Two week-ends in the sky.

Last two weeks have been nice even if the weather is still not at it's best. Saturday two week-ends ago I went to the jump called "Vuardes" with my flying mate Erwan. This jump is really nice. I like this place. Up there you have a really nice view on the Arve's valley and an awesome panorama on the mountains. The way to the exit is easy you can manage a couple of jumps in the morning if the winds isn't too strong. The exit it self is quite short, around 180 meters at the top of the trees down the cliff. You have to start to fly fast and on the fist time you jump this one it can be impressive. You have multiple lines to fly. The easiest if you fly straight to the valley or you can find some trickiest line if you fly on the left side of the cliff. You have some nice possibilities for proximity flight there. We made a two way with Erwan and I choose to buzz the trees on one of the left lines. It was a great jump ! After landing the wind got stronger and we had to forget our plans of a second jump.

Erwan jumping with style (Screen shot).

On Sunday, I went to Bex. There I joined David and Mathias to have some fun skydiving. We flew together and made some nice flights even if it was hard for me to follow them with their V4 and V5.

Skydiving with David and Mathias (Screen shot)

This week-end we could only jump on saturday. We were 4 wingsuit flyers heading for a jump at "Varan". The weather was cloudy and we didn't know how it was up there. The walk is not that hard and we meet on our way a beautiful group of ibex. When arrived at the top the weather conditions were quite bad. Julien who walked a bit faster than us was already geared up and jumped while we still could see the valley. Just after his jump the clouds came back. We had only one option left, waiting till the next hole in the clouds. It took a while and we were asking ourselves if we wanted to walk down when the sun came back. We got up and jumped quickly to avoid another hour if waiting. Varan is a huge jump, around 1900 meters. I decided to work on my glide ratio on this jump. I was really surprised once again of what I could get out of my old Ghost 2. 

Waiting time at Varan with Laurent and Erwan

12 way !

Finally !

On saturday, I could make my first high jump of the year and it wasn't a plain mountain jump.

My friend Aurelien aka Bras Noir planned for a while to organize a big way from the Criou. This week-end was the good one ! I arrived at the climb start seeing already about 6 to 7 jumper. It already made my day. The thing I didn't know at the time is that more jumpers were already on the way up. We started to walk at 9 am. The way up to Criou is quite long, about 3 hours. It starts with an hour in the forest and then 2 others directly under a burning sun. I will not complain about it coz it was so nice to finally have a day that looked like summer.

During the way up I had some nice talks with my friend Erwan and his girlfiend. We also catch up with Julien and Seb who started the walk a bit earlier than us. We arrived at the top after a bit more than 3 hours. I was feeling good not too tired and exited to see all those jumpers up there.

It was time to make a little briefing, to count how many jumpers we were and who wanted to jump alone. We were 15 on the exit, three decided to jump on their own. So let's plan a 12 way !

A part of the jumpers.
(Photo Erwan Madoré)

It wasn't really easy as for a total of 12 jumper the average I.Q. was around 12. After some times we decided to divide the 12 in two groups. One group would fly the proximity line of the jump. The other would make a flyby on a friend with a paraglider flying on the way. I choose to go for the proximity line. I had to exit second of the 12.

We geared up and got our mind into the jump. It's not that easy to get into it when you are surrounded by friends, everyone exited and a bit in an euphoric mood. I heard Chap making the countdown as I wasn't totally ready. He exited and followed him a bit in a rush. My exit went a bit unstable but I could manage it quit easily. I flew my route to the proximity part. Arriving on the fun part I saw Ferry flying under me and quite faster than me so I dived to get to my line as planned. It was just awesome, the ground passed under me so fast. I turned my head and saw Julien passing me on my right. I extended a bit my wings to gain some altitude to pass the trees situated at the end of the "proxy field".

I gained some good height and could open my parachute safely and land it without problems. After that we went to Aurelien's house and we had a nice party in the evening.

Hoping this is just the first awesome jump of a nice summer I let you check the video down here.