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High Mountains/Streeting
Cumulus
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Col d'Agnel
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Not much to report today. The briefing showed good weather in
the local area, with a touch of uncertainty regarding conditions further
north. My first climb at Hongrie went to over 6000ft, which is generally a
good sign. Cumulus appeared fairly close to base so I was soon on the
parcours, heading for the Ecrins.
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At Guillaume I bumped into one of the Sisteron Duos, TD. We
made our way into the St Crepin valley, flying in very loose formation via
Clotinailles and Furan. When we set off from the lee of Vautisse towards the
western Queyras, we diverged by a few degrees, TD going for the tete de
Peyron, and 245 for one ridge south.
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Viso
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These few degrees of separation ended up costing me half an
hour and a lot of hard work. I was unable to make use of my own ridge and
had to fall back to Prachaval to recover. After a lot of fumbling, I
eventually managed to reach TD's ridge and was catapulted up to 11,000ft. I
need more training!
I carried on as far as Bardonecchia and decided that that
would do for today. I had a great run over the Queyras as far as a
cloud-covered Mt Viso, where 14,000ft was enough for a straight glide via
the Barcelonette valley to the parcours, getting as far as Puismosson before
topping up again.
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Lac St Croix
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There were great lumps of good-looking cu further south, so I
carried on until they finally ran out, around 30km south of the lac St
Croix. It looked like there wouldn't be any problems getting home, and I set
off from Puismosson with plenty of margin in hand.
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Gache
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As I got closer to home the benign south-westerly turned into
a more ominous north-westerly, so that by the time I reached la Baume I had
to fly round it rather than over it. The north side was working as expected,
and I allowed myself a couple of beats on the Gache to give me enough height
to conduct a "proper" circuit.
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