For most of the morning & lunch time the valley had a nice steady (and ‘up slope’ in direction) breeze above the inversion layer the hill had close to zero wind with not so much any thermals but the occasional touch of annabatic air flow! Still more than enough to make the imfamous DBXBRL a piece of cake for Murrayarty….

Come mid afternoon and the thermal and valley wind starting to break through the 500ft layer to reach the hill it was fly ups and top landing but first a bit sweat was required as I had made the (wrong!) choice of leaving my skis rather than bring them up after the last flight down and planned heading (as much as to view the rest of the skiing area)… still the Argo cat (the + of having a full area pass) quickly got me to the “Cliff hanger” chair making it 1,600ft above car park level with no sweat…. but with out the skis (in the pickup!) it was a further climb, on the rocks ‘off piest’, to reach the top 650ft higher, MEMO next time take the ski tow it’s quicker and easier!

Any way a nice little show field right at the top saw me 100ft above 4 BHPA types sitting about and not looking happy, they also clearly did not fancy the rock (too sharp to call boulders!) field in front of my chosen T/O position… but hey the standard ‘double bounce’ when a tiny thermal tracked up to reverse the fairly steady down & x-slope breeze clearly showing up on the banners for the snowboard/ski/Mt Bike comp all the time during my hike up (NB. again study MEMO on skis!)… so off and after a skim past the rocks and BHPA bods out and away, to a bit of a bummer, arriving 1.5km later saw me flying just below a gaggle of 7 or 8 PG’s in a nice solid core.. the bottom of which was already above me current level… so it was down to ‘mixing it’ with the rest of the pilots who like me were not quite in the right bit of air at the right time…

Still the rest of the day was ‘top landing city’ for me, touch & goes and general fun and games… on the ‘fun side’ not to mention trying not to laugh out loud at the general standard of the ‘launches’, oh and at the bottom the ‘landing’ if call it that of a lady pilot’s car ’side swipe’arrival!

Got to say one pilot who got off the chair lift before me on the last lift up was SERIOUSLY fit, almost sprinting up to the BHPA take off, while the lazy amoungs us (me!) simply walked 30s and then flew up the rest of the way

Last hour or so was generaly flying around wishing I had the camera rather than Ali as he was busy concentrating on keeping a good look out in the busy sky out front of the hill face, in the main I worked the cores over the peak then 360 down to touch & go and all the rest of the usual stuff for me. Seeing Ali head down I was living in hope the timing would be right (4pm last uplift) to join him and get back up for one last blast, but on finding the time following landing next him due to the LOTS of lift well out front of the hill, BIG ears, 360* etc. to speed up decent (it didn’t noticably) it was not to be, so after chilling with Joe and Ian for a short while it was off along the road to find a site to hike up with me playing about in the Scots pines… ‘intresting’ flying, best described as ’short(ish) & sweet.

Without any doubt a day to remember and a site to have a longer trip to fly over a couple of days later this year.