Garth’s Birthday!!! We caught Wolfgang’s paragliding taxi van around 10am and headed up to the launch, which is close to an hour’s drive even though it’s only about 10 kilometers down the valley from Kobarid. The launch is a massive grassy meadow close to the highest point of the ridge; plenty of room for many paragliders to set up. After a short site briefing with Wolfgang, Garth struck up a conversation with Rolf, a vacationing German who had been in the region for over four weeks. We learned that one could head west about 10-20 kilometers to Italy (and then hopefully return) or head in the opposite direction towards a town called Tolmin. The area sure looked like a paraglider’s playground!
Driving up to launch:
At launch:
Garth and I launched and played around near launch with at least another 20 pilots. The cloud base was fairly low and in fact became a bit of an issue as many pilots, including us, were near the clouds and with this many people in close quarters, one did not all of a sudden want to be in the clouds with the possibility of running into someone else. I radioed to Garth that we should head east towards Kobarid, where we were camping and the official landing zone. Part way along the ridge I was enticed by the larger and more interesting ridge to the north so I let Garth know of my intention to cross the valley. Unfortunately my radio batteries were close to dead so that was the last transmission he heard from me (although I could hear him).
My launch:
I lost 3-400 meters of height crossing over the river valley but was able to gain height by hugging the ridge on the other side. I eventually got to the top of the ridge and had a fantastic view of the mountains to the north. I could also see a grass airstrip where sailplanes were being towed up into the skies and sure enough I would have a few close encounters (of the good kind) of them flying by as I thermalled. I headed 3-4 kilometers down this ridge and then went on another glide towards the town of Kobarid after hearing Garth mention that he was heading down to land. I thought that I would do the same but then common sense kicked in and said “Hey, you’ve got lots of height and the conditions are good, keep flying!”. So I headed further west and worked my way up from one small knoll to a ridge that connected back north up to a nice large rocky mountain. I waved at some hikers high on the mountain as I cruised along close to cloudbase, which was lower than the top of the mountain. I eventually crossed back to the high point of the first ridge that I had flown to and then finally headed down to land. Almost three hours later I was quite pleased with my first flight in Slovenia. Garth and Holly met me in the landing zone and we headed off for a beer in the conveniently located bar across the street for the LZ.
Flying along the ridge:
Near the rock faces:
Waving at hikers:
Beautiful Kobarid:
In flight interview:
High above town:
The campsite's at the bottom of the pic...see if you can spot Betty (good luck!):
We walked to a pizzeria for Garth’s birthday dinner and then headed back to camp. Holly had bought some tiramisu (a fave of Garth’s) for his birthday cake and we enjoyed that before heading to bed. Happy Birthday Garth!
Garth's birthday dinner:
How can Garth complain!
Happy Birthday Garth!
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