Annecy Paragliding: Day 7
This trip has made me learn to love the quiet and emptiness of mornings. I got on my scooter at 8:09, like I did every other morning, but I soon found the traffic of Annecy and residual congestion of nearby towns to be inexistent. I sped my way to Talloires where I planned to either hike and fly or hitch hike up to Planfait launch.
Funny enough, the first morning I came to fly and was not in a class, I was there the earliest. So early that no other students or instructors had arrived yet. If it wasn’t for the two guys from Paris walking down from the cafe I would have started my hike.
Thankfully, Silvan (my instructor for the previous 5 days) let me ride up with the group four times making this the most flights I got any day of the trip!
My first flight was a sledder with a bit of exploration around the soaring ridge. My second and third flights were exercises for me to find lift on the ridge. This paid off for my last flight where I was able to make a couple laps of the ridge before I sank out and had to go on glide to landing. I have heard of scuba divers staying down too long because it is so pretty and getting themselves in trouble. I had a similar issue on the last flight. Paragliding is a balance between catching all the lift and searching for low saves and knowing when it is time to call it quits and go to land with enough altitude. If I had turned in a minute later on my last flight without finding lift I could have ended up too low too late. Happy I didn’t. You can see how close I was to the tree tops in this video (video makes it look closer than it was).
Around mid day I started back towards Annecy on the search for some Thai takeout. After a curry lunch and an unsuccessful nap attempt, I plotted a plan to ride into the hills west of Annecy towards Leschaux and Lescheraines. The road twisted and climbed steeply from the lakeside, offering views of cows grazing in alpine meadows and the small villages on the hillsides overlooking the lake.
At Leschaux I turned towards the Haute-Savoie Savoie border with the aim of reaching Bellecombe-en-Bauges and Roc des Bœufs. Riding into the hills of the French alps I passed no other vehicles but plenty of cows and a few clearly very old barns. I kept straight and followed the road up to the mountain pass until the pavement turned to dirt and the dirt turned to snow impassable on my scooter.
Now traveling downhill, I zipped back towards Bellecombe-en-Bauges. Just as I rolled into town my motor stalled and I could not restart it. I assumed that it had overheated due to the 90 minute uphill ride at full throttle. I opened the seat and unscrewed the carburetor cover hoping to vent so more heat that way. After about 10 minutes, I was still unable to start the scooter even though the electric start turned over the engine. Eventually, I was able to start the scooter using the kick started and I was, cautiously, off towards Parc naturel régional du Massif des Bauges and a turn towards Annecy.
I had some trouble find the right turn as I rode down into the valley so, with rain and sunset approaching and a half tank of gas left, I decided to backtrack. I rode back to Annecy the same way I rode up into the mountain enjoying the gradually warming valley air as I descended. I turned back at the perfect time as when I arrived in Annecy the wind was blowing strongly and rain looked and was imminent.
