The name of the mountain is Greim in Styria. With a small road you came up high, just some minutes to walk to the takeoff on nice meadow.
From beginning we had to cross two valleys, one of it is the Mur-valley. I was the last of a group, about 20 minutes behind the other pilots. I try to fly fast to catch them, therefore I flew not so high. But after a time I decided to fly another route - therefore I was able to overtake them. Already in the country Carinthia it was easy to stay high - most time I flew over 3.000 meter.
On a part - it looks very easy to fly - somehow I lost height and couldn't climb anymore. Shit - I had to left the high mountains and fly into the valley of the Tauern-highway. In Gmünd I was already prepared to land, just 200 meters above the ground. But for making meters into a local XC-comp I decided to fly further in the Malta-valley. I flew and flew, not loosing height, not gaining height, I reached the end of the valley and I watched for landing field. In front of me there were huge mountains with glacis, but I was very, very deep.
But somehow I got an idea and I decided to start soaring and I managed to climb these 2000 meters I needed to cross the main Alps. The conditions were sometimes extremely hard; once the glider start to make figures I never had seen in last 20 years! But once on the cloud basis a perfect few over the middle and western Alps was the gift for this hard work. Amazing!
Once in the Mölltal, normally a racing valley, I headed direction Lienz. I had wrong cloths, my usual harness Excite 3 comp (closed one) was lend, just thin gloves, the most time I was freezing like hell. Therefore I was happy when I was able to fly not too high. Already now, one day later, I cannot feel perfect my entire finger...
Very surprising was my harness; I used my old Skywish from Sky. It fits perfect, no pain in back, it was very comfortable. Never thought to fly so long tasks that comfortable!
In the Mölltal I made some kilometers, but the day was late and my side of valley was in shadow. To late I recognized it, that it would be much better to change the side. Some km in front of the Iselsberg, the pass to Lienz, I landed in a nice meadow.
To my surprise another pilot of our group, Richi, landed with his Ares 2 minutes ago just some kilometers behind me. He flew complete different route - but so we were able to celebrate our flight together with a beer. And Daniel was already on the way with the car - we reached home very late but we enjoyed much this day!