Chilko Lake Grizzlies - September

A photo club friend and expert bear photographer allowed me to tag along on one of his bear trips. Although I just had time for a couple of days between all my other travels this year and the drive was long, it was totally worth it. My usual bear encounters happen when hiking or driving and the bears almost always disappear more or less quickly. Which really is a good thing! I wouldn't be very happy about a curious bear inspecting me or my tent. But in fall in the Chilcotin mountains the bears feast on salmon and don't have much interest in anything else. It was amazing to watch these big animals for a long time and from a relatively close distance.

You are in my way!

Chilcotin River near Farwell Canyon

Euro Travel Tips and Surprises

Some things we discovered this year:

- The Lufthansa 'Fly and Rail' program offers reduced prices with flexible train tickets when flying to or from an airport in Germany. I found out about it well after I bought the flights but with a phone call still got 50% off the tickets from FRA to LEJ.

- A passport must be valid for 90 days after the return date. I thought it was 2 months. But this varies by country and of course also changes. Better check well ahead of every international trip.

- Hertz car rental: This came as a bit of a surprise... the driver's license needs to show that the owner has had a license for more than one year. There is no info about when a license was first issued on the Canadian one, so if it was renewed less than year ago it is a problem. Chances are 20% since licenses are renewed every 5 years. Get an international license (but they are only valid for 1 year... although its not stated on the license). Keep an expired license and bring it?

- New rules to get a SIM card in Germany: a German address is needed. Before activating ID identification is needed which is possible at a Post office or by submitting passport info online. If you already have an European SIM card hold on to it! On the bright side; there are no more roaming charges within the EU.

- Blau Cell Provider. We bought a prepaid phone/data plan. The plan has to be activated. If you do the activation when not on WiFi it uses data which doesn’t leave enough money to get plan. Activate plan only via WiFi!

- Welcome to the future rental car (Ford Focus): 4 cameras in the front, one in the back, line assist, distance assist, automatic high beam, automatic windshield wiper, blind spot warning in the side view mirror, doors open when key is nearby, so you can't check if the doors are closed ;-). We also couldn’t open back door from inside even with key. First time I saw heat wires in the windshield. And the car would display speed limit signs on the dashboard (occasionally also the speed signs that are attached to big trucks).

Euro Trip Report 2017

Our first stop is the 2260 m high Kronplatz where strange sights greets us: North American tippis and Nepalese yaks. So we don’t feel so much out of place? The Kronplatz is an isolated summit with launch potential in all directions. But it was windy and the air rough so we boat around for one or two hours and then call it quits.

Next day Emberger Alm: Smooth thermaling, almost too smooth, but very nice after yesterdays rock-and-roll. Unfortunately big and black clouds develop in the afternoon and we thought it is better to land. Apparently this summer wasn’t great for flying in the Alps, almost every day overdevelopment and showers.

First day in Tolmin at the LZ; what a surprise that the first pilot we see is Ronny, a Norwegian XC tour guide whom we know from our Valle de Bravo visits. Unbeknownst to us we arrived one day before the Nordic Open Championships started. Lots of pilots in town and in the air. We meet Hans an Iceland pilot who (according to Ronny) looks the most ‘viking’ of all. He greeted me with a big hug (‘Vikings love women… and husbands too’). I have a great flight from Kobala. Low clouds on Stol ridge, cruising along (almost) without turning. My first border-crossing flight! I turn around at the gap in the ridge and made it back too. Good thing: getting back to Tolmin from Italy would have been a major headache. For some added excitement I pushed a little too far east beyond Kobala launch. Pete watched from above as I slowly make my way back around the corner. But I make it! Nice to start the week in Slovenia with a 100km flight!

On the second day it took me a while getting away from launch and then again from Kobarid. Later I joined one of the competition gaggles and thermaled up the steep west face of Krn. Wouldn’t have ventured there without the other pilots around. A very 'alpine' feeling!

Competition pilots in the air

No-fly weather in the forecast for our third day in Slovenia. So we have a rest day and hike for 8 hours. Climbed our first ‘vowel-less’ mountain: Krn! ‘Bright’ landscape with all the limestone. First world war shells, barbed wire fences and fortifications everywhere. Only very few people out but nice to chat with three young hikers from Jena and the girl up at the hut. Made it back to the car just in time before the downpour and thunderstorm starts.

