The Story

Packing camp and leaving Camping Tonini at 6am, we drove from Malcesine towards Pescheria del Garda with my sailing buddy Torvar. He kindly dropped us at the train station while I wrestled to get my oversized rescue into his frontmount container (no innuendo intended). The train from Garda to Nice was mostly uneventful and took 9hrs. Arriving mid-afternoon in Cagnes Sur Mer we went for a swim in the Med’ and then started the long hike through the city to the mountains. We stopped at a sports store to buy gas (Daniel forgot our cartridges in Garda) for the cooker and continued hiking slowly up to Vence.
We walked the cobbled streets of Vence where my mother had lived for a summer when she was 9yrs old. Apparently it's changed a lot in 50 years. We found a small restaurant for dinner and then continued the hike up to Tourettes sur Loup. Arriving at 11:30pm we set up camp and prepared ourselves for the next day of flying. The view of the city and sea together was equally impressive at midnight as it was at sunrise.

So day two was pretty hard. We took off early and weren’t able to get high enough to fly over a plateau. Eventually impatience took over and we tried anyway and landed in the middle of the plateau. We were greeted by a friendly french family who gave us a consolation beer and refilled our water. They were also sailors who had lived on a boat in the Caribbean for 5 years.
Then we hiked up to a slightly higher hill on the plateau to try fly into the valley on the other side. Wind was from wrong direction so we had to make an exciting take off in a small spot between rocks and bushes.
All went well but we were back in the valley on the other side of the plateau. Daniel had a bit of a harder landing and bruised the arch of his foot.
From there we went for a swim in a tiny creek which revitalized our spirits for the next hike of about 500 vertical meters above the town of Coursegoules.
500m up with 25kg on your back was not so easy. On the top we had good wind so made an evening glide all the way to a small hill above Greolieres. Camped here for the night and had dinner.

Day 3 was hard but at least we got away from the ocean.
We hiked up and started from top of the peak in Greolieres. We were a little bit early taking off and it was a bit of a challenge to stay in the air at times with small bumpy thermals. Daniel unfortunately lost a few hundred meters at the wrong moment and was forced to land at the lower take off again (where we camped the night before). I stayed in the air for 1 hr hoping that he would be able to relaunch. Eventually I was forced to land on top again to wait. I met a super friendly young french couple who shared their lunch and water with me because we were extremely low on water and decent food.
Daniel launched and was miraculously able to climb to the peak again and we both jumped into a thermal to make the first crossing to the next ridge further north. We came in extremely low but I was able to stay in the air and make it another small launch site further west. After landing Daniel packed and hiked up to me again. His foot was sore so he hitchhike a couple kms with a post lady who also gave him some much needed water.
We relaunched immediately but the sky had been covered by a high layer of cirro-stratus that had killed off most the thermals. We then soared the SE vally wind 15km westwards down a ridge until we crossed nth again and came in too low to climb on the next ridge. We landed next to a friendly horse and then hiked down to Saint-Auban. Here we found ice cream, coffee, a beautiful gorge to swim in and wash our socks.
After that we had pizza and beer for dinner and could camp in a super friendly French guys camp for free. Hes name is Wawa (Francois) and runs a natural fish ponds where people fly fish.
The 2 things im learning about southern France is how beautiful it is here and how friendly the people are.....

Yesterday we finally pulled one out of the bag! 

Started hiking around 9am for 3 hrs up to a mountain called Sommet de Cremon. Starting around 12:30 and made fast progress down the first ridges. Approaching Saint Andre les Alps we had to fight westward against a strong headwind but the strong bumpy thermals helped us to make it. After St Andre it was very windy and we got trapped for maybe 40min in a blue hole (no thermal Development). Eventually managed to cross and continue north with some very tricky flying. Had to wait often at cloudbase for Daniel but my patience is getting better.

