Crossing the Alps via the Finsteraarhorn with Julian
We have a great reason to celebrate one of our former students and launch-site managers, Julian! Here's his flight report:
During our Memberflying sessions, we'd often talked about longer flights in Ticino and Valais. We'd already organised a few trips to Ticino, and now it was Valais's turn. In mid-September, we took the train towards Valais and enjoyed some fantastic thermal flights and shorter XC adventures.
Even late in autumn, there's still plenty of flying to be had in Valais. On previous XC flights in the region, I'd already been tempted to cross over into the Bernese Oberland. However, for various weather-related or logistical reasons, I'd always decided against it. But on Saturday, 26 September, the time had finally come.
Weather
According to Burnair, the forecast wasn't showing a huge number of XC kilometres, but for a September day it looked pretty promising.
On my way to the train station, I still couldn't quite imagine that later that day I'd be flying back across the Alps by paraglider.
Inversions and weak thermals were expected in the morning. Good reasons to get a little extra sleep and catch a later train! The freezing level was very high, at around 4,100 m. Since the Finsteraarhorn reaches 4,274 m, warm gloves were definitely in order.
Another factor to consider was the fairly strong westerly wind at higher altitudes. Why that would work in our favour becomes clear later.
The thermal forecast suggested that an Alpine crossing would only become an option in the afternoon, from around 3 pm onwards. Other than that, no significant weather phenomena were expected.
Flight strategy
The plan was to take off shortly before midday and head out towards the Grimsel area. At around 2 pm, we wanted to turn back towards Bellwald before heading for the Finsteraarhorn.What would happen after the crossing was still an open question. After all, a little spontaneity in the air is never a bad thing!
Airspace
Compared to central Switzerland, the airspace situation in Valais is relatively straightforward. We could climb to FL150 (4,550 m) that day. For Meiringen, we still had to check whether the airfield was active or not. The heliport situation around Interlaken also needed a quick check.
The flight
Since the stable conditions lasted longer than forecast and there was considerable military helicopter activity, we decided to wait until after lunch before taking off.The thermals in Valais were working reliably, allowing us to climb out and cross the valley towards Bellwald at 2,800 m. It's worth gaining plenty of altitude before making the crossing to Bellwald, as this usually makes finding the next thermal much easier.
After a short detour to Löffelhorn, we decided to turn around and prepare for the big crossing. The goal was now to gain as much altitude as possible.
We were definitely not the only ones trying our luck at Galmihorn. At around 3,700 m, though, it looked as though we should be able to connect with the lift at Finsteraarrothorn. And sure enough, it worked!
We climbed a little further there. Now the fairly strong westerly wind really started working in our favour. Combining thermals with the wind, we were able to climb further along the rock face of the Finsteraarhorn. Or, as we like to say in Swiss German: Ufebschisse! – getting spat upwards!
Thanks to this dynamic lift, we were able to gain more than enough altitude by soaring.
For an easier crossing, you can also fly through on the eastern side, where you don't need to climb quite so high. However, with the westerly wind, we decided to climb on the western, windward side instead. And we were more than rewarded for that decision!
Flying much further than the Finsteraarhorn had never been part of the plan. So the options were Meiringen or Interlaken. In the end, I headed for Interlaken to catch my train home.
In Grindelwald, I managed a short soaring session, which allowed me to cut the corner and fly directly over Roteflue.
In Interlaken, as expected, there was plenty of flying activity – along with tourists who seemed rather keen to squeeze in for a cosy tandem flight with me and my Range X-Alps!
A big thank you to everyone involved in Memberflying for the inspiration behind this flight. Here's to many more adventures together!