Day 4: Parawaiting for the north wind to stop. We can see the clouds pouring over the ridges north of us. Still pretty rough air along the ridge but a nice climb above the old Tolmin castle. On to Kobarid, two attempts to get away from there again. I think I know every tree on the hill east of Kobarid! Finished with a second castle soaring session.

Day 5: First flight from Stol. I followed Pete across the gap in the Stol ridge where I turned around 3 days ago. We fly all the way to Gemona. The rough air at the steep face at the end of the ridge makes me wonder if this flight ends in Italy. But we find much nicer air over the smaller hills to the south. The rest of the flight back along Stol ridge, to Tolmin and back to Stol launch is much nicer. I get some cool photos of Pete on his red Taska. But it takes work to get up again at Kobarid and back onto Stol ridge at the end of the flight. It’s a 98.7 km out and return, but 108 km open distance … so I think I’ll count this as my 4th 100 km flight ;-)

Too much wind for Kobala so we checked out Lijak on day 6. The Nordic comp also moved the task to this site. Cool to watch the comp guys from above but when they joined 'my' thermal I leave to give them some room ... ;-)

Bad weather in the forecast so we drive to the Adriatic coast on country roads to avoid the Slovenia toll highway, swim in the Mediterranean, wander the narrow streets of medieval towns (Koper, Izola and Piran), eat nice seafood and watch thunderstorm and lightening over the sea from a rain-less beach.

Back in the Alps again. The cold front brought the first snow. Hiking up to the 2600 m Kreutzspitze from the town of Kalkstein in the Villgratener Alps with some traces of snow on the ground. Even at the camp ground in the valley night temperatures dropped below freezing.

Kreutzspitze summit view looking southwest to some pointy Dolomite spires

One more flight at Emberger Alm, then a stop in Salzburg for coffee with friend from the olden old kayaking days. Another 5 hours of Autobahn driving to Frankfurt and then back to YVR again.

Usually we travel to Europe in fall when its too late for long crosscountry flights. But late August turned out to be an excellent time to visit Slovenia, with 2 of my 4 longest flights ever!

Slovenia Revisited - August 2017

Last year we visited Slovenia and enjoyed flying there (and even met some friends from Canada!) but after just two days the weather turned bad. So we tried again this year.

And what a surprise: the first person we met this year was a Norwegian paraglider pilot we know from Valle de Bravo. The Nordic Open were held at the same time we visited. This meant 140 extra pilots in the air but didn't cause us any problems since we launched before the comp started. And all the pilots in the air were great thermal indicators.

Slovenia is nestled in the south east corner of the Alps with white limestone peaks, towers and rock walls. The flying is centered around the towns Tolmin and Kobarid. Conditions were great when we visited in late August. Thermal strength and roughness was comparable to a strong day in the Fraser Valley and quite a bit mellower than Pemberton.

There are two main flying sites in the Soca Valley: Kobala near Tolmin and Stol near Kobarid. In Tolmin a van left from the main LZ around 10 AM (or whenever there were enough pilots to fill it). The main LZ is also where the site fee of Euro 4/day is collected (if there is someone on launch collecting the fee it’s more expensive). Getting up Stol is more complicated since only organized groups drive up. Contact for a ride up, accommodation or guided tours is Wolfgang at http://www.paragliding-adventure.com/en/index.php. There is also another paragliding outfit: http://www.jelkin-hram.com for accommodation and tours. For roughing it there are plenty of campgrounds around. We stayed at Kamp Siber near Tolmin.

The main flying route leads from Tolmin 15 km northwest along the Soca valley, crossing the valley at Kobarid to get on the Stol ridge. This ridge continues for 30 km into Italy. When flying to Gemona in Italy its better to make it back too as roads don’t continue through this valley and ground transport would take many hours. On our first day there were low clouds just below ridge height and we flew all the way to Italy and back with barely a turn. Another spectacular experience was thermaling up the steep west face of Krn, with 2244m the local high point. Out and returns of 100km are relatively easy. Longer flights are more difficult due to the terrain but pilots often add more zigzag legs to the route to extend the flights.

The launch sites in the Soca Valley don’t work in north or east wind, so we explored a third launch at Lijak. It’s the last ridge before the flats that eventually give way to the Mediterranean and resembles Bassano. There is a camp ground and a regular shuttle service up the mountain.

Pete returning along the Stol ridge and flying towards Slovenia

Tolmin with castle and paragliders