The wind is forecasted to be southwest, but it is coming straight in on the southeast facing launch. Weak when I first get there, but better as the morning wears on. After a few trips to check things out I carry to the top because it is steeper there and the wind is coming in.

Many of the pre-Worlds pilots have now shown up and the launch tie down chains are in place. There are cu's in the distance but it looks inverted in the valleys. There have been progressively fewer cu's over the last three days.

Scott Barrett and I agree to fly together on the radio. Derrick is supposed to join us but has hit the kill switch so he never hears us.

This is the video of Davis launching on Monday from the upper launch. The wind is almost strong enough to lift the glider off my shoulders at the top of the run, so the run isn't as important in getting the glider flying as it would be without the wind. Many pilots have launched before me taking very few steps, but I want to keep the glider on the ground for many steps. Thanks to Katarina for taking the videos.

I found a nice climb out to the west over a rocky outcropping and this also provides a great escape route, if one doesn't get up, to a nice bomb out LZ to the west, far down in the valley. Much better than the bomb out below the lower launch - the fish.

The air is reasonable for a mountain site and we climb out quickly. Scott has launched after me and heads off north about five hundred feet below me. We cross over to the next small set of hills downwind from the Laragne-Chabre ridge line near the town of Orpirrre which sits under a sculpted cliff, well known for rock climbing. It is amazing to see this twelve century village crammed up in this canyon.

Scott was searching for big lift, but I was very happy to be in happy lift, so I headed east while he headed west over the village and up the next valley getting lower and lower. He got a better close up view of Orpirre than I did as I went east along the ridge line until I found a few hundred up and waited for Scott to recover.

After a while he found lift and after getting up we headed north with Scott about 500 feet below me to a north south ridge line. I found nice lift but Scott had to keep working stuff that wasn't quite as good. After hanging around for a while I asked Scott to come with me to the "volcano" to the east. It looks like a cauldron, but is clearly a couple of ridges that meet up on the east and west sides.

I was liking the lift after getting to 8,300' under a nice cu earlier, so I followed along the downwind ridge line to find more, but had to go all the way around the back and then upwind to the south windward side to find lift again. I'd seen some pilots getting up there, but didn't want to jump across the unlandable "cauldron" to get to them.

Scott was working lift behind me, but I went on glide now back to the LZ at the campground. Of course, it was very difficult to get down there as it always seems to be. Scott flew back to the next range working weak lift there and eventually got back to our LZ.

Julia, the new young girl Russian pilot, came over after I landed to see who it was who was able to hover down in the strong switchy winds in the LZ. I guess I did something right, although it wasn't exactly clear what she found so interesting.

The terrain looks great around here and I'm looking forward to more flying and getting used to this place. We don't start competing until Thursday. Tomorrow is an official practice day.

Balasz noticed that he had a dent in his Moyes Litespeed keel right under the cross bar junction. This from a cart aerotow accident a few weeks ago at the Hungarian Nationals. He got a hold of Mart, and got a new keel from him out of the glider that Mart destroyed a few days ago.