After a huge glide I came in low and got very lucky to find a convergence line (meeting point of 2 winds) and return up to cloudbase. From there we went further north and were able to cross Lac de Serre-Ponçon. Our final glide put us in the beautiful Col de la Gardette! 6.5hrs flying, crazy conditions on every level and very happy to finally do some distance in the air! Almost 100km! 

Today we met up with some french friends after breaking camp around 11. They brought us croissant and gas we could actually use with our cooker! I met Flav a few years ago in Algodonales when I was down there last time on the trip with Julia. We started around 12 but conditions were a bit iffy so we landed again about 100m lower. After waiting some more we tried again and everybody went down except for me. Not wanting to fly down to the landing and make no progress at all (in fact it would have been going backwards), I asked Daniel if I could continue alone and he would meet me where ever I landed. He agreed it was the best choice and I flew about 20km nth in strong bouncy thermals that took me very high.

There were 2 separate cloud bases so after reaching 2850m I was surfing along the front of some of the most beautiful clouds I had ever seen. I could see the thermals building and swirling around. At the last mountain before a big crossing I noticed a very strange cloud hanging about 300m below, clinging densely to the nth side of the mountain. It was very unusual and told me something was amiss. Further ahead on the last mountain I saw a waterfall of clouds pouring down from a big mountain range to the north...... Thats not a good sign either.

I flew a bit further forward and was considering turning around to run away from it when I was hit by a strong and bumpy nth wind. Used all my tricks to get down and land safely in a small town of Apres les Corps. I was then approached by an old couple who spoke 0% English and was given a beer and chips while I was packing. I’m almost beginning to expect it here in France! From there I met Flav and Daniel and we drove 4km to Corps to have lunch.

Feeling extremely unmotivated after lunch we made a long evening hike up 1000m to try get an evening glide into Valbonnais. Unfortunately low cloud stopped us from being able to take off. However, we found an amazing little mountain cabin, fully stocked for hikers and had a warm and cosy evening with the fire. Slept in the attic of the little hut that was built in 1927.

We woke up in the small hut and slowly prepared mentally for a long day of hiking. Leaving the hut in fog we started hiking down the hill to get out of the cloud. Downhill with 25kg on the back is not great on the knees.....

Taking off from a small farmers field we took a long gentle glide and landed next to the church in Valbonnais. From here we began a steep, gruelling climb 900m up to the col. When we arrived at the top we observed a lot of unstable air rushing towards a low cloudbase. This would help us extend our second glide further down the valley. We took off and made a lofty crossing under the low hanging cloud. In a moment of opportunity we crossed the valley on to the big rock walls on the west side of the valley. Using the a combination of wind and strong unstable thermals we rushed up a few hundred meters to the cloudbase then raced down the valley, skipping out many kilometres we would have had to walk!

Approaching the nth end of the valley we encountered a strong headwind and were quickly pushed down to the ground in a vertical landing. Doesn’t matter! Just saved 15km walking! From there we walked a short distance into La Morte. From here we found a small lake where we swam and washed ourselves (wasn’t that cold) and found a small restaurant to eat. We didn’t understand the menu or the chef but we ordered 2 serving of what he was recommending. Turns out it was a giant bowl of Mussels with tomato soup, a strange choice in the middle of France!

Hiking a short way to a farming field we had to take off inside a cloud and follow the instruments away from the hill and fly down 1000m into Sechilienne. Landing in a small field we were observed by many wide eyed kids. After we started up the next hill and then were invited in for a beer by a friendly Jon Paul (Juan Paulo originally from Portugal) and his family. Beers turned into a dinner with his wife and 3 kids, cheese testing, wine drinking and a comfy place to sleep while it poured rain outside. We couldn’t be luckier or more amazed at the kindness of these strangers (now friends!).

Well today was an interesting one. We had breakfast with Juan Paolo and his kids as they got ready for school. We thanked him for his kindness and hospitality and started hiking up the mountain in the rain. Powered by all the food we ate the day before we raced up the 1500m to a take off on the NW side of Chamrousse ski resort. We prepared in the rain to make a flight out through the thin layer of cloud. After the success of yesterday’s cloud flight we were confident it would work.

