Annecy Paragliding

Alastair BegleyFrance, Paragliding Short Link

With a week planned in Annecy, but the weather looking fairly unstable, we decided to head down a day early so that I could fly on the best day of the week. It was certainly a good decision, but it was still not a flying day due to late afternoon storms and a slow start to the day. I met a group of English speaking friends at the landing site, who I ended up spending most of the morning with on launch while we waited for it to turn on, which made it a pretty social day. When I took if it quickly became apparent that it was not going to be a big XC day, but rather a good day to get to know the site and admire the, frankly magnificent, views. The flying was pretty rough when above the lower inversion layer, with strong thermals, wind shear and another layer above that. Nonetheless it was a really enjoyable flight and it was great to have a flight without any big xc pressure. As the day went on the thunderstorms were clearly building, but I managed to squeeze in. Read the full article…

Hochiss

Alastair BegleyAustria, Walking Short Link

With Martin visiting it was time to head back to do our usual visitor circuit from the Rofanbahn, as it is such a spectacular walk without being too long. While I have now seen these views quite a few times, they never get old as they are so beautiful looking over the Achensee into the Karwendel. We made good time to the summit which meant that we were back down at the lift station for a lovely lunch and beer at the Erfurter Hütte, before we headed back to Munich for a lovely dinner.

Greifenburg Paragliding

Alastair BegleyAustria, Paragliding Short Link

With another good forecast I headed back down to the south side of the main ridge for another attempt at a big FAI triangle, yet again it did not go to plan, however on this occasion I only have myself to blame. Everything was a bit of a rush as my original plan was to head to Sillian, however when we got there we found that Saturday was the rest day for the lift, I did not think to check that a Gondola which I knew was operational was running on a Saturday! We hastily made our way to Greifenburg, where Becky drove me up to the Emberger Alm which saved some time. After a quick walk up to the start place I setup and quickly launched, it was clear that the conditions were good, but not as good as forecast with a much lower cloud base. The first leg went well until I got to the valley crossing which had to be taken in order to make the route a 100km FAI triangle, for some reason, despite knowing that I was way too low to make this crossing easily,. Read the full article…

Sillian Paragliding

Alastair BegleyAustria, Italy, Paragliding Short Link

With a great forecast for the day in Osttirol, I decided to head down to Sillian for a day, hoping to manage a 100km FAI triangle. The day started later than I was hoping, however there was still plenty of time to make the triangle as I started. The first section of the flight went pretty smoothly, although I would have liked some stronger thermals, however on my first major valley crossing I realised that there was a much stronger west wind than was forecast due to Föhn over the main alpine ridge between Bruneck and Innsbruck. This resulted in two problems, firstly I had a poor glide and secondly I dropped down into the Lee at the end of the valley crossing. When this was combined with also dropping through an inversion layer resulted in thermals which were impossible for me to climb in, really strong pockets of rising air which were far to small to complete a turn in. After fighting for ages, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to work and made my way to land in Italy. Thankfully getting back to Launch was. Read the full article…

Marmots above Saas Fee

Alastair BegleySwitzerland, Wildlife Short Link

After our four days in the Bernese Oberland, we were in need of a rest day which was thankfully forced on us by the weather anyway. To make the most of the day, we decided to head up to Spielboden to see the Marmots in a brief window without any rain towards the end of the day. We didn’t quite know what to expect, but went armed with some nuts which were bought from the tourist office and were very surprised. To say the Marmots were tame would be an understatement, as they quite aggressively came up to us demanding more food which was certainly a surprise. This wasn’t so good for the photography from my point of view, but the others have some entertaining photos of humans and marmots together. I aimed for some marmots which were in the landscape, which seemed more natural, even if it was still very staged. After an hour of fun it started raining and we had to get back to the lift before it shut, so we made a hasty retreat back to Saas Fee for the evening.

Wyssnollen and a tour through the Bernese Oberland

Alastair BegleyAlpinism, Switzerland Short Link

With a perfect weather window, or so we thought, we decided to head into the Bernese Oberland for a 5 day tour from the Oberaar reservoir into the Finsteraarhornhütte for some peaks before heading back out. There was an unusual amount of snow in the area and the hut had advised us to bring snow shoes, something which is normally not the case at this time of year. We found a local shop to hire the snow shoes from, who were very confused when I rang up asking to hire show shoes! Oberaar to Oberaarjochhütte – 7.5km, 977hm Our first day was a relatively short day, which allowed us to faff in the morning to hire the snow shoes and drive from Täsch to the top of the Grimselpass, before swapping into one vehicle and heading up to the Oberaar reservoir. This was a very unusual road as there is only a 10 minute window for starting to drive up the pass, and another 10 minute window to drive down the pass 30 mins later. We set off in good spirts with good weather, but very heavy bags. The walk. Read the full article…

Verbier Paragliding

Alastair BegleyParagliding, Switzerland Short Link

We spend a week in Verbier while Becky was doing a paragliding course to get more experience in longer flights and improve her confidence. Unfortunately we were not blessed with great weather, with an entire day lost to rain and on the other days the conditions were not great with windy conditions up high and a very low base. This meant my plans for lots of XC went quickly out of the window, however I did enjoy a week with a reasonable amount of flying, and it was certainly scenic around Verbier.

Tölzer Hütte, Hölzelstaljoch and Grasberg

Alastair BegleyAustria, Walking Short Link

After abandoning a multi day hut-to-hut hochtour in the Ötztaler Alpen due to the excessive snow and terrible weather forecast, we decided to make the most of the booked holiday by heading to the beautiful Rißtal for an overnight hike. We started by heading into the Tölzer Hütte via the most direct way as we were concerned about the rain, needless to say we could have taken the longer variation as the rain came later than forecast as to start with we somehow just missed it, but when it came, it certainly came with plenty of thunder and lightening. The walk up to the hut was hot work in the humid weather, but the walk was nonetheless enjoyable with views into the Karwendel and a nice path. After not too long we arrived at the hut and enjoyed the afternoon playing games and having a few beers in the hut. We even sent Katherine for a run up the nearby peak after we had been at the hut for a few hours and before the rain came. The next day we woke up to a glorious morning and enjoyed a. Read the full article…