I left East Sussex at 06:20 on Good Friday to travel to Abergavenny to meet my friends Rhun and Stu for some Welsh Paragliding fun. The weather looked great at The Blorenge and I was there by 09:30 to meet them for a drive up the hill. I met Peter, Simon from the SWWSC on the hill before a bunch of others turned up. People had traveled far and wide, with even some Southern Members and Tim Pentreath and it wasn’t long before clouds started popping up.
It was forecast a light Northerly so triangles were the order of the day, and I soon launched when I saw a hang glider launch into a thermal. It’s a long walk up if you miss out on an initial climb!
I’d not managed to figure out entering a task into my Oudie 5, so decided to go with a mental task of heading over to Pen-y-fan where there were Cu marking the way, and then see what transpired. It was a good decision as that’s were most people were headed, and there were plenty of thermal markers. Leaving the hill about 4500’ it wasn’t long before I could see people climbing in the distance, so it was time for some speedbar to get through the sinky stuff. The climb when I arrived was rather broken, but with so many people there we soon figured out the best bits and I was soon at 4500’ again and ready to continue. Keeping to the hills to the south of the valley I headed toward Tal-y-Bont, pimping climbs on the way. A crux point came crossing the reservoir as I could see one wing low on the north side of the mountains on the other side. However I could also see two other wings climbing in the lee side valley, and as it was a light wind day I headed that way. This turned out to be the right choice as I found a great climb which took me to 5500’ on the Pen-y-fan mountains with stunning views of the sea breeze on the South Wales coast, whilst still seeing the Bristol Channel!
I considered heading over to Pen-y-fan some 3km to my West, but decided instead to use my height to push directly North into wind. Some 8km and little lift later I was approaching Llangorse and the River Wye, getting lower and lower. I could see people above me but I needed to focus on ground sources. My first try failed, so I headed back East toward Tal-y-Bont and a likely landing near a camp site, however as I approached the North facing hill, I picked up some zeros and took my time working them as I circled for what seemed like ages above a group of people in the camp site 700’ below. The zeros changed to consistent a 1m/s climb, and after quite a while I was high again, deciding what to do next. The mountains North of me looked inviting, but I crabbed back up the North side of the valley in some reasonable air until I started to get a little low West of Crickhowell. As luck would have it I spied a pilot on a yellow wing making a beeline for the centre of town, and start to slowly climb out, so to avoid being rude I decided to join him. I’d never have made it back from 3000’ and there’s more opportunities in a gaggle.
The climb we were in turned into the best of my flight, topping out at over 4.5m/s and taking us up to cloudbase at over 5700’. I stopped turning below base but still went ti to it briefly whilst straight lining back toward Abergavenny. I was easily high enough now to close my first big UK triangle and flew through one more thermal to arrive back at launch at about 3600’. Heading to the landing field I had some unwelcome 3.5m/s lift and had to actively look for sink to turn in. I was now tired after 4 hours and cold as hadn’t been able to switch my heated gloves on, so I opted for tight 360’s rather than a full spiral to get down. They were enough however, and I landed in a nice big field just east of the bridge. A short walk to the Bridge Inn and I was greeted by Rhun and Stu, and a bunch of others from the SWWSC. Oh and a nice refreshing pint. Result.
I entered my 52km turn point flight into the xcleague as a flat triangle and was rewarded with a 2x multiplier for 104 points. Also a PB for me. Now that was a Good Friday!
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