Annecy Trip 2007 - 3rd day
After a day of strong winds the forecast promised the possibility of some early morning flying. We had met up with Dave and Alistair the previous day (also staying at Maison Moulin), and in the morning we all headed to Marlens. Marlens is typically a morning site that often gets blown out by midday. This proved to be the case today.
Marlens launch is fairly big, but the row of trees facing you at launch can be a bit intimidationg as can the wire fence just before the road. This is best launched with some breeze. The great advantage to this site is the short drive from the landing field back to take off, coupled with the very short hike from the parking area to launch.
Jason scratching around in weak thermals just in front of the launch.
In this shot you can see the road that runs right through the take off area. The red glider is airborne just before clearing the road.
Looking out from launch, cloudbase is still below the tops of the mountains as Jason maintains altitude in weak lift.
I make my approach to land as Dave snaps some photos.
After two nice morning flights the wind strength at the landing field suspended our fun around midday, so we all took a break for lunch and headed back to 'Maison Moulin' for some lunch and some light refreshment. The wind did not calm down until just before sunset. Dave, Alistair, Jason and myself headed up to Forclaz at around 7:20pm and scrambled to launch before the katabatic wind set in (air sliding down mountain - tailwind launch). We all got off the mat successfully and were rewarded by lifting air everywhere we flew in the middle of the valley.
The sun was just dropping below the Roc de Boeuf opposite the lake. During the flight you could see the shadow of the mountain climbing higher as the sun set. The evening light illuminated La Tournette in a fantastic orange light that isn't really captured in these photos. It was a very different kind of flight getting lift over the middle of the lake as all the air slid down into the valley.
Dave plays around in 'magic lift', making the most of his four day trip to Annecy.
La Tournette is illuminated in a rich orange light as Dave flies towards me for some photos.
This shot was taken by Dave. Alistair, a low airtime pilot, was floating around with big ears on, trying to get down for 20 minutes. He managed to spot land right next to Dave. Unfortunately they were both about a kilometre from the bed and breakfast we were staying at, but it was a great evening flight in 'magic' lift. Normally a top to bottom at Annecy lasts 10 minutes without thermals. We had over 30 minutes of pootling about in weak lift in the middle on the valley, very surreal.
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