Switzerland 2012 - Wrapup

Another great time in the Jungfrau - lots of flying and on the 2 days that were not flyable we did some hiking/exploring and rented downhill mountain bikes.  Loads of fun.

Here's some photo's from the week.

Parawaiting:

Rob C:

Launching at Mannlichen:

 

The crew, going for a hike:

 Hiking to the Lauberhorn:

 The crew, starting the muddy ride down:

 Post ride:

 

The town square slackline provided hours of entertainment... especially on the way home from the bar:

 

 Steve at the top of the Shilthorn:

 Jeff:

Steve:

Rob R:

Switzerland - Just a little taste!

We all made it to Switzerland - Jeff, Rob, Steve and I.  Today we took the train from Wengen to Niesen to fly this famous mountain site.

The valley winds were strong and we should have stayed in lea in front of launch.  We didn't.  Everyone had good flights but the landings in the valley were interesting.  Rob and I landed at the official LZ in a howling valley wind and lots of thermic bumps.  I was on full speedbar until about 6ft above the gound and barely penetrating.

Jeff and Steve landed in a tiny field near the train station.  They were about 2 miles up the valley and the winds were not as bad for them.  Rob and I got a nice workout hiking to meet them.

Looks like its gonna be a good week!

Sample from today's flying:

Switzerland Paragliding July 2011

Thompson put together this great video with our combined footage from this weeks trip. Wasn't the best flying trip due to the weather, but we still had fun.

Thermals above Mannlichen

Here's some raw footable from Jeff Thompson from last Saturday.

2011 Alps trip - 3 Week Countdown

T minus 3 weeks until our annual paragliding trip to the Alps. We are headed back to Switzerland for the 3rd straight year. While the Swiss Franc's continue pummeling of the dollar doesn't make it nearly the affordable flying vacation it was 3 years ago, the sheer number of flying sites and their diversity (thermal, acro, turn & burn, extended sledders with a view), along with excellent public transport, stellar food and luxury accommodations keeps us coming back.

Once again our base will be in Wengen, where we scored the same apartment as last year (Thanks Mrs. Paterson!) on the top floor of the old Eiger Hotel. I'm sure Jeff & Rob will be terrorizing the locals at the Monkey Bar until 2 in the morning again this year.

Here's a taste of why we continue to go there - great video from Jeff of last year's flying.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sqrIpPopYI

Cuv's Flight Tracks from the Alps

Rob "Stinky" Covington finally got around to downloading the GPS tracks from our 2 previous trips to the Alps over the weekend. You can find them posted here: http://robcovington.com/paragliding/paragliding.html.

The last flight on 8/20 at First is a really good map to the house thermals at this great site. We are headed back to the Jungfrau region again this summer because the flying was so consistent. Here's an album of my photos from our August trip.