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Return to the col de Carro
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A late start today, so the thermals were booming by the time
I launched. Today's getaway was via La Motte, Jouere and Auribeau; with
cloudbase rising to 9000ft near Clot Ginoux, the crossing to the parcours at
Dormillouse was easy.
I had tried to tempt Martin "Big Foot" Whitehead (flying Ariane's LS6
122) to follow me to Auribeau by threading a route through the hills, but
Martin confirmed his high-level piloting skills by sticking to his script -
("B*gger that, I want a big mountain on one side of me and a big valley
on the other")
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Auribeau
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Lac Cenis - yes, there's a drought here, too...
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After an "interesting" couple of minutes on a
cloudless Guillaume, I abandoned the theory that "well, it should
work..." and moved over to the tete de Lucy, where the huge amounts of
cumulus and an 8-knot climb proved again that when it comes to soaring there
is no substitute for common-sense.
Over the col de Couleau and across to the tete de Peyron,
my next climb went to 11,500ft and shortly afterwards, a huge high cumulus
gave 14,000ft over the Queyras.
There was a lot of lower level scrappy cumulus towards the
col d'Etache, but it was worth popping over to find amongst the crud proper
higher level flat bottomed cu, so I decided to carry on past Lac Cenis
towards the col de Carro.
The higher mountains still carried their winter snows and
looked just beautiful, and ever-changing as various levels of cloud drifted
over.
At the col de Carro, a growing cu-nim over Aosta convinced
me that it was time to turn for home.
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Solliere valley, towards the col de Carro
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There was no need to worry about getting back across the col
d'Etache, which I reached with an easy 2300ft margin. Another storm brewing
over the Glacier Blanc led to a routing via the Queyras and the col de Vars
into the Barcellonette valley. After a look at the lac d'Allos I crossed
over to the parcours at the Cheval Blanc and carried on down south to see
how the pedalos were getting on at the gorge de Verdon. After topping up to
8000ft on the Serre Montdenier, I flew back to base via the Vaumuse, which
offered a helping hand to give me enough height to get cross the col at
Trainon. The distance for today was 440km.
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