With a beautiful autumnal weather forecast I was keen to do a hike&fly, however the wind was forecasted to be in a pretty sub-ideal direction for most objectives that I had in mind, so when Becky suggested we do Daniel, something which has been on our list for a while, it seemed like a good idea. Despite the sub-ideal wind direction, I decided to take my hike&fly wing with me anyway, in case the conditions were suitable enough to fly down.
We took the train from Munich to get there, all fully included in our regular Deutschlandticket despite having the travel into Austria. Unusually, for this walk the train station was also the ideal place to start the walk from. The ascent was pretty unrelenting the entire way up, gaining a lot of altitude in not much distance, but at least a reasonable amount of it was above the tree line which gave some stunning views.
We eventually made it up to the col between the Upsspitze and Daniel, and I was pleased that there was a nice updraft so it seemed very likely I would be able to fly down. The view from the top of Daniel was outstanding, with a cloudless sky, clear air and views in every direction. After eating out lunch and enjoying the views, we made our way to the Upsspitze, where just before the summit there was a really nice launch area with a perfect, which in hindsight I should definitely have used, however I elected to head down the other side to the usual launch.
The wind at the launch was, well, tricky, there were thermal cycles which blew wind up the slope, but the meteo wind was a backwards cross wind. After a few failed attempts at reverse launching, I elected to do a forward launch and flew off into the quick descent down to the valley.
I enjoyed a beer while waiting for Becky, who arrived at the perfect time to get a train back to Munich.
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