Thursday, 19 April 2018

Piemonte: Cavallaria-1

Another fine day here in northwestern Italy (Piemont). Virtually no clouds, much better visibility than yesterday. At 0915 I was at Lessolo, the LZ for Cavallaria, where Pierandrea Patrucco (the local 'high-flyer' with 6-800hrs on PG annually!) had organized for me a seat in the 'navetta'. The ride to the upper launch takes close to 50mins.
Piearandrea Patrucco: find his flights here

'Cavallaria' (upper launch, 1430msl) - looking SW
finally - spring is here!
enough space for everyone
'Maestro' Patrucco launching
Conditions on launch were perfect: just enough headwind to permit an easy reverse launch.
Patrucco launched (almost) first and was quickly out of sight; I think none of the other XC-hounds, whose plan was to follow him had been able to do so.
I on the other hand (almost as usual) lauched last...


'Cavallaria' -upper launch (left of my boot); Andrate - on the other side of the valley (above boot))
even the 'Matterhorn' could be seen
looking west towards 'Santa Elisabetta' (another launch here)
Unfortunately today I didn't seem able to 'center' the thermals properly; rarely I could make 3 or 4 consecutive turns before I lost the lift :-((   It took me almost 2 hours before I could center 1 (one!) thermal for a climb of several hundert meters.
So I 'jo-joed' around for about 2.5hrs, never getting above 1800m...

LZ in Lessolo

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