After rather adventurous weather on the first six days of their trip, Benno Schmidt and Max Lorenz had a wonderfully relaxed end to their tour. Here is Benno's report...
Day 7
The last day of our tour was unspectacular: we woke up in the valley in the morning, as the weather had unfortunately not been good enough for sleeping on the mountain. One last hike to the launch site with the aim of flying as close as possible to the Annecy airspace to bring Max to the bus there. Using Google Earth, we quickly found a suitable landing field, which we decided to fly to ideally. In contrast to yesterday, when we had to contend with strong and stubborn thermals, the conditions today were very soft. We had to fly very slowly in a number of bumpy spots and it was only with a good dose of patience that we managed to bridge the occasional overshadowing while soaring along cliffs and make our flight to Annecy. Highlight: The ridge just before the airspace, which is always fully exposed to the sun in the afternoon and promises a juicy climb in straight flight. Flowing close to the cliff, we encountered a large group of trail runners who stopped in amazement as we whizzed past them at full speed (and climbing!).
We reached our destination on time at 4 o'clock in the afternoon (I had set myself an alarm clock so as not to miss the time to land due to all the intense flying) and destroyed our altitude with high wings and spirals, only to touch down happily on our landing field shortly afterwards. How wonderful to reach our goal once again on the last day, how elegant to travel to the bus with the paraglider! Fulfilled and awestruck by the experiences of the last few days, we packed our seven (hundred) things, swung the now familiar heavy rucksack onto our backs one last time and treated ourselves to a final dip in the lake to wash off the sweat from the hike. A wonderful end to a wonderful tour!
In conclusion, I can only echo the thoughts from day 6: How can it be that such a small pack on our backs allows us to glide through the air like birds, gaining height and landing effortlessly on the highest mountains? It will never cease to amaze me that such a thing is possible. Awe and gratitude fill me when I think about it: the age-old dream of flying has come true for us. What a privilege, what a miracle!