Having had a wonderful weekend flying in Chamonix, on the last day amazing conditions were forecast in the Walliser Alpen, so we all headed to Fiesch where I planned on flying a 200km triangle and the others were going to fly back to Chamonix. Little did I know that this flight would end abruptly and result in 2 weeks in hospital…
We left Chamonix early in the morning, but thankfully after the local bakery had opened which enabled us to enjoy breakfast and a coffee on the drive. We made great time to the lift up to Riederalp, however it turns out that we weren’t the only teams to identify the conditions and there was a long queue for the lift.
Eventually we were at the start place and ready to launch, into what looked like great conditions for the time of day. We were able to climb straight out from launch and then connect with the ridge. The first section from Riederalp to Fiesch wasn’t the quickest flying, but it was quick enough for the morning. Above Fiesch Alex and I rejoined in the air and enjoyed a wonderful flight down the Goms together which was very fast in perfect conditions. His wing is a really beautiful colour and produced some of my favourite photos I have so far of paragliding.
After the turn point above the Grimsel pass I was supposed to head further north for my turn point, but it was a blue hole so I decided to abandon my pre-planned FAI triangle and stick with the fast flying on the ridge. However my foray towards this turn point put me a bit behind Alex so I then spent the next hour chasing him, slowly making up the lost time.
The flight all the way into the inactive Sion airspace was very fast flying, often at cloudbase, attempting to not fly into the clouds due to the number of pilots around. It was great to fly in a gaggle of people, as this provided help to stay as fast as possible and identify exactly where the thermals were.
As I progressed towards the end of the ridge the conditions slowed down a bit, but with some careful flying and good decision making I tagged my planned turn point and then got back up to cloudbase for the long crossing to the other side of the valley. This crossing was strange as you couldn’t fly directly across the valley, but had to fly in an arc to avoid the always active Sion TMA. The crossing was also the point where I left the crowds and flew off into the distance on my own.
I arrived with good altitude on the other side of the valley and climbed back up above ridge height fairly quickly, and was glad to be back above the terrain. Here I deviated from my planned route and followed the fantastic clouds, however the flying was tricky at times as it was pretty windy. It was really wonderful to be flying past so many valleys I have been in before with so many memories.
There was one fairly intimidating crossing prior to entering the Zermatt valley, as if a climb wasn’t found there could be a long walk out, however here I met up with some other pilots which was helpful and we were soon all climbing back up to base before making the crossing into the Zermatt valley and the really bit mountains.
From here I shot back up to cloudbase on a very strong climb up the east side of the Dürrenhorn before flying around its north side into the Saastal. Here I should have flown south along the east side and back to get the FAI triangle, however I hadn’t planned my route well enough to realise that until it was too late.
I made a bad decision in the Saastal, and had to fight for a while in strong winds below the Jegihorn and Weissmies, however with some perseverance I mangled to climb up and then soar up in the wind to be above the summit of a mountain I have climbed 3 times by three different routes, before gliding past the Lagginhorn which I have previously traversed.
From here I took 2 more climbs before having to glide to landing, after over 8h30min in the air. Unfortunately due to a series of events, a real Swiss cheese model of accident, I ended up spinning my glider at ~10m while already out of the harness and hitting the ground hard and having two weeks in hospital. The accident was very avoidable for a number of reasons, and lessons have definitely been learnt, but thankfully I will make a full recovery and am looking forward to getting back in the mountains later this year.
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