Paragliding over the Stubai Glaciers

With a perfect forecast for paragliding I set off with high expectations, my primary plan was to fly over the Stubai glaciers and get back to Neustift, however my secondary goal was a self planned 60km closed FAI triangle.

This was my first real attempt at a decent length FAI triangle which actually had a reasonable chance of success, and certainly my first which wasn’t a route copied from others. This was actually my third attempt in a week to fly to the glacier, but it was the first with a good chance of success.

I was really pleased to complete the triangle, as it made it my first route over 50km (64km) and my first closed FAI triangle, which combined with the views, made it a very memorable flight and certainly my most enjoyable to date. The flight can be viewed on XContest and Ayvri.

On the first attempt we took off with a very low base, and at the point of the first valley crossing we knew that the probability of making the glacier was vanishingly small. However this still provided useful knowledge to help with future flights. The low base meant we could not get high after the valley crossing and as we descended we dropped into the valley wind and the venturi meant that we couldn’t get back to Neustift so made an outlanding and got the bus back.

The second attempt could have worked, but the north wind was stronger than forecast and I was impatient after the first valley crossing. This meant I didn’t get above the ridge and then was flying in the Lee. This resulted in unpleasant narrow thermals, surrounded by strong sink and while I got further up the valley, was bound for failure after I made the decision to fly around the mountain rather than over it.

At the launch for this attempt there wad a buzz with lots of cross country pilots waiting for the thermals to start. After watching the first pilot climb out, I quickly launched to start my third attempt. Setting off from Kreuzjoch I immediately climbed well and made my way along the ridge to the first valley crossing, before I set off I ensured that I had gained as much height as was possible before committing to the crossing. I still didn‘t arrive as high as I would have liked, and then struggled to find thermals to keep me above the ridge. Having learnt from the previous few flights, I didn‘t rush off and scratched my way up the next hill to stay above the ridge, before having to do the same with the next higher mountain! Thankfully from this point it was plain sailing and I soon climbed up to over 3900m (below airspace due to QNH1024) and enjoyed the wonderful scenery as I made my way towards the glacier.

Unfortunately the airmass from the Ötztal was more humid than the Stubai airmass, so this meant that the cloud base on the south west side of the ridge was lower, which made the next section a bit more tricky. After enjoying the scenery and gradually loosing altitude I started to abandon my thoughts of completing the triangle, but I managed to scratch up Wilder Pfaff (and wave at some climbers). After getting above the summit I gained enough altitude to glide over to the next ridge and carry on my journey and triangle attempt.

Due to the airmass, and being nervous about ending up committed on the wrong side of the main ridge with a very long journey back to Stubai, I was too low to cross the Westlicher Feuerstein. At the time I thought that this meant that my triangle wasn‘t going to happen again, but I was OK with this as it was so wonderful flying over the glacier. However as I approached the next col I found an excellent climb which enabled me to glide to the next peak on the ridge behind the Westlicher Feuerstein, before climbing back up with enough height to commit to trying the triangle.

At this point in my head I was not totally committed, as I was on a ridge which would surely be thermically active, however I found very few thermals, I think partly as I wasn‘t far enough south due to my fear of landing in the wrong country! After one more climb I was very close to my turnpoint, thinking I could still turn back. However as I made the glide to the turnpoint I found zero thermals, even above sunny cliffs! This meant I dropped into a mild lee and started to worry that I may land in the wrong valley. Thankfully my glide took me above a large sunny rockface, which catapulted me back up to altitude and enabled an easy valley crossing back into the Stubai valley.

At this point I was in familiar terrain from a previous evening flight from Elfer, and enjoyed flying along the ridge looking down on all the pilots at Elfer while searching for a good climb. Initially I struggled to find a climb to take me high enough to make the final valley crossing easy, but after some searching the final climb revealed itself, and I made the glide back to take-off to close my triangle.

Becky was walking along the ridge from take off, so I flew along the very thermically active ridge to fly past her, before heading directly to the valley to land. At this point I was desperate to land due to not having quite found the correct balance of not being de-hydrated vs the need to urinate, so I spiralled down to land in the strong afternoon valley winds.