Tuesday, May 13, 2014

On a thin line...

About the 10th, 11th and 12th of may (from camp 20 to 22)...

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you must have understood this : our daily life is bound to constant decision making, as of deciding to depart, or to rest, in relation to weather forecasts and observations on location. Also it's all about the choice of the wings we're using, when, how long of a line we use, or the bearings we go...

Those last days choices were very difficult, and we're not that happy about our decision. This hasa created a bit of a frustration, as you can read in the daily report (below this article). During 48 hours we have set up camp 3 times ; between the first and the last of those camp, only 5 km!

First we tried to get going with a weak wind, in order to grab even a few kilometers, but so we could keep progressing. Even with 70m long lines on our biggest kites, nothing happened, and we had to set up camp after 300m.
Then we took off in the middle of the night, at the coldest hour, using the growing "catabatics" on our 70m long lines and our biggest wing ; we figured that was not the best of choices, and everything got tangle. The time to fix we started to get very cold feet. We just had to stop, get back in a warm sleeping bag, and get better ; this was just a question of safety : our "orange" alert light within ourselves turned on ; that was the only wise decision for our feet to prevent frostbites and such.

When conditions get extreme (storm, glacial winds....) the line between success and failure is very thin ; it doens't need much to mess everything up. On a thin line. We had one knee down...

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.