Glencoe  09/04/2000

Glencoe with an east-south-east? At 9:30 in the ski lift car park it looked like we were on the wrong hill. After an aborted trip to Killin where north-easterlies were prevalent, Alistair and myself returned to Glencoe with the intention of walking round to the east facing slopes of Meall a' Bhùiridh. When we arrived back at the car park just after lunch, the main take off was covered in a rainbow of canopies but not much action. Still, twenty paragliders and a handful of hangliders can't be wrong, can they?
The wind was still east-south-east so we decided to continue with our Meall a' Bhùiridh plan. So after meeting Dave Thomson and Stephen Pegler at the top of the lift, we headed out through intermittent knee-deep snow drifts towards the south?eastern slopes. Looking out over Rannoch Moor to the east and Loch Tulla to the south and feeling a light breeze in our faces, it looked like we had made a wise choice.

Looking over Rannoch Moor From Launch

Light thermals were tracking up the face as we ran through pre-flight checks and prepared to launch. Dave was first off and immediately caught some lift, albeit fairly weak, but it was workable. I launched immediately after into what was in fact a dying thermal and struggled to maintain height. Seeing Dave slope landing, I decided to save what height I had and opted to do the same. As I struggled up through another snowdrift to a suitable launch point, Alistair flew overhead followed by Stephen, and both were gaining height. Time to re-launch and on doing so, I was steadily climbing in a series of 's' turns in front of the hill. There is something really pleasing about flying up past people with snowboards trudging up the hill. Looking over to the launch immediately above the car park, the lack of activity confirmed we were on the right side of the hill. Dave continued to climb and I got an interrupted message over the radio "..crackle….Sron …. crackle… Creise" but I was too busy concentrating on staying in lift to respond. Alistair had headed off to fly over those on the other launch and Stephen had disappeared altogether (it wasn't until later that I heard over the radio that Stephen had bombed out and was faced with an hour long walk out). The thermal cycle switched off again and I made another slope landing (this time on a ski run called 'the fly paper').

I had to wait for the next cycle to come through whilst snowboarders and skiers got their own back by racing past me on an adrenalin run. There was nothing coming through so, rather than be stranded, I decided to make a dash for the lower launch in the knowledge that I still had a ticket for a second ascent on the lift. Take off was interesting (front launch through a knee deep snow drift). The landing was almost as bizarre (I came in to land on the path the skiers use between tows and with the canopy inflated continued to run to a clear area to collapse. As I was doing so, a skier enquired if I wanted a push!).

I hastily made my way to the ski tow launch and took off in the wake of Phil, unaware that round the corner there were several other gliders setting up. I also noticed as I cleared the corner that two canopies were climbing out in the valley (thermal markers). And following their direction was soon in a light but steady 2 up climb. The whole valley seemed to be going up in restitution for earlier in the day and everyone was taking advantage. It seemed to be a case of choose your valley, Glencoe or Glen Etive, and people dispersed down each.
Another pilot followed me in the same area of thermal (I later discovered that he didn't have a vario and was listening to the bleeps from mine). We continued to climb to 4100ft when the magnetic pull of Buachaille Etive Mor captured my attention and lured me into it's trap. It was a straight glide to the mountain without lift and I connected about half way up but couldn't find anything. I was too conscious of the cliff faces and pushed out towards a sunny patch on the opposite side of the valley praying for a beep on my vario. It wasn't to come until I was close to the ground over a cottage in Altnafeach and by then I was in landing mode and waving back at the kids playing in the garden. A few 's' turns later and I was on the ground in a lay-by looking for a lift back.
A good start to the season, a 1700ft climb in magnificent scenery and a 7km XC thrown in, and all this with the wrong wind direction for the hill !