I woke up to fairly cloudy skies, not terribly promising but I’d decided that I’d head to Greifenburg . I figured it was not much more than an hour’s drive so I should check it out as my paragliding friends Annelies and Reto suggested I go there. I did the same crawl through Lienz (it must be like that at any time of the day) and then cruised some lovely countryside with big treed hills on the north side of the valley and dynamic rocky Dolomites to the south. I love the biking infrastructure that Austria has...awesome paved cycling paths that seem to go everywhere and I’ve seen a number of trains with passenger cars and some cars specifically for loading your bike into...sweet.
The beautiful Dolomites...if you can believe it, I took this one going 80 km/hr down the highway!
I passed through the little sleepy village of Greifenburg. Ines had given me instructions not to stop at the first campsite I saw but the one just on the other side of town. There were many paragliders in the air and it was easy to find the place. The campsite office was closed for lunch so I decided to hop in one of the taxis that were heading up the hill. It cost only 6 Euro to go up and these vans departed on a regular basis, whenever they had enough pilots to deem it cost effective for them. One has to also pay for a day use ticket (4.50 Euro) for flying, which isn’t bad considering the infrastructure which includes a cafe at one of the launches that even has spiffy toilets! (I’m used to porta-potties or nothing at all)
The taxi driver took us to the upper, upper launch which is on a ski hill. There were tons of wings laid out in two or three areas but no one seemed to be launching. Then a guy announced on a bullhorn that the starting gate was opening in two minutes...ahhh, a cross country competition of some sort. When the bell went, only one guy quickly took off but within ten minutes there were many wings in the air, creating a merry-go-round in the sky. Once they cleared out a bit, I wandered up to a small launch area that was hardly being used. After a few botched launch attempts in minimal wind which was a bit cross, I finally forward launched off and boated around for a while. The views were gorgeous but my heart, or more likely my stomach, weren’t that into the flight (I hadn’t had any lunch yet and a small breakfast). After about 40 minutes I was at the landing zone starting to set up to land. With so many fliers, they have a system where you circle around in a clockwise fashion before heading on your downwind leg, base leg and then your final approach. I couldn’t help but feel like a commercial jet coming in to land at a busy airport! Great introductory flight to Greifenburg...and my first flight ever in Austria!
After getting a camping spot and eating some lunch, I hopped back into a taxi for another flight. By the time I was up on launch, ready to go, it was close to 5pm and the skies were completely overcast and there was no lift at all. I had a nice 10 minute sled ride down, performed a few wingovers and a deep spiral by the LZ and then landed. Not a bad day at all!
The view from launch:
Competitors taking off:
The merry-go-round in the sky:
Looking down the valley while in flight:
Another paraglider in flight:
The village of Greifenburg:
The campsite:
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