NE wave 9000 ft

The forecast brisk NE wind made conditions on the field a bit sporting!!! During the morning, Cu bubbled up nicely with no sign of the cursed wave – Hoorah! The forecast also predicted cloud increase by Midday. I took the second launch onto Troed in my recently returned, refinished and fettled Nimbus. The ridge was working well and the thermal climbs were vigorous. My plan was to push up wind to Hay Bluff and to use the Pandy ridge, but that wasn’t possible on the first attempt so I dropped back on to Troed. And lo, the sky changed, the Cu disappeared and the wave set up, curses.

A broken climb to 6000ft and the sky changed again with a sudden build up of cloud, I spiralled down through a closing gap – no drama – just being cautious. Once below cloud base I had enough height to reach Hay Bluff, the Cats Back was working well but I felt that the wind needed to be more Easterly for the Pandy ridge to work – no problem to reach Hatterall Hill, but getting back might be an issue. On the other hand, reaching the Blorenge would be a breeze (down wind) then the Llangattock ridge would get me back to the Cwm Du or onto the Beacons.

And so it came to pass, on returning to the Cwm Du, the sky had opened up again, the wave was better organised and I climbed to 9000ft. The wind decreased above 8000ft and so did the climb rate, there were good looking wave bars to the North but nothing went as high as in the Cwm Du.

Clarkie