Stuck

The flight today was so far removed from my store of experience that it is hard to know what to say about it. The forecast was for possible storms to the north so we just went a long way south along the ridges. As it turned out it looked good to the north with cu all over the place but blue and stable to the south. When it gets stable here it is rock solid. The only way to stay up is to hug the terrain, using anabatic lift and the odd thermal bubble when you get lucky. The difficulty today was two fairly high passes that needed crossing. Well, high for today’s conditions anyway. I ended up being stuck in the bottom valley, along with one or two others. After 40 minutes or so going backwards and forwards I had to take the long way round but it was horribly difficult just to keep the glider in the air. Once zero points was inevitable I gave it away; it was extremely stressful flying, valley crossings being the only respite from being within a couple of wingspans from the terrain all day. On a lighter note, this was from the opening ceremony last night when we decided to “launch” Uli Schwenk’s glider….

Tomorrow they are talking about sending us "inside" for a task. That means into the really tall mountains in the guts of the Andes. Boy am I on a learning curve here!!