Gross Glockner and Watzmann

After I left Sillian, I drove the Gross Glockner Road to Zell am See. 28 Euro's to drive the pass - that's crazy! I drove to the little lakes east of the Gross Glockner which, if taking this route would bring us through the turning point. The weather, bad already, got worse, and with the low cloud, there was no sign of the Gross Glockner. Once I got to Zell am See, I drove to Kaprun and checked out the west side of the Gross Glockner. While asking for directions at a restaurant I met Michael (working for a company building cable lifts across valley's). Michael offered me to drive up to the dammed lakes, and minutes later we drove through a "private" 7 km long tunnel up to the lakes. From the lakes you can hike over to the Weiss See and then fly down to "Kals am Gross Glockner". Going this way will get through the turn point, but although it is shorter, it is very alpine and not along a road, allowing very few landing options.
After this little adventure I headed back to Saalfelden via Zell am See. Here, I received a SMS from Michael Pohl (Team Nova Pilot) stating that he would meet me at 8:45 at the train station in Lienz to go flying. So I turned around and drove back to Lienz, but this time via the "Tauern" tunnel.
I got up early (5:00 am) in the morning and decided to drive into "Kals am Gross Glockner to check out the area where you would come out from the Weiss See. This area looks great with a lot of landing possibilities if needed. Also once you get out and land in the valley, there are are great hiking trails across the next range down to Sillian.
8:45 Saturday morning I met Michael and we decided to take a taxi up to the Hochstein. The weather indicated that we would probably just have a glide down into the valley, so instead of rushing we enjoyed coffee and cake and chatting at the Hochstein hut. After this we hiked about 30 minutes to the Hochstein summit. While we took our time, we could see that the sky was trying to open up. After about another 90 minutes the sky was was only about 40% overcast and the sun could do her job. We launched to the north-west (due the main wind direction) and climbed up to 2800 meters resulting in a little cross-country flight of about 25 km to to Sillian. This was a great flight, nice thermals and good fun. Michael tried to fly back but got stopped by the rain which had been following us on our flight. From Sillian I took the train going back to Lienz and joined Michael for supper. We evaluated our flight and discussed our options for this area in the X-Alps. Thanks again to Michael for spending the whole day with me.

On Saturday evening last week, I headed to Zell am See via the Tauern tunnel. I camped in Zell am see and drove the next morning to Koenigs See to check out the Watzman area. It started to rain and I checked in at the closest campground to the Koenigs See. I asked a couple questions and within 5 minutes Alois arrived and greeted me with my full name. I looked at him and wondered from where and how I would know him. A lot of people do know my first name but not my first and last name. Well, it turned out that he is a huge Xalps fan and he knows everything about everything and everyone.
The day was still early and I decided to hike into the Wimbachtal and up to the See Horn. This 24 km long and 1500 meter elevation proved to be an option for the Xalps if the weather allows to fly somewhat.
I got back late to the campground, showered, and had a couple beers with Alois and Richard, also a huge Xalps fan. Wow, I got treated like a king, and was given an incredible rate for staying, eating, drinking (more then I wanted) at his brother in law's campground. The next day started with light rain and escalated into a lot of rain. I then packed up and drove to Fuschel am see to meet Nick Warren from Zoom productions. Then continued on right away to Aschau to see Till (Team Nova Pilot) to pick up his Garmin 60CX which includes all the hiking and topographical maps from the xalps tour. This is awesome and will make it easier to navigate rather than always trying to find the right trail over the mountians. I would also like to thank Garmin again for lending me the Garmin Nuvi for the supporter van and a Orgegon to see the topographical maps as well. I am sure, if I would not have used the Garmin GPS for driving and hiking, I would have had a lot of frustrating moments to navigatge throught the alps all by my self. This tool will also be a great asset for Penny during the race.
After the visit with Till I rushed to Kempten (my home town) as I knew I will have Internet access for my Monday evening conference call.
The next couple of days is to get ready with the appartment and the arrival of Penny and the kids. Can't wait to see them.

