Spring Flying
Yesterday the flying forecast looked great, and I headed out for the first flight of the season. Due to some last minute plan changes, I was on takeoff at Braunwald an hour before the others which gave me plenty of time to watch the conditions develop and let the gliders flying laps with the local school be wind dummies.
There was already cumulus forming, with a low cloudbase around 2000m, and a light westerly wind. This was pretty much ideal conditions for this time of year - we’d be taking off in lee thermals, and unless the wind picked up, would be protected by the north south ridge up to base.
The first gliders began to climb out at exactly the time the others arrived, which meant we took off at the perfect time. The thermal forecast showed a dip in the base around 1pm as more cumulus formed, so we had a few hours to get into a favorable position.
It was my first flight of the season, so I had very low expectations for my performance, and hadn’t made any goals, but the others planned to fly north, then cut through above Klöntalersee and attempt to get over Pragelpass. With no better idea, I decided to join for as far as I made it.
I took off last and despite some careful sorting of my lines, still managed to take off with a tangled brake. Thankfully I reacted well and was able to fly for a while with risers until I had a relaxed place to fix it. A silly mistake, but nothing serious.
I first went South towards Klausenpass, aiming to get some altitude on the slopes above Nussbühl, where some gliders were already climbing out.
There were some steady 1m/s bubbles, and with some delicate thermalling, it was fairly easy to get up to around 2k. The base had risen to around 2400 at this point, but I found that a lot of the smaller bubbles would fade a lot below that, so at this point decided to push back North.
From the noise on the radio, I ascertained that most of my friends were a few thermals ahead of me, so I flew a fairly aggressive line towards takeoff and was rewarded with very minimal sink. In fact there was some decent cumulus near the start of the via ferrata, and I put in some turns before pushing north.
The influence of the west wind was already clear, and I was curious how it would affect our progress around Glärnisch into Klöntal, but the next section was well sheltered by Vrenelisgärtli, so I pushed on confidently, and was quickly punished for my hubris by sinking where I expected lift. I continued on, and thankfully found a nice bubble that took me back up the ridge. There was a beautiful frozen lake below, and the steep cliffs of Glarus with the remaining snow was spectacular to fly along.
At this point, my radio told me that Wessel and Tom were getting flushed at Klöntal, but I was just enjoying the scenery and things felt good, so I carried on. I wondered if I could cut the corner by flying through Furggle and perhaps soaring up the west face of Vorder Glärnisch, but arrived too low and anyway discovered nice lift on the eastern faces.
At this point the day started getting a bit rowdy with a lot of leeside flying, so I should probably drop in a disclaimer that you should definitely not fly lee unless you know what you are doing. It’s far too easy to get pinned or caught in rotor, certainly not somewhere you want to get caught unaware and without having practiced the skills before.
I felt confident though - the wind was probably around 10km/h which wasn't making much rotor as it was probably being overpowered on the East faces by the thermals. I had an amazing moment where I thought I would be able to overfly the Vorder Glärnisch, but the venturi killed the lift just too soon, and I settled for some scenic flybys of the stunning peak.
Then it was time to make the big crossing to Rautispitz. I had plenty of height and was confident that the faces in front of me would work, but I was also a little worried that some of the others had sunk out here. Luckily, when I was halfway across I could see that a few other gliders had caught something and were working their way up.
It was definitely working, but quite bumpy on the other side. The wind was definitely tunneling down Klöntal, and the spines on the ridge I was climbing were creating turbulence. I managed to climb above the ridge, and considered hopping over it North, but was a little worried I would get pinned in a place with a long walk out, so instead worked West along the ridge to a Gummenplatten, a large rocky patch with good lift. At this point it felt like I was soaring rather than thermalling, and I wondered if there was any point pushing on, but I found a bubble and got back up into the lift.
I followed the other gliders into a nice thermal, and instead of going North, took some advice from my radio and pushed on West. I wanted to reach the point where I could hop over into Innerthal, as from there I could glide a long way North. I had pretty much ruled out going further West at this point - the strong wind over Pragelpass, plus the fact that there had been so much lee flying and turbulence on my first flight of the season, made me feel that this direction would be too stressful. I had an idea that I could fly towards Pfaffikon and an easy train home.
This relied on me making one last climb up Mutteristock, and thankfully it was working nicely, because if it hadn’t, I would have had a long glide into wind to make a landing in Klöntal.
I started my glide North, and it was completely blue. Zürich was visible through the haze, and I resigned myself to a long sled ride down. I wondered if there was any chance of picking something up on Schiberg, and sure enough the lift there turned into a 3m/s climb up to base again.
With my extra height, I wondered if I could hop over to Gross Aubrig and do the same there. But on the glide over the winds got weird. The westerly that had dogged me all day disappeared, and I started getting Northerly. Because of this, I had to take the North face of Gross Aubrig which didn’t have any thermal activity. It looked like I could almost make it to Sihlsee on glide, but there were a lot of trees and I would be very low, so I turned back and tried to pick something up on Gross Aubrig. Now I had an Easterly breeze. Smoke from a fire confirmed I wasn’t hallucinating, but as I began to sink out, the North valley wind began to add to the mix. Having had wind from every direction, and feeling tired, I decided to land in Vorderthal.
I lined up for landing with a big flag as a wind reference, but a few meters above the ground, rhe wind did a 180, and I landed with a strong tailwind. As I tried to pack up the glider, it flipped back to valley wind.
But as I waited an hour for the bus in Vorderthal with no phone reception, I had chance to think about the flight (and eat a delicious almond pastry from the town).
It had been incredibly scenic, and despite the tricky conditions I had flown really well. All in all, it was another great day up in the sky, and a good start to the season.