Finally, the big payoff! Today’s weather was perfect for flying...a higher cloudbase, next to no wind and lots of thermals. I flew for over 3 hours and only came down to land because I had to pee! I heard of a few people flying six hours and one over seven. How did they do it? Bladders of camels? No... one woman wore an adult diaper and the guys use some sort of condom hooked to some surgical tubing that runs down the inside of their pant leg and simply cause their own little local rain shower. I can’t say that I’ve had the feeling that I needed to go to this length and I always think of a story that a fellow PG pilot from Victoria told me (he shall remain nameless). He was at a cross country competition and was all “hooked up” but while waiting an hour or two for the launch window for their task of the day to open, he got sick of the end of the tube dragging around in the dirt so he just tucked it into his boot. Well, three hours later into his flight, nature called, he responded, and then felt the lovely sensation of warm wetness inside his boot!
Back to this day. Two things I’ve been wanting to do in this area were to fly to Tolmin (about 10 kilometers east, 20 km from the launch) and back, and get above the hut on the biggest peak around called Krn (“cur-en”)...and I checked both of them off my list with this flight. The views were stunning as I gained about 950 meters above where I launched which was about 2 kilometers above where I landed next to Teja’s Bar! I had a view of Mt. Triglav, the highest peak in Slovenia, which supposedly to become a “true Slovenian”, all the locals are supposed to summit it. I also saw many caves from the World War I conflict fought here by the Italians against the Austro-Hungarians. I can’t believe they went to such heights (2300 meters above sea level) to try and kill each other!
The main Stol ridge:
Cruising along the high ridges (where they fought in WWI):
A lonely paraglider with Triglav and other mountains in the background:
A beautiful little cirque:
Triglav and me (sounds like a movie title doesn't it?), it's tough to see but it's under the big cloud:
Arriving at Tolmin:
The ridge where the sheep got zapped:
Hanging out over a small town:
The Kobarid Ossuary where many Italian soldiers' bones ended up:
There were tons of smiles back at Teja’s Bar. Everyone had fantastic flights and I heard that one guy flew 100+ kilometres (the seven hour guy). Why can’t everyday be like this?!?
No comments:
Post a Comment