It turned out to be a bad idea. We flew intermittently through cloud for about 600m and were very close to trees at time as we flew out of canyon with no landing options. Daniels phone shut down mid flight and with some quick thinking he activated his backup gps device. I flew out of the canyon to the outside ridge and then managed to fly the ridgeline on the unstable air to the valley floor below of St Hilaire. Daniel landed safely in the valley and hitchhiked to meet me. We both were very happy to successfully make it out of that one and also save about 1500m downhill walking (bad for the knees) and 15km on the flats of the valley floor.

We swam in the river next the Funiculaire (oldschool mountain tram) and hiked up to St Hilaire. This is the place they, in Non-Corona times, hold the Coupe Icare flying festival so it is a special place for me and a mecca for flying.
The kindness of strangers!

Arriving in the middle of a thunderstorm we met my friend Nico, the friendly manager of the Air Design in France. He was super busy with work but still had time to join us for burgers and beers. We did some washing and turned the local office into our laundry room! We then slept in comfort out of the rain (again!) and prepared and dried out everything for the next day.

So today was pretty brutal. We had a slow start and dried out our clothes, charged our devices and packed our stuff. The last 30min was a bit of a scramble as we realised it was flyable and needed to get in the air if we had any chance of going anywhere. Unfortunately we started at a bad moment, most of the ridge was in shadow as we tried to push north. A light headwind and no thermals quickly put us on the ground. We now faced a 7hr hike to the next take off.
Daniels foot was sore so he took some of the weight out of my bag and hitchhiked. I put my foot falcons (feet) into 7th gear and started hiking.

The hike was uneventful along the side of a river through various agricultural and industrial areas. I called with various friends to pass the time. Around 8pm I arrived at the bottom of the mountain where a friendly French couple had stayed open longer than normal so that I could have pizza and beer with Daniel who was waiting for me. After an hour rest, pizza and a couple of beers we continued the last 1.5hr hike up the mountain to the Montlambert take off.

After a wash in the nearby spring we pitched tents and went to bed.

I guess we could call today a win. We woke up at around 7 to the sound of French paragliding students taking off next to our tents. After drying and packing everything, we waited patiently for conditions to get stronger....

A clear inversion layer (when it’s cooler in the valley than up high, bad for thermal development) and a low and unstable cloud base made it look very unpromising. Also, at 11am there were no other XC pilots at the start place, also not a good sign. Eventually around 1130 some other pilots arrived and it looked like the day would start. I bumped into another friend from Algodonales, a one legged Frenchman who flies like an Eagle.

Flying with a few other pilots, getting away from the start area was slow, difficult and risky to bomb out. Eventually we made it to the bigger mountain chain where we surfed along under the low clouds heading north. Daniel was very slow and kept stopping to try take more height, often when it wasn’t necessary. I got quite frustrated because I knew we had to make some distance before the sun moved to the other side of the mountain and the clouds overdeveloped. We arrived very late to make 2 very turbulent crossings passed the valleys that come from Annecy. Both were very sceptical but somehow worked. We made it to South end of the Arvis chain of mountains.

From here we surfed up the valley wind but we were in a bit of a difficult decision point.... Take the East side of the mountain chain (side of mountain with civilisation but it was shaded) or the West side (sunny side but limited options if we landed out).

We went East side and immediately were pushed down into a col where we landed. 5min later we had quick packed and hiked to a luxurious (by our standards) mountain refuge that had only opened 2 days earlier (how is that for timing?). We had a nice dinner and evening drinking beers with the staff and a long, comfortable night of sleep.

What a day! After breakfast we thanked the friendly staff at the small refuge where we stayed and started a 700m vertical hike up a very steep path to the top of Pointe de Mandallaz above the Refugio.

Starting around 1130 we started flying quickly down the chain of mountains know as the Arvis. It was some immense cloud flying and things got better and better the further we flew along.

