Pierre Carter takes on the Red Bull X-Alps
The race started in Salzburg, Austria, and with adrenalin pumping through his veins, Pierre raced up the Gaisberg to TP1 where he arrived leading the field and became the fastest athlete to this first checkpoint in the history of the event! Unfortunately 850 km is a long way to go through the treacherous Alps and Pierre soon found himself fighting to prevent elimination following a nasty clash with the side of a mountain slope during one of his flights
Herewith an extract from James Braid’s correspondence shortly before Pierre finally had to thro in the towel…
And yet more race drama.
After staggering to Sallien on Wednesday, we got some advice from a local paragliding school who directed us up to a launch site high above the town. Ahead of us, by about an hour, was the Venezualian
(sp?) pilot, Raul. The wind on top was strong, blowing down the valley, making any into-wind flying, very challenging.
The walkers had chosen a more direct route to the Marmolada, but the flying in that valley would have been difficult, if not impossible.
Since walking was no longer becoming an option, Pierre’s only hope would be to fly. However, by flying the dog leg from Sallien to Brunico, and then down that valley to Marmolada, despite being longer, would be much easier. So that was the plan. Pierre had a good flight from Sallien, almost reaching Brunico. We continued walking through the night to Brunico, so that in the morning, he could just hike up to the launch site at Concordia, over looking town.
Yesterday morning, we did the 1000+m climb to the top of Concordia.
The forecast wasn’t looking too good, strong SSW winds, coming from the exact direction we needed to fly. We sat and waited. The air was very inverted, not even the birds were staying aloft. Pierre launched just before lunch time and managed to get to about 2800m. However, not long after, a howling south Fohn came through, very hot and dry, making the air very turbulent and penetration almost impossible.
Pierre managed to fly about 10km into wind (only 20 or so to go to the Marmolada and the other back markers) before slope landing on the lee side of a mountain, so as not to be flushed backwards back down the valley. He traversed onto the windward side to relaunch into the next valley, but by then, the wind speed was 20+ kts. An aborted launch put his glider into a tree (luckily) and we both realised that flying the last short leg yesterday wasn’t going to be possible.
Pierre then tried to walk down the mountain, to continue on foot, but just couldn’t anymore, the pain was too unbearable. So I went up to meet him, we switched of the tracking device, and came down to a campsite in the Dolomites for a decent rest and shower. Our only option to pass the back markers would be to sneak in a magic flight this morning.
Strategy also plays an important role in race like this. Since, not only is the last team at risk of being axed, so is the second last team, whose risk is that the last guy withdraws, and then he is axed!
So we had a few stressed phone calls from the second and third last teams wanting to find out what we were planning to do.
This morning, the wind is still blowing, not as strong though, but we’d only have a window of two to three hours to fly ahead - not impossible, but highly unlikely.
The dilema is that, if we manage to pass another slow team (who is stronger than us), then they get axed and we stay in the game.
However, Pierre’s feet are in such bad state, that if we don’t get axed, we would have to withdraw in the next day or two anyway. So, to avoid the unnecessary axing of a not-as-weak team, we’ve switched on the tracking device again at the same position and will sit here until the reaper phones. This way, Pierre’s feet get a much-needed rest, and another team stays in the game.
The whole drama of the race director phoning up the last team, like in Survivor, and chopping you out the race, is not that much of a surprise to the team in question, a camera crew arrives about an hour earlier, so you kinda know that you’re getting the phone call. :-) The camera guys have just arrived.
So, we’ll be out the race in a few minutes. Our plan then is to jump in the van and follow the route to see more of the Alps (gain some experience), and catch up with the leaders ahead. We’ll be at the closing ceremony in Monaco to watch the end of the race, and for Pierre to officially receive his "king of the Gaisberg" title.
For a full post mortem on the event and what went down, visit www.redbullxalps.com