Setting up on launch. The lapse rate from the morning's weather balloons looked very exciting, and the plan was to go big in whatever direction made the most sense once in the air.
Thermalling with Alex (in his new Nova Mentor) over Goldmine
Heading down Reliance Ridge before looking for a good climb over Mt Ebaneazer
Hmmm, could be a good day for Mt Bogong...
Or Mt Feathertop again!
After a good climb over Mt Ebaneazer I followed a very welcome line of boyant air into a good climb to the left of Bungalow Spur. Some hang-gliders were playing around in lift much further in the bowl, but I wanted to keep my bombout options open so stayed in the slightly lighter stuff further out and maxed out on height there.
Gliding in over the summit of Mt Feathertop for the 2nd time in two days!! I spent so much time last season planning and trying to get here - and not succeeding - and now it all just falls into place!!
Woohoo!!
After flying around and taking pic over the summit (no hikers on the summit - but there were some just heading up there from Federation Hut) I was approaching the bottom of my 'safe height' so headed out towards Harrietville, hoping for another climb on the way. Heaps of sink changed my mind and I went to my backup plan of flying back towards the ridge, intending to land there if I couldn't get the height to make it out to the valley. Fortunately I found some zeros, then light lift, and drifted with it over the Razorback Ridge until it all lifted off and took me up to 3,000m and cloudbase!!
Looking along the Razorback Ridge (Hotham Village on the left).
Woohoo! Plenty of height to make it out to the valley now!!
On the other hand.....
Why fight the wind when you can use it?
How's the serenity? Mt Feathertop (1,922m) closest, Mt Fainter (1,883m) in the middle, with Mt Bogong (1,986m) in the distance.
Arriving above Hotham
After taking some pics of the village and deciding not to continue flying further (there were fantastic looking clouds 6-8km further along and what looked like sufficient bombouts near the road but I wasn't sure of the boundaries of the Hotham Airport MBZ) I came down (with some difficulty) and landed on what looked like a nice flat area facing into the wind. It was actually a lot steeper than it looked and in a lee (-4m/s for the last 80m or so), but the Aspen2 flew beautifully and everything went smoothly.
How often do you land next to snow in Australia?!!
Mt Feathertop.
