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.

Team GBR2 in the air

My supporter Alex Raymont is an excellent pilot himself, having been Canadian National Champion in 2003. We also weigh about the same so we can fly each other's wings. On Sunday we flew a wonderful XC together from Annecy, me on my Axis Mercury and Alex trying the Axis Venus 2 that I'll use in the X-Alps. As you can see from the photo above, cloudbase was low but the clouds were tall. We carefully threaded our way through the Bauges mountains to the Dent d'Arclusaz and back. Alex was really impressed by the handling of the Venus 2, and especially its climb performance: it seems to be naturally drawn in to thermals.

Back in Annecy we stumbled across the two Japanese pilots competing in the Red Bull X-Alps this year. The photo above is of Kaoru "Ogi" Ogisawa (fifth in 2007) flying in front of the Dents de Lanfon on his 2009 gear. I think he wins the prize for the most stickers on his glider!

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.

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.

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.

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.