The Dolomite's

Monday morning in Flims. The signs in the sky indicated another no fly day due over development. The campground I stayed at had wireless Internet and I thought it might be a good idea to cleaned up the van and wash my cloth. After this, I headed back through Davos, Fluele Pass, and the Ofen Pass to Bozano. Time was running out and I had to find a place with Internet by 9:00 pm for our Monday conference call. As mentioned before, in Italy it is kind of hopeless to find a WiFi Internet connection so I headed to Sillian (Austria). There I found a place and stayed at parking lot overnight.
Next morning driving through the town I saw some wind flags of different paragliding manufactures and pulled in. In this parking lot I met Lloyed (from Australia) and his supporter Lewis getting ready for the day. After talking to them we decided to hike up to Sillianer Hütte (1400 elevation hike) and fly from there to Sexten and then hike from there to the 3 Zinnen Hütte (1100 meter elevation hike). On the way up we must have missed a sign and ended up on a dead end. Here it goes again, making your own trail. Anyhow we found the trail and when we got up it started to rain. So we had a soup and after the rain stopped and we where able to take off and glide down to Sexten. For our Canadian paragliding friends, Sexten is the home town from Hugo Tschurtschentaler who lives now in Golden running a B&B with his wife and doing Tandem flights from Mount 7.
Lloyed could not do the hike up to the 3 Zinnen as he has some problems with his calf and needs some rest. So I hiked up with his supper Lewis and we had a great view to the huge rock faces the Dolomite's offer. The best part, besides the huge rock faces, was to see that there are plenty of landing sites up at 2300 meters once you fly in from from the Sillian Huette into the Dolimite's. From the Sillian Huette it rather looks like flying into a ocean huge towering rocks and nothing to land after or within the rocks. Now with this hike things look completely different.
In the evening we drove back to Sillian to the "BlueSky" shop.
This is an amazing place with a lot of happy and friendly people. Susan and Stefan certainly do a very good job to make you feel welcome. I certainly recommend to stop by at their shop before you head into the Dolomite's or when you are flying in the Pustertal. They pretty much carrey all kinds of gliders to test fly and buy and offer a huge stock on harnesses and other flying gear. Besides coffee, beer, a huge amount of information they also offer repair services. Lloyed, Lewis and I gives them a big thumb up. Check out their website at www.BlueSky.at. Thanks again Stefan and Susanne for your hospitality and keep up the good work.

Wednesday morning we drove into the Dolomites via Toblach to Lake Misurina. This is the other side of the 3 Zinnen and from there you can fly and head to the Marmolada via Cortina. From Cortina there are 2 passed you can drive to the Marmalada, one is the Passo di Falzarego and the other is Giau Pass. The Giau Pass is smaller and is the pass you would fly through to the Marmolada. We drove over the Passo di Falzarego to check out this area and from there I headed to the Marmolada.
I got there at 4:00 pm and I decided to do a fast hike up to the 3343 meter summit. I was lucky and could catch a kind of chair-lift (but you have to stand in) up to 2600 meters and from there I hiked over the glacier, a rock face (100 meter elevation secured by steel ropes) and the rest over the glacier again to the summit. It was fantastic and I was rewarded with great views and surrounded by thunderstorms. I only stayed up for 5 minutes and was getting down as fast as possible as I did not want to be coughed in one of the storms. 7:30 I was back down in valley and met up with Lloyed and Lewis. We then drove to Bozano to check out the site Alex Hofer flew the "South Route". It was a very interesting trip with several options. Thanks to Markus from the Roen Stube, we got all the information we needed. Markus even drove up Lloyed to the take off site to go for a flight. I hiked up and watched them take off just before the thunder storm moved in. Lloyed and Lewis just made it down in time and we headed back to Sillian.
I drove back via the Marmalada over the Giau Pass and it really showed very clear how to fly the route.
Today I hiked up about 400 meters from Sillian to have a little flight and then I will head to the Gross Glockner.

The "South" or the "North" route?

I got up early Friday morning and headed from Zermatt (Taetsch) to Fiesch. I connected with the local school and got a lot of information from Xari and Benno (thanks again to everyone). I got one flight in the morning just before the thunderstorm was starting in the early afternoon.

Due the bad weather development I headed east and then to the south over the Nufenen Pass. This pass is where you come over when you travel the “South Route”.

