There were strong winds coming off the lake early in the day and few of us felt like flying in these conditions. The Brits contemplated on just having a driving day, heading towards Normandy where they planned to paramotor (paragliding with a motor on your back) the D-Day beaches. Instead the call was to head to a site called Saleve which was en route for them and see if we could get a late afternoon flight there. Saleve is located just 20 minutes southeast of Geneva. It’s kind of cool in that you take a cable car up to launch (which is in France) and you can choose to land in France or Switzerland!
We arrived at the school and LZ in France but there was a big dark cloud above which let a little moisture go. This sealed the decision for the Brits and they got out the maps to determine their route to Normandy as I worked on trading a bunch of pics between our laptops. I bid them adieu and thanked them for letting me tag along for a fun week. I will hopefully meet up with a few of them back in St. Hillaire at the Coupe Icare festival and maybe even in Nepal in January. Thanks lads...it’s been a blast.
The weather started to clear as they left and I decided to take the telerephique (cable car) up to launch at Saleve to see if I could have an evening soar. I parked Betty on a slight slope in case she wouldn’t start later (now that I’m missing my English muscle power) and soon after I was at the launch by the cable car building at the top. Unfortunately the last cable car to get down was at 7pm and therefore I only had 20 minutes to make up my mind whether to launch or not. The wind was cross or over the back. In 10 minutes of waiting there was only one good cycle so I did the prudent thing and headed to get the cable car down. I passed 3 other PGers as I neared the building and they were going for it, but for all I knew they might have had a vehicle up there. Just as the cable car began the three minute descent, some good cycles came up and two of them took off and eventually the third one did. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.
Riding up the telerephique (of course it was terrific!):
Looking towards Geneva - as my friend Mike eluded to in his excellent blog "I wonder where the convention is?":
I looked on my SatNav for a campsite and saw one on Lake Deman, just north of Geneva and only about 25 minutes away. I’ve never been to Switzerland so why not. Crossing the border was such a non-event. In fact, I almost missed it (just a few derelict border buildings). I easily found the campsite and had to leave Betty running outside of the gates for fear of her not starting up again. The check-in took forever and quite regimented. I didn’t realize that although the Swiss accept Euros, everything’s listed in Swiss Francs. I also found out that they have a different electrical socket than France but they loaned me an adaptor. It was a nice campsite but a bit steep (33 Euros for just me and Betty). I’ll only be staying one night so I might as well enjoy it...there was a gorgeous view of the lights of Geneva.
View from the campsite towards Geneva:
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