Szombathely

After Zell am See I caught a ride to Greifenburg. The entire 2 hr journey was in a massive downpour, which continued all night and into the next day. I fled the alps for Hungary to have some relaxation away from flying and the perpetual rainy weather. I took a train as far as I could go that afternoon, arriving in the small university town of Szombathely, Hungary late in the evening.



I enjoyed relaxing in Szombathely, read and wrote quite a lot, met some cool locals, and explored town by foot. The day I left was the 1st day of their annual Roman Festival.



The first film below: two beautiful fire dancers in Szombathely; the second: a gypsy band playing in Budapest.

Zell am See

Zell am See, Austria was home to the Schmitten Pokal Paragliding competition. Once again we didn't have the best of weather, but were able to fly 3 tasks.



A beautiful small chapel sits near the top of the cable car, right next to launch. I would love to return here when there's a high base and excellent conditions for flying.

Fiesch, CH

I left Anzère with Marc from Germany and our first destination was Fiesch. Conditions were great for XC and the mountains and glaciers there were mind blowing.




After a day of flying we drove east past the Rhone Glacier, which is the headwaters of the Rhone, and continued over numerous high and exposed passes en-route to Austria.

Anzère, Switzerland

After the extended train journey to BG I decided it would be best to fly out of Sofia and caught a flight to Milano, IT, where I spent the night and left early via train north for Switzerland. CH are the initials for Switzerland, which stands for Confoederatio Helvetica, not quite as simple as I for Italy, A for Austria, or even D for Deutschland (Germany), most often seen here on license plates.


Although Anzère was home to the 2007 Swiss Championships, for task 1 we bussed across the valley to another lift and flew the mountains to the south. Light conditions and low cloud base existed all day. I eventually made goal, which turned out to be the only goal I'd see in the 3 rounds we were able to fly as rain and wind were all to present. Task two, with base below launch for most of the morning, as illustrated below, was also very light and if you let yourself get below the inversion your fate was sealed and you would land as there was no lift, which happened to me and dozens of other pilots.


Conditions improved for the 3rd and final task, before start we climbed quite high, over 3000m amongst cumulus clouds, but returning from turnpoint 1 I let myself get too low and instead of climbing in light lift I pushed on for the ever hopeful thermal up ahead, thus I landed near Crans Montana. Although Criegel won the day by over 10 min Andy Aebi finished 1st for the competition.

My favorites in CH: cheese and chocolate.