There are 2 main routes you can go after the Marmolada.

The traditional is going via Meran, Ofen Pass and the Flüela Pass, then over Davos to Chur and over the Furka and Grimsel pass ins Wallis.

The “South Route” is going over Bozen to Sendrio, the Como Lake, then over the San Jorio pass to Bellinzona and then over the Nufenen pass into the Wallis.

Which route is the best? Well Alex Hofer proved at the last x-alps that the south-route was the best due the weather conditions. This is why I wanted to drive the “South Route” and the “Traditional North Route” to get a better idea about the terrain.

So, after getting over the Nufenen pass I drove to Dongo at Como Lake. This is in Italy and it is very surprising that the word “Internet” seams to be a foreign word. It is extremely hard to find a place offering Internet.

Saturday morning I got up early and I started to hike up to the San Jorio pass. I thought it would be good to get some more training in. Well, some training …, this hike ended up into a 6 hour hike up to plus 2000 meters elevation (1800 meter elevation gain) and a total distance of 40 km. I thought 2000-meter height is not to bad, but I did not realize right away that Como Lake is only at 200 (plus) meters. Anyhow, the hike was great. After a good shower at the campground I was heading to Meran. The “South Route” drive was very interesting and certainly has its pro’s and con’s and I am glad I drove it. At around 10:00 pm I ended up at a viewpoint overlooking Bozana. This is where I stayed overnight. The morning was awesome. I had a great view over the valley going from Bozano to Meran.

After a short breakfast, I headed to Meran and planned to go flying at Laas. The weather showed signs to overdevelop again and so I decided to drive to Flims (near Chur) to check out the “Traditional North Route”.

After a long day of driving and checking out terrain I ended up in Flims at the Gondola station. There where a ton of paragliding pilots at they just rounded up the Swiss champion ships. I met Alex Hofer (he was second at the Swiss Championships) and we talked a bit about the routes. The flying for the Swiss championships where not good at all (based on Alex) and I did not miss anything from a flying point of view.

Anyhow, tomorrow I plan to fly here in Flims and hope the weather will not again overdevelop later in the day. After this, I will head back east into the dolomites.

What did I do from Monday to Thursday?

Ok, here we go. This will be quite an update as I have done a lot the last couple of days.

Monday morning I met Laurant at www.SupAir.com. Laurant told me right away that the Altirondo I used is not the same as the new Altirondo. As I was sitting int he new one there was quite a difference. Laurant set me up with the pod, the reserve and made sure all is set up just right. He told me to use this brand new harness until they have the x-alps version ready (800 gramms lighter), thanks Laurant. I have to say, this harness feels great and with the pod it makes it very slick. I also like the attachment to add a pack on to top of the bag. All this is very well thought out.
The afternoon looked windy with rather big clouds, so I decided to find a "Herz" repair station to get the coolant hoses fixed as we constanly lost coolant liquid. It looks like an animal was biting into the hoses. As it turned out, they asked me to drive it until I get back to Germany and exchange it there. Anyhow, Frank did a good job taping it and it seams to hold the coolant for a couple of days.

In the evening I decided to head to Chamonix, stay overnight at a hotel with Internet connection for my Monday conference call and to catch up with work.
Tuesday morning I hiked up west of Mount Blanc to Col de Vosaz (850 meter elevation gain) from there you can launch and fly into the Les Contamines-Montjoie valley and head back up the mountians to continue south west to Moûtiers from where you can start heading up the first big pass I traveled with Frank a week ago.
After I got back, I decided to head east of Chamonix to Martigny. On the way to Martigny I found the trail head to Col de Balme late in the afternoon. I thought I go without my heavy bag and do the 1200 meter tour fast with a light bag and water. So I headed out after 4 pm and made it back after 8:00 pm. This was a great hike and cerainly worth it. On top on the Col de Balme there are great take off spots haeding to Chamonix (see picture, to the left is Mount Blanc and Chamonix below). I alos found some cool historc rock houses. All in rock including the roofs. After I got back to the Van, I had a great shower with the camping shower and haeded down to Martigny. In Martigny I was able to catch up with more work online.

