Mt Blanc Toplanding 2012
They did it again, this time we heard that a total of around 100 (!!) pilots thermalled and soared up to and above the Alps highest peak.
A few Pilots reached the summit already on Sat 18th in harsh, tricky and windy conditions and on Sun 19th (which had way less wind on top and hence better and easier to use thermals) a recordbraking 50 to 60 pilots and even some tandems (!) toplanded directly on or very near the summit at 4810m. Base (for non pilots: the highest height the thermals and updrafts would carry you up) was at a confirmed 5300m ... wow what a weekend !
Here is an excellent video of Stephane Boulanger from the 19th literally taking you to the top with him, we will add other pilots videos as soon as they are online
and the first tandem vid that we stumbled upon:
and Gael's "how to" video ,-)
and thats how you do it on foot. in style. ,-)
Here is our very personal "best of" selection of other pilots vids from the 19th:
A link to Ulli's Page describing his 2011 "almost landing on top close flyby circumnavigation" which gives a very nice and in deep intro to the area and its difficulties due to the July / August no fly zone on the french side of the Mt. Blanc http://www.ulrichprinz.de/air/fr/mtblanc/index.html
Also dont miss this fresh 2012 writeup from Jon on his Sat 18th toplanding - very very impressive stuff !
http://jonrchambers.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/the-big-white-one.html
XC Mag's quick report, very funny read, especially the Felix Rodriguez bit who reportedly flew his acro wing and infinity tumbled back to the landing, they also mention that one pilot flew his XXlite single skin proto to the summit (probably he wanted to be on the safe side in case he couldn't take off again and had to carry it down (just wild speculation of corse ,-))
http://www.xcmag.com/2012/08/50-pilots-topland-mont-blanc-as-chamonix-sees-record-day
A few nice pics from gael lafond:
A slideshow from Sylvain Gattini, unbelievable, the summit looks like beeing invaded by paragliders, imagine you did the 6 hr climb from the gouter hut and then this.... ,-)
http://sylvaingattini.blogspot.fr/2012/08/pose-au-sommet-du-mont-blanc-4807m.html
The tracklog of one pilot who took off from brevant on the 19th, only the part above La Gruvaz looks a bit weak (probably took some time to make it through the lower inversion layer), the rest of the flightpath looks relatively straightforward right up the ridge from the gouter hut, from the track it looks like a piece of cake but probably wasn't that easy in real life...
http://parapente.syride.com/profilRider_ajxDetailSession.php?idSession=2526
and another one, looks even easier
http://www.livetrack24.com/live_show_track.php?trackID=193190&2d=0&2d=0
stay tuned, more to come in the next days...
PS: General info about Mont Blanc can be found e.g. here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mont_Blanc