I had hoped to fly over Marmolada last time I was in the Dolomites, but due to sticking with my pre-planned route, despite the late takeoff time, I wasn’t able to. I had thought that flying over Marmolada would have to wait until next year, but with some unseasonable weather, and a good airmass the cloudbase was predicted to be at 3700m with a moderate southerly wind on the 30th October!
As the window with the good conditions and my availability was only one day, I woke up at 4:45 in Munich and drove straight to the Sella Pass. I got there with excitement as there didn’t appear to be any high level cloud which was certainly a risk from the forecast and made the short walk up to the Lokomotiva launch site. Here I waited until I was fairly sure I would stay up, although I was still a little unsure as I launched as lots of people were still failing the climb out!
Thankfully I launched and made my way towards the steep cliffs and was soon in a strong climb which took me up and away. After the first climb I was debating what to do, should I go straight for Marmolada or should I wait until later in the day? As I knew it would work later, and wasn’t sure about the morning I decided to head over to the Gruppo del Sassolungo and then onwards over the Val Duron and down the Val di Fassa.
As I headed over Val Duron I struggled to find a decent thermal with the low sun and high cloud affecting thermals which were not above steep cliffs! I was definitely worried that I was going to bomb out, thankfully I found something which gave me enough height to get back to the steep cliffs of the Gruppo del Sassolungo and then climb back out. After some hunting I found a good thermal which took me up to 3700m and then made my glide over to the Gruppo del Sella.
Here I made more mistakes and thought I was going to bomb out again! Thankfully I managed to get back up, and at this point the steep cliffs were working well, very well! At one point I had an average climb of 5.5m/s over 7 seconds, and I certainly didn’t like falling out the side of a narrow 4.5m/s core while tightly banked over, the collapse was fairly violent!
Once I was back at altitude I made my way over to Saas Pordoi, where I got frustrated with people who don’t know the rules of avoidance, thankfully I had enough height and then continued my glide south towards the Marmolada.
Initially it was a bit of a fight to get up due to cloud development, but after some scratching I managed to get up above the ridge, which I then rode all the way up to the summit of Marmolada. From here I found it hard to get much height, and it was pretty rough with thermals and meteo wind mixing above the steep cliffs, but eventually got a climb out and started my glide.
I didn’t really have a firm plan after here, and it showed with my decision making. I didn’t make a firm choice and chose a bad line which was very sinky and took me into a lee. At which point I then got worried I would be landing a long way from Canazei, and rather than committing to the sunny south sides where I was sure there would be thermals, stayed above the ridge and on the north side which meant that I didn’t find anything. This left me with no choice but to glide into the Lee and get washed down into Canazei, rather than making it back to launch for a top landing.
As I was on the guide down to Canazei I really didn’t care that I wasn’t top landing, as I was so happy with the flight. In hindsight I could have made better decisions which would have enabled me to top land, but every XC flight is a learning experience.
After a short wait in Canazei I managed to hitch back up to the car, where I enjoyed a cool drink and watched the sunset before driving back to Munich!
The flight can be viewed on XContest or DHV-XC.
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