We made a huge crossing at the mouth of the chamonix valley and made our way through the valley getting hammered by a strong north wind flooding over the nth side of the valley. We crossed the valley and soared our way up above 3000m next to Aguille du Midi (very famous mountain and cablecar) with outstanding views of Mt Blanc. We then flew along the west faces over the Grands Montets and Le Tour ski resorts and made the crossing into the Sion valley of Switzerland. Dogged by strong valley wind we landed down in a football field in the town of Leytron.

Trying to sort out our communication issue by buying sim cards from a local kiosk(disaster) we drank a few beers with a young spanish guy we met.
On his advice we tried to take a shortcut path up a super steep path that followed a canyon. Unable to find the start of the trail we ended up hiking up through steep vineyards (they are everywhere in this region) and then bushbashing. We arrived at a via-ferata path and asked a local guy how difficult it was. He said in scrambled English that it was “medium difficult”. 20m around the corner of the starting point we saw that it was in fact a completely vertical with metal steps stapled into the side of canyon wall with a 100m drop into a raging creek. We, with no equipment to connect to the safety line and 25kg hanging on our backs we decided to take the longer hiking path instead. I guess Swiss "Medium" is different from Austrian "Medium".

After hiking over a cool suspension bridge we bush bashed through a trail that didn’t exist until we found a road. A little unsure where we would be able to sleep, because we were in between suburbs and farms (also everything was too steep to pitch a tent) we started hiking up the road. It was 10:30pm.

A friendly voice called out a window and asked what we were doing. We tried to explain and asked if we could pitch a tent in his garden. He said he didn’t have a garden but we could sleep in his guest room! His lovely girlfriend cooked us a meal, gave us a beer and amazing Swiss cheese. I am blown away every time at the
kindness of strangers and their willingness to help us. It is one of the most amazing things I have experienced in a long time.

Another hard but rewarding day. After a couple of coffees we set out for a take off called Loutze above Ovronnaz. It was a 1000m so we stopped at a supermarket to resupply on snacks. We arrived around 12 to find about 30km wind from the north, the wrong direction. Feeling somewhat hopeless and disillusioned we sat down in the sun and snacked for half an hour hoping the thermals and valley wind would push the north wind back so we could take off. Luckily for us it arrived and we prepared to fly, both feeling quite tense.

We took off and the start was turbulent but working well and we soon flew up to cloud base. Fighting the north wind with every crossing between the ridges, we often got pushed down in the leeside of some of the bigger mountains. It was frustrating going and really hard work but soon the clouds started to rise up to over 3200m and higher, however the mountains were also getting bigger! We fought onwards, making a few small mistakes but luckily recovering before we were pushed into the valley. We flew about 3.5hrs and arrived at a bend where the valley slightly changed direction nth. It was around 5pm and it was possible to continue but we both felt quite exhausted and decided to land by a small touristic lake set among the mountains in the small ski town of Bettmeralps.
We had a snack, a swim/wash in the freezing lake and had a quick explore of the town. We then returned to the closed lift cabin where we had landed, cooked some dinner and went to bed. Daniel couldn’t be bothered to pitch his tent so decided to sleep in the out of service lift hut. Sunset was incredible and the view from 2200m is second to none.....directly from the door of my tent.

Today looked promising but was shut down by strong nth wind. After breaking camp we had a coffee in Buttmeralp and then hiked about 45min over to Fiesch. From there, we started immediately and made slow progress heading east. The cloudbase was high but the strong nth wind made every crossing a challenge and turbulent. Approaching the end of the valley it was clear that the north was pouring violently through the Grimsal pass, blocking our path. I saw some of the most beautiful cloud formations as they formed, swirled and died in the crazy north wind. Testing the waters I pushed east only to get washed down to the valley by the waterfall of north wind. Arriving in the valley the wind was 40-50km coming from the pass. After some strong turbulence we both landed going backwards on an unused airfield. Luckily I was on the ground already to help Daniel with the strong wind landing.

