a nice thermal. Chamonix was now in the bag and the three of us set off, Lucas leading the way.

We crossed the col into Chamonix valley into rough air over Les Houches. After a sinky couple of minutes over the broken mountainside above Les Houches I finally connected with a decent climb and Quentin came to join me. Together the climb took us from 2200m to cloudbase now at 3750m. This was simply beyond words. Incredible vistas across the slopes of Mont Blanc opened up as we climbed. Wisps of cloud and huge seracs clung to its flanks. The pure white snow, perfect red granite and deep blue sky made this simply one of the most amazing moments I have experienced in a paraglider.

We left the cloud at base and I looked over my should to see Quentin heading straight for the Aiguille du Midi! There was a small cloud near the peak so I headed over to join him. We soared amongst the stone pinnacles in the pink evening light, climbing above the Cosmiques hut and waving at the climbers relaxing on the balcony. Quentin climbed higher, working the lift to finally top out over the top the Aiguille du Midi itself. Seen from the air it is incredible: a modern fairytale castle built in the sky. Buildings clinging precariously to the impossible rock spires, between which arc soaring bridges. For a few moments we felt like birds, incredibly privileged to be here, now, at the one moment that it was possible.

I had now been flying for over seven hours, but wasn't quite finished yet. My final objective was the Drus and the Aiguille Verte so I headed along the Chamonix Aiguilles, almost overwhelmed by the mountain splendor. I looked down on the Vallee Blanche and to the imposing north face of the Grand Jorasses beyond, with the mighty Dent du Geant perched on its southern end. Behind me the clouds built around the Aiguille du Midi, finally closing the door on that magic moment.

Finding a climb on a spur below the Grand Montets I thermalled up, over the lift station under the watchful eye of the Aiguille Verte and the Drus next to me. Drifting over the cable car and still climbing, I decided that I and the flight were complete, and glided into the valley to land.

All photos taken by Quentin King, see the full set at http://qking.web.cern.ch/qking/2007/p_chamonix/. You can download my GPS tracklog from Leonardo.

Mountain Wave

Wave is fairly common in the Welsh Borders in the UK where I used to live, and I've flown gentle wave in my paraglider several times.

But this is a different story.

I met real mountain wave in my paraglider a few of weekends ago, in Saas-Fee in the Swiss Alps. It was the closest I have come to a fatal accident in a paraglider.

A friend and I had gone to do a bit of early season glacier skiing and had thrown our gliders in the back of the car on the off chance of flyable weather. On the Sunday the lift queues were interminable and the skies were blue so we decided to fly down from the top station (3500m) to the village (1900m). Jon was flying his Baby Boomer with his normal kit and I was flying my Aspen with my lightweight harness (no reserve). There was only one cloud in the sky, a distant cumulus over the Bernese Oberland which looked a little rounded and could have been a lenticular but in our valley everything looked fine so we disregarded it.

The take off on snow was uneventful, with a gentle cross wind but nothing too tricky. Jon lobbed off first and I followed a few moments later. There didn't seem to be enough wind to soar the upper ridges near the lift station, but secretly I hoped for a gentle thermal on the far, sunny slopes above the village. However, the atmosphere felt very stable so I resigned myself to a spectacular top-to-bottom flight over the dry glacier and scree slopes leading down to the resort.

Jon was a few hundred metres ahead of me, just flying over the headwall of the glacier when he hit lift. "Wa-hey," I thought, "we can soar!". But Jon kept accelerating upward while flying straight, climbing so quickly now relative to me that I looked down at my vario thinking that it must be me in driller sink but my sink rate was normal. Still without turning, I saw Jon fold in big ears, now climbing upwards and backwards. "Oh shit," I said, "this is going to be interesting." Anticipating the strong lift I struggled to push my speed bar, but I couldn't get it to grip against my slippery plastic ski boots. Ready on the brakes, I flew over the glacier headwall and prepared myself to be catapulted into orbit.

But I didn't hit lift. I hit rotor. Pure, evil, mountain wave rotor. The glider thrashed above me and I immediately knew I was in a very bad place. The left wing collapsed 30%, then, before it could recover, the right wing collapsed 40%, then the left wing collapsed further. I fought to control the wing, but this wasn't the localised turbulence that you find on the edge of a thermal. I was in a washing machine, about to be chewed up and spat out as a tangled mess of wing, line, and pilot. The wing surged, dived, re-opened, twisted and span. I looked from my harness to the wing and saw a full riser twist and the wing at the horizon, the glacier beyond. Over the deep crevasses and exposed broken rock, cliffs and scree slopes there was to be no survivable landing, not even under a reserve parachute, which I didn't have anyway. My single thought was quite clear: "This is serious."

With no recourse but to fix the wing before I ran out of altitude I focused on the task at hand. There was only a single twist in the risers and I found the brakes still worked. The increased airspeed and wing loading of the spin had re-opened the glider so I steered it out as if I was coming out of a spiral dive, against the twists so that they unwound as I exited the spiral. The final half turn flipped me round as the wing came overhead. Without hesitation I reached up for the big ears and somehow managed to push the speed bar despite my plastic ski boots.

The wing continued to thrash, roll and collapse with the ears in, but the increased wing loading of big ears and bar kept it above my head. With suddenly a moment to spare I looked around to see what had happened to Jon. He was below me, near the upper middle ski station. Finding himself going upwards, backwards and being blown into Italy in strong mountain winds he had rapidly assessed his options: he wasn't going to make progress against the wind, with big ears in he'd still end up behind the knife-edge alpine ridges, a reserve would have brought him down in the next valley in rotor. The only option was to escape the lift before he got blown back. So he spiraled for his life. A full-on, nose-down spiral that got him down and out. He didn't stop until he was close to the ground and well away from the awful wave.

Together we limped towards the resort and the beckoning safety of the golf course landing field. My wing, with ears and speed bar, continued to collapse but it seemed somehow trivial compared with what I had experienced in the twisted spin. Jon was doing a better job of managing his wing, and eventually we spiraled down to touch down within a few metres of each other on one of the greens in light, pleasant winds.

Somehow the world of the mountain wave seemed far away as we lay in the warm grass cursing our stupidity and feeling lucky to be alive. We stared back up towards the glacier: of course, you couldn't see the boiling pot of turbulence at the glacial headwall. It was strange to have such a close brush with death and yet emerge unscathed. Above us the wave bars were now clearly visible and rotor cloud foamed from the peaks around us.