The next morning (Wednesday) I headed up to Verbier as I wanted to try out the new harness and I knew that this is a rather easy flying site. Once I drove up there and looked for the landing site, I realized that the landing site was very small and when I was there last (22 years ago) that this is how far we only could fly unless it was a great day and we could fly over Verbier and landing down in the valley. Today you land in down in the valley except the vally winds are gettting to strong. So I parked the Van and hiked 50o meter elevation to a nice alpine grass launch site. The flight lasted about 30 minutes and was very smooth with some small thermals. I was very happy about the harness and the wing and got ready for a hot 800 meter elevartion gain hike back up to the van. With this hike I accumulated over 3400 meters elevation gain in 2 days.
Late afternoon this day I headed to Zermatt and had a good look at the windy Martigny and Sion Valley. Driving up to Zermatt (Taetsch) made me realize that I do not want to land anywhere from the Matterhorn down to Visp (town in the main valley). There are no landing sites at all. At Taetsch (5 km before Zermatt) I pulled in a campground. You can not drive any further as the last 5 km to Zermatt are only accesible by Train or Taxi.
The next morning I got a hold of Bruno (local Tandem pilot) and met him at the landing site at 10:00 am. This is a cool landing site as this is virtually on the train station. He was heading up to Unterrothorn which is at 3103 meters and just east of the Matterhorn. I was taking the gondola up with him and his tandem passenger and got a lot of information about the area. He made the whole area sound like a piece of cake. I flew off from the Unterrothorn (picture is with Matterhorn behind at cloudbase), crossed the valley and had a look at the turn point Schwarsee. The thermals where chopped up as it turned out the valley wind got stronger earlier then normal. Also the cloulds started to build up and later in the day we had a short thunder shower. The flight was great. I could thermal right under the cloudbase (at 3100 meters) and could get more comfortabe with my new harness. The landing was as expected in strong valley wind. While I packed up I met Ronny and his girfriend Karla from Holland. Ronny will be in the x-alkps and representing Holland. After I packed up we decided to hike up to the Turn-point Schwarzsee to get familiar with the trail. After 900 meter elevation gain (this brings me now to 4300 meters elevation hikes in 3 days) starting with sunshine and ending with some light rain and a thunder strom further south we had a special cheese sandwich ala Ronny. The sandwich is way to go but sitting heavely in the stommach. Ronny thinks this is best x-alps food (just kidding). After we had the meal, the thunderstorm and rain stopped and we unpacked out wings and flew down to the train station. The winds where very light and we had a great flight down. These flights are very good to get in tune with the new harness and wing. I do like it and hope the weather stays good to get more flying in. I will spend one more night at the campsite and then head to Fiesch. This is a very well know cross country fliging site. From there you should be able to fly to the Matterhorn and at least to Sierre (east of Sion).
Anyhow, this is it for now. I hope this is not to much writing as I do not want to bore you either.

Update about Frank and quick update from Chamonix

Frank and Tracye are still in Nice and they will fly home coming up Friday. Frank is doing better every day and he enjoys the beach with all their views. Today Frank was even able to have a swim in the Mediterian Sea. As you can see, he is not in a full body cast, he wears a plastic cast as you can see in the previous blog.

People asking me for more details and some people are already coming up with their own stories.
I will add a bit more to what I wrote in the last blog.

... I landed before Frank right at the sand beach. This is about half way along the beach. There was no wind and the flight as absolutely calm. Once I landed and turned around I saw Frank about 100 meters behind me laying on his back and people walking to him. So I have not seen how it happened.
Frank's statement is the following, he felt he was a bit high to land right beside me and he did an extra turn while flying slow, then flying even slower and the wing stalled and he did not have enough height to get out of the stall. Frank had a light airbag harness (which worked just fine) and landed on his behind. The wing was not a high end competition wing as some people are stating. The wing is a large Triton by Nova and is rated as EN "C". This is the same rating as his Sigma 6 and 7. To the safety, our wings are constructed with extra light material and this will make it an even safer wing as the extreme flight maneuver will reacted slower and easier then with the heavier material. The difference between the Sigma and this wing is that the break travel is shorter and Frank was not used to this and did not watch this.