From there Daniel took some of my weight from my bag and hiked 25km and 1200vertical meters over the Furka Pass. One of the most beautiful hikes I have ever done and with a lighter bag I could do it in 5 hrs.
I saw a big Steinbock, hundreds of marmots and just enjoyed the time mostly when I wasn’t panting too hard. On top of the Pass I met a guy who had ridden from Austria with all his ski touring gear to go skiing on the nearby glaciers. Guess I’m not the only crazy one.
Arriving around 9pm I met Daniel, had a beer and set up camp. A warm dinner was especially satisfying after such a long hike!

Morning hike up to 2500m was hard after the long day before. Starting too early at 11am we flew along towards Andermatt. We got hit (yet again) by the north wind pouring through the pass into Andermatt. We managed to make an emergency top landing at an abandoned artillery bunker before we lost all of our height. Waiting half an hour we made a technical start from a road and flew across the valley to try soar up the north wind. This was barely successful and we slowly gained a few hundred meters. All of a sudden the wind seemed to stop (very random) and we made a crossing to the west face below the Oberalp pass where we landed. After having our expectations way too high for the day it was crushing blow. I had a minor meltdown at prospect of hiking over yet another pass. After getting my shit mostly back together we hiked over the pass and we were revitalized and re-motivated by an icy swim with some icebergs in a high alpine dam.

Hiking all the way to of the ski resort at the end of the pass we were in a very hard place to take off because of the terrible north wind direction and cablecars blocking us in every direction. Making a very technical take off in the leeside I made it to the NW face of the valley where I took strong thermals back over 3000m while I waited for Daniel to try and launch in the sketchy take off area. Eventually he was able to take off and we cruised along quite high with the NW wind pushing us along. We tried to circumnavigate Piz Miez to the north and were destroyed by a horrible leeside until we retreated low to the previous ridge. The nth wind strikes again, pouring directly from the nth down the valley next to Disentis. We were more or less trapped with the only option to retreat 1 more mountain westward to topland for the night. Landing was windy as hell and we hiked down into a little gully between the mountains to camp out of the
wind. Beautiful campsite with soft grass, a running stream from snowmelt and a tiny lake for our morning swim (we had to break the ice to get into the water in the morning).

Felt like quitting multiple times this day but decided just take things one day at a time.

Another hard day but at least we made some progress. Starting on our little mountain above Disentis we hiked up another couple hundred meters to the summit. Starting from 2500m we quickly thermalled (thank god) up to 3200m and crossed onto the higher mountain Piz Meiz the one we had been fighting with the day before. Things went much better without the crazy wind and we made a long crossing over the valley to the south faces. Went well for 10 or so kilometres then the Nth wind struck again. Luckily finding a point of convergence (where 2 winds meet and push up) we managed to stay in the air and then had to topland as we were trapped soaring a ridge.

Making a new plan to cross the valley (again) we took off in really strong wind, climbed in another convergence point and then crossed.
We arrived super low. On the other side and managed to find a place to soar up the valley wind. From here I was able to claw my way back up to the summit with a lucky thermal. Daniel struggled to get up and told me to push on.
With a tail wind and a good height I made the next few ridges until the city of Chur. Here the valley wind was very strong and I was unable to push further forward.

Eventually I top landed above Chur near a cablecar. Daniel hitched to Chur, did some shopping and planned to take the cablecar up the next morning.
I camped alone in a beautiful little alpine field with a small lake for swimming, freshwater spring and nothing but muesli bars for dinner. Read my book and had a long night of sleep.

