There were definitely no problems with stable air in Pemby – lift was plenty and strong (>+6 m/s, strongest my vario has recorded in the area). Strong enough that pilots were seen spiraling and big-ear-ing to get away from clouds.
Strangely enough it took me two tries to go cross country. While the first wave of flyers got up and away, many of those who launched a little later sank out. I had scratched my way slowly down the mountain when there was talk on the radio of a shuttle going up soon. I decided to hit the reset button, wing-overed and spiraled to the LZ and was back on launch within half an hour.
Back up on launch cycles were coming in very strong causing concerning collapses near launch. A week ago I had a rather exciting launch that was still fresh in my mind, so I waited for the end of a strong cycle and got in the air without any problems. I took the very first thermal to 2400 meter and went on my way along Owl Ridge. I had never gotten away that fast from lower Mackenzie launch. At Owl I climbed to just under 3000 meter. That is higher than Mt Matier – the highest mountain in the vicinity! Snow-covered peaks, glaciers and icefields as far as the eye could see - what an amazing sight.
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| Climb from 750 m to 2400 m right off the lower launch, looking up Pemby Valley. |
In front of Copper Mound I saw a pilot going up on big ears, so I turned around just short if the peak. On the way back I got my share of cloud-sucking lift and a rather dynamic side-dive. Seeing my wing (partially) below me was a new experience. A couple of weeks ago I chatted with a fellow flyer about SIVs and he mentioned that he had had his wing below him on several occasions on regular cross country flights. I never had this experience unintentionally and my intentional wingovers are rather undersized, so I’m really only ‘over’ a small part of my wing. Well, I guess there is always something new and exciting in paragliding!
Although I got back to Owl with good height, getting around it was a slow slog fighting south winds and strong thermals. Nice lift over the swampy flats east of launch got me back over lower launch. There it was still lifty, but after 2 hours in the strong air, the exciting dive and couple of big asymmetric collapses, I decided to call it quits and landed.
Although just small improvements I was quite happy with the day: First time for me to make it all the way back to the LZ from Copper Mound and even a small improvement of my longest distance flown (by 1 km). Meanwhile the boys did big flights; Pete got his first 100 km, Andrew finished a 100 km triangle and Igor was still in the air when we sat down for beer and dinner.
