Italy -4: Canazei

Today was rather strange: almost all websites we consulted in the morning were showing not so good or even rather bad weather for today. Originally we had planned to drive via Obertilliach (AT) -make a flight there- and then on to Canazei. But the outlook for Obertilliach was not good enough to warrant a detour of almost 3 hours, so we drove via Belluno. Here we stopped shortly at Pieve Alpago/ Mte. Dolada, hoping to catch a ride to launch - but no such luck. So we continued via Agordo and Fedaia Pass to Canazei. Only a few PGs were flying and cloudbase still rather low at that time. Only after 1500 we decided to take the cable car to Col Rodella and give it a try...

'Edelweiss' (on the way to SW launch at Col Rodella)

Still only a few Pilots in the air; the wind at the lower (SW) launch showed gusty west, at the main launch it seemed to come straight in, but actaully the TO was in the lee...
Andy and I descended to the SW TO: it certainly was launchable, but I considered it to be beyond my capabilities and hiked back up; Andy launched, apparently without major problems.

Andy

While waiting for the cable car to ride down I watched a couple of EN-D gliders taking off from the main launch: they had to go trough huge sink and some turbulence before they were clear of the lee and could climb out...