Today was intense but at least we made it back into the Austria.
Breaking camp early I hiked down to the cablecar to meet Daniel. We had a coffee near the cablecar and made plans for the day. The sky was already starting to look good. We hiked up to my camp spot then continued up to the peak.
Thing seemed good to go so we started at 12 and were thoroughly wrong. We fought like hell for 45min and eventually I got up and Daniel was on the ground. He gave me permission to push on so off I went with some high clouds ahead.
The cloud looked amazing but the weather was strange. The clouds were not logically placed by the thermals and thermals were broken and not as strong as expected. Making a few crossings I got low and was lucky to scrape my way up again. After crossing the swiss/austrian border things got a little easier with clouds sitting over 3500m above the mountains. I flew through over Schruns and along the Montafon valley. Crossing the pass I decided to land at the top of the ski lift in Sankt Anton (a famous ski resort in Tirol).

The idea was that Daniel could take the lift up to meet me the next day but the cablecar was closed until Friday.
After setting tent and cooking dinner I was joined by a hiker who was curious about what I was doing, we sat and shared a beer and got chatting. It turned out that he was in fact the boss of one of my paragliding friends from Salzburg (who happened to be in Salzburg at that moment) and he invited me to stay at his house. We also knew some of the same people in Norway.
It’s a crazy small world.
Meanwhile Daniel and his magical hitchhiking thumb had managed to make his way all the way to St Anton in 3 hrs (a normal drive in your own car would take 2.5!).
Me and my new friend Flo hiked down 1000m to St Anton (I left my stuff on the mountain) to meet Daniel for a beer at the bar. After that we went back to Flos place which just happened to be a hotel. He gave us a room and his lovely wife Manu cooked us some food. The kindness of strangers is unbelievable. We slept like babies after a few glasses of wine and a classy shower.

After breakfast with Flos family and kids (I tried reading his 3yr old a book about dragons and ended up learning a lot of new German words), we bid them thanks and farewell and begun the 1000m hike back up to the Kapple take off where I had left all my gear. Dividing Daniels equipment in 2 bags were much faster hiking up but the hot morning sun slowed us down considerably. Preparing immediately we launched into some unusual wind conditions.

Running further down the valley in the leeside of the unpredicted west wind I eventually found a good thermal and climbed the 1000m+ to cloudbase. Daniel whilst able to find thermals, struggled immensely to find a thermal strong enough to bring him high enough to meet me.......for 1 full hour.
I circled around under the cloud doing acro and trying to get a feel for how the clouds were forming on that day, but my frustration was immense. When he finally joined me at the cloud I mentally pushed that away and focused on the clouds ahead. Going was quite quick from then but Daniel often struggled to stay in the lift near the cloud and I would have to wait for him.

We made good eastward progress and passed Landeck at over 3000m. Approaching Imst we had a bit of a tricky crossing over a nth facing valley mouth. A few options available to us I took the one that kept us closest to the big mountains. Daniel managed to stay high in the light convergence wind and escaped to the other side but I made the mistake of approaching too close to the central mountain and got hammered down by the leeside. I fought to find a decent thermal or convergence point but was constantly harassed by the strong wind coming out of the valley mouth. Coming in eventually on the east side of the crossing very low I fought long and hard to stay in the air. Finding a small rocky canyon, protected from the wind I climbed back up to cloudbase and Daniel joined me. Phew!

Crossing the Inn Valley before we hit airspace, I managed to climb up a convergence line and continue quickly towards Stubaital, Daniel struggled lower down in the weaker lift and landed in the wide valley. I considered many options (including landing near Innsbruck to visit friends) but decided the day was still going well and I should keep pushing and try to make it to Zillertal. I crossed over Stubaital (very famous flying spot) and kept heading east over the Brenner pass. I was reconsidering my decisions as I flew in some very remote valleys under some very black clouds. The clouds were becoming huge and blocking out most of the sun so it was making it hard to find thermals.
In a last ditch effort I surfed this shadowy unstable air on a final floaty glide to land just 200m lower on the backside of Tux (Zillertal valley).
After 7hr in the air and 120km of progress I was very stoked. I hiked the last 200m up to the saddle, unpacked again and prepared for a beautiful and relaxing evening glide down into my old hometown of Mayrhofen.