The internet coffee is closing here and I will have to write about what I have done tomorrow.
In short I hiked just over 3400 meters in elevation (this is more then 4 times Swansea) in 2 days around Chamonix. Had one flight in Verbier to check out my new harness and enjoy camping.
I will write more and add pictures once I get back tomorrow from the Matterhorn.

Frank is out of the hospital and I am heading north

Frank got released from the hospital June 19th late afternoon. He was happy to be out and to go for a beer. Although you could tell that he was in pain. The day after we spend the day at the beach. He certainlky is not hopping arond and even got back to the hotel in the afternoon. He is ok, but when he is up for a while he certainly is hurting. I spend one more night with Frank and Tracye to make sure they will be fine on their own. They have a hotel right on the beach and only 5 minutes away to the Nice Airport. If all works as per program, the insurance will book a flight for them for Tuesday or Wednesday. I will keep you upated in how they are doing as I am in contact via Skype.

In the mean time, I made it back up north to Samoëns. This is between Annecy and Chamonix. Some of you might remember Nico who used to work as a electrician in Radium, this is where he lives.
I decided to drive via Turin as the shortest way from Chamonix to Monaco is through Turin. This is a shorter way if you would walk it all. There is not much of a chance to fly as the foothills are treed and you will have to cross a lot of valley's to get down south. Once you are about 50 km to the Mediterranean, the mountains are getting lower and covered up by bush/thorns and landing is virtually impossible due the narrow treed in valleys. It seams the route south of Albertville or the long route along Grenoble is a better choice. After all, it will be weather depended to see what route will work best. I am glad I traveled this section as this was a huge eye opener.

The most impressive part today was driving the route through the Mont Blanc tunnel. The view up Mont Blanc from the south seamed to be unrealistic and just humangus.

We made it to Monaco and have to do some changes.

We are having to do some modifications to our plan. Frank had a landing accident in Monaco. He fractured and compressed his Vertebre (L2)and will be released from the hospital today wearing a body-brace. Frank is very mad at himself that this happend. To the accident, he was on final and wanted to land closer to me, did an extra turn, then stalled the wing from about 20 feet and ended up on his behind.

The injury is a clean fracture and needs time to heal. We are happy that it did not turn out any worse.
Today we will pick up Frank from the hospital, check into a hotel and figure out when they will go home.

Here a couple words in how we got to Monaco.
Wendsday morning, light rain. Not really what was forcasted. We took our time, cought up on work and e-mails. Once we packed up and went to the van, the weather opened up and it turned into a super nice day. We decided to go for a flight Frank and Tracye drove up and I decided to hike up. It is only about 400-500 meters in elevation and somone told us that there should be a path going up from the hotel. Well, not even the hotel owner knew about this trail and I decided to head up anyways. This little hike turned into a little adventure through tall wet grass, thick bush with a lot of thorns. I crawled through a very steep dried out creek up to the plateau reaching eventually the launch site. This was a friendly reminder in how it can feel if you try to make your own path, specially in a terrain you are not used to.
Frank flew first while I ajusted the harness and sorted out the gear. Once airborne, I realized that this older version of harness is not the same as I tried at SupAir. It was not comfortable at all. The thermals were strong and punchy and I got up to plus 2000 meters. I was trying to see where the mountain range is leading to Monaco and I could not find it. In the mean time Frank landed as he had trouble with his vario and I decided to fly out as well and check out maps and then head down to Monaco. Once I got down and checking the map and driving towards Monaco, it all made sense. The range was there but we had to drive over a 2700 meter high pass (Col de la Bonette). So from the air it looked like you would fly into instead along a mountain range. The top of the pass was spectacular and the drive down the other side turned into a 60 km narrow valley leading to Nice. Not very inviting to land. Later with Google Earth it showed that you would fly along the range and if you need to land, you would land on the east side of range in a wider and higher valley and not landing along the road as there is no way to land.
We got to Monaco around 7:00 pm and headed straight up to Mount Gros. The wind was very light, the sun was just about to be gone. The launch was easy and we had a spectacular flight looking over Monaco. Looking over the mediterian, checking out all the houses, hotels, people and ships. It was just beautiful until we landed.

As stated before, Frank will be ok and on his way home in the next days. I will head back up north and continue as planned.
I will keep you updated.