St. Hillaire Encore

Friday, July 2

Back up to launch at St. Hillaire for another crack at the upper ridge. I flew mostly with Kes in this flight and we climbed over 300 meters over launch and then headed south along the ridge as I had done in the first flight yesterday. I found another good thermal (at least I thought) en route so I stayed in that as he and 3 other paragliders headed downrange. I eventually caught up to him but was a hundred plus meters below him. I was flying just above an opening to the side of a road tunnel that looked pretty cool. On the radio he stated that he couldn’t find any lift around the corner. I had yet to even see around the corner as I had made it a little further than I had yesterday. I decided, against good judgment to check it out. It was comprised of multiple rocky spines with very few trees, a great place for turbulence to brew. That suspicion was confirmed as I had a 30-40% asymmetrical collapse (for you non-paraglider pilots, that simply means that a third of my wing folded up from one side towards the center). I dealt with it quickly so it was no big deal and heard Kes on the radio say “I saw that Dave.”

In flight:


I turned back to get around to the other side but hit massive sink (air going down). I was losing height quickly so I told Kes that I might be heading to the only landing option around, some sort of gravel pit along the runoff of the mountain streams. It was completely dry but it wasn’t an ideal place to land. In addition to being relatively small, the downwind side of it had a slope, then it levelled out for 30 meters or so and then there was a concrete water barrier that looked a bit like a small bridge. On one side there was a gravel road rising gently out of the pit in the opposite direction of the first slope. Hmm...this is going to be tricky. To add to the complexity, it was also quite thermic so there were a lot of bumps in the air. I had to pull one more aggressive turn than I would have liked to, coming quite close to some trees but then I gently landed smack dab in the middle of the flat area...sweet! I was very pleased with the outcome and I think my only mistake was not turning on my helmet cam to video it!

My dodgy landing spot:


It took a while to pack up as the dried mud and rocks kept grabbing at my lines. I hiked a couple of kilometres to get back to the main road just as Kester came on the radio. He appeared in his Toyota within 10 seconds of me reaching the main road...another stellar retrieve. Some of the boys had gone for a dip in the lake by the campsite so we went to join them. The lake area was controlled by the campsite and no longer being guests there (some of us never were) we should have paid to get in and Harry, Alex and Gans had already been kicked out (I guess there was a slow speed chase of Gans in a pedal boat). Kes and I went for a quick dip anyways to cool off and were quickly asked to leave by a pot-bellied security guard. No harm, no foul. Back at the vehicles, Harry and Alex both climbed part way up the bridge cables. It turns out that the cables were pretty toasty and Harry did a nice Jesus Christ number on his hands!

We hit the road and headed towards the next stop, Annecy. I had heard of Annecy from some Victoria paragliding friends and knew that it was a beautiful spot by a lake. We cruised through Albertville, the site of the 1992 Winter Olympics, en route and were also met by some dark clouds, strong wind and occasional downpour. Our hopes of an evening flight didn’t look good. A few of the guys ate a meal and some of us just had a drink in a bar/restaurant in a nearby small town called Doussard. We hoped for better conditions tomorrow.