November 18. 2015

When we see the blue sky this morning nothing can stop us. We have coffee, take our stuff and leave well before eight o clock. At the landing site at the Bcharre side (north of the mountains) all is frozen and there is not a bit of wind. We decide to get another coffee here and then have a look at the south side where we expect thermals early in the morning already.

Up on the mountain pass we find out there is a nice wind blowing from the north. South side looks challenging but is too dangerous obviously. Even though it would be nice because in the south the clouds seem to be about 1000m lower which would give us the chance to fly above them – from the north there are more clouds coming and the base is between intermediate and top launching site. We decide to do our first flight at the intermediate facing north.

There is hardly any traffic on this (main!) road connecting Muslims and Christians so hitchhiking is out of question. So there will always be only one able to fly while the other one has to drive the car down the hill. Never mind – the air is cold and our first two flights are just calm descenders. Tom takes his second flight from the top launching site as the bas is lifting for a moment. Again a calm descender. Next turn is mine again and the clouds have sunk again.

I start and in the second I am in the air start ascending. Within second I take the ears in not to be sucked into the cloud above me. I go a little down and then up again – its perfect! I just play around under the clouds – sometimes up sometimes down – everything under control. The only disadvantage is the freezing cold. After 20 minutes I cannot feel my fingers anymore and land – what an amazing flight in this incredible scenery!

Unfortunately the bug (that’s how we call our rental “car”) finally runs out of petrol for the first time since I picked it up at the airport. We quickly go down to the village to get some and then up again. After one more awesome flight each we are freezing and besides pretty tired already. We could do one more each but decide to let it be for today. On the way home we stop at the pharmacy. We get the oil heater turned on and relax in the soon to be warm living room. Life is amazing!