My forecast (I may be the only one using XCSkies here) was for generally light lift, low top of the lift, no cu's, basically stable. The winds were going to be 10 knots out of the south at altitude. The meet organizer's forecast from meteo France was significantly different, but looking around you could see that it wasn't going to play out, other than perhaps the alto-cumulus.

Based on the official forecast they called a 77 km task. I doubt if anyone made it. Hard to know for sure. The air was stagnant and it was hard to see the distance Alps from launch, while on the proceeding days they had been bright and clear. There was an inversion yesterday, but now it was much worse. The sky was milky white. There were some alto cumulus but they were hard to distinguish in the murk.

Folks waited around a long time before launching. The wind was coming in nicely at launch just as XCSkies showed it would. I got off about fifth, and headed west to the knoll. I was below launch quickly and had to work whatever I could to stay up enough to find good lift. This was the weakest day so far.

Once I got above the ridge line the lift improved. I had seen a few pilots head west along the ridge line to stay in the lift and stay out of the entry start circle which started 1 km behind launch. I headed that direction also, found good lift and climbed to 6,200' while waiting for the last start time at 2:40 PM. There were about half a dozen of us including Scott Barrett who it turned out didn't have the task and didn't know the start times.

Scott headed out ten minutes early and when I headed out I could see him turning in front of us just past Orpirre. I left the start circle on time, but the guys with me held back a bit and got a little higher so they came in above me with Scott.

We didn't find all that much lift over this ridge so they headed on to the north toward the turnpoint up the north south ridge line and the towers, where I had been the day before. I followed a few hundred feet below them. This was an error. I should have just hung out in the lift and got higher first.

I didn't have enough altitude to make it to the very peak of the ridge line and the tower turnpoint, so after flying up half the ridge line I turned around and searched for lift finding weak stuff on the east side, the cliff side. I got stuck there for almost forty minutes.

Attila and Radek came along as I was finally getting up and I headed toward the turnpoint from below it. I would never get up to it but I came close enough to it below it to get it next to the cliff face, then headed north along the cliffs to ward the next turnpoint. A few kilometers past the turnpoint, I found the good stuff, 600 fpm to 7,300'. Looking back I could have just taken the turnpoint in the first place flying past it when I was originally heading for it and not wasting time in zero sink trying to get above the turnpoint.

Attila headed out toward the second turnpoint and I went with him about five hundred feet over him. We glided over a couple of ranges and valleys toward the mountain top turnpoint, not finding much lift. There was Scott Barrett turning slowly over a cliff face, so we joined up with him, but didn't get much. He was coming back from the second turnpoint.

We headed over low to the second turnpoint and had to squeak it out through a cut in the ridge line to get onto the side of the mountain with a good open valley. No luck there as we all slowly lost the lift and landed nearby. I saw a "KAVU" glider in a large recently mowed field and landed next to Jeff Shapiro.

A really fun day, if hard to make the goal. Lots and lots of beautiful scenery, many mountains and valley to cross. The light lift was refreshing and fun to fly in. The strong lift got less rough, the higher one got away from the mountain tops.