But it was not to be! A light valley wind made my glide performance slow and inefficient and I was skipping low over power lines, cablecars and hotels the whole way down to the valley floor! My dream of a grand entrance at the flying school didn’t come to fruition but I landed safely in the valley and hiked my way over for beer and pizza with good friends. Daniel arrived at the same time as me after a few more interesting hitchhikes and we crashed the night and the old faithful Gasthof Zillertal with Laurens.

No time to be wasted in Zillertal and we were hiking again at 8am the next morning. We hiked another 1400vertical meters up a beautiful path to just under Hochfeld (Brandberg). We knew the forecast was for overdevelopment that day so we wanted to start early and get away before all the clouds got too big and scary. Our hopes were raised by the sighting of another pilot flying very early and succeeding in the thermals to make some good height.

Taking off I made quick progress flying on the old home turf but we experienced an unexpected/unforcasted South wind coming out of Zillergrund. We crossed over Gerlos pass under darkening clouds and started running down the Pinzgau as fast as we could. It had already started raining heavily in Gerlos and we could see light showers ahead near Zell am See.

Crossing the valley that comes from Kitzbuhel Daniel was forced down into the valley where he landed. I managed to cross and then find a thermal from the middle of the valley (very random) that I cored back up to the extremely dark cloud. I was racing now to try and land high in Zell am See before the clouds got too crazy. Racing along for a time at cloudbase I flew as fast as possible but as I reached the area where the light showers had been the lift seemed to disappear. I pushed further and searched for lift but found nothing at all. From cloudbase to valley floor in one glide, the warm humid air greeted me as I landed in Niedernsill.

Some very friendly locals who were just laying some concrete on their new porch invited me in for afternoon tea and a beer while Daniel hitchhiked to join us. The son, Marcus was also a paraglider and was very interested in hearing about our trip. Daniel continued to hitchhike to Zell am See and I hiked the final 2.5hrs to meet with my friend Alois.
By the time I arrived dinner was being made and we had a few beers to catch up with him, his lovely girlfriend Eva (made an amazing Risotto) and his newborn Charlotte. Showered, we slept on the couches and were up early again the next morning to start the final push home......

We were both starting to feel pretty tired and worn down after these intense days of hard hiking and flying. My right knee had started to hurt a bit after the day before and we were both finding it hard to find motivation for the 1400m hike ahead up toward Hundstein on the east side of Zell am See.
A quick swim in the lake helped with motivation levels but we both felt lethargic and slow.

However slow we felt, we arrived at the take off earlier than we had expected so hiked a little bit further towards Hundstein to get a better take off position. With Nth wind in the forecast (YET AGAIN) I was somewhat skeptical that would be able to fly into Bischling as we had planned, in my mind it was going to be a miserable, long and hot hike the last miles.

After watching the sailplanes wizzing backwards and forwards we became hopeful that it was working well and so launched into the strong thermals. Climbing our way up we dodged all the crazy sailplanes as we made our northwards in the direction of Hochkönig. We could feel a light west wind whilst flying but nothing of the predicted nth wind...... a good sign.
Making the crossing onto Hochkönig my hopes were increasing with every meter we thermalled higher.......up up up until we reached over 3000, a few hundred meters above the iconic peak!

Taking a few extra well placed thermals along the way, I knew that no matter the nth wind situation, we would make the final glide home to Bischling.
Big smiles and elation as we made the final glide down passed the Tennengebirge and arrived a 1000m above our awesome friends who were waiting for us on the landing field. We gave them a bit of an acro show with the remainder of our height.

On landing we were greeted by many friends with a welcome home banner, cold beers and more hugs than we could count. The afternoon was a blur of relaxation, beer drinking, good food and overwhelming feeling of calm for me.
I don’t know what is next after this but I'm very happy that I did it and that I didn’t give up when the going was hard (although I was close). I learned a lot about myself, consciously and unconsciously, founded a great friendship with Daniel and searched my limits of what is possible with a glider, a tent and small amount of determination.