3rd Place for Tom Friedrich at the Eigertour 2020
After 4 incredible days of adventure the Eigertour 2020 is over. Our athlete Tom Friedrich could finish the race in 3rd place together with Hanes Kämpf. Impressive places and perfect performance have given good feelings for the next competitions.
(Recap by Tom Friedrich)
The Eigertour 2020 is over. I ended up in 3rd place together with Hanes Kämpf but I think the more important things, I had incredible 4 days in this impressive scenery around Grindelwald, I have learned a lot and met so many new people and friends.
The first day of the competition started really good. I reached the first takeoff quite early and could thermal up and fly together with Chrigel to the first hut the Faulhornhütte. We took off again and headed straight towards the Schildhornhütte where I could also topland and take-off again shortly after Chrigel, Hanes and Sepp – who teamed up and led the race. At the next turnpoint Niesen, the thermals were not as good as before because of quite much shadow. I had to land in and walk up again. I pushed up a bit and caught Stanislav Mayr and Stevie on the way up, who landed a bit higher. In the evening the thermals got better again and we were able to make some distance in direction towards Wildstrubelhütte. We were lucky that the route we have chosen worked out better than the one Chrigel, Sepp and Hanes choose before. I reached Wildstrubelhütte in 3rd position and spend the night there with around 9 more pilots who reached the hut this day until 8:30 pm.
The forecast for the next day was looking quite good. We started at 6:00 am and hiked up some more meters and glided together in direction of the next turnpoint. We made some good distance in Hike&Fly style walking up some meters, gliding down walking and so on. Chrigel, Sepp and I could separate a bit from the rest of the group and we reached the next hut together.
We took off and thermaled up together, I decided to go to the right side and made a bit of a mistake and flew in direction of a wrong hut. I realized my mistake quite fast but Chrigel and Sepp were gone. I reached the next hut together with some other pilots which overpassed me in this time. Conditions got better and better and we could do 4 more huts just by landing there and takeoff again in these really beautiful and high mountains there. In the evening thermals got weaker and I had to land and do the last meters up to Eigergletscher hut on the ground. I took off again and soared nearly up to Glecksteinhütte where I spend the next night. I reached the hut in 3rd position again this day but again until 8:30 pm some more people could reach the hut the same day.
The forecast for the 3rd day was looking well in the beginning but at around 2 pm they forecasted some thunderstorms and rain. We hiked up a bit in the morning and took off 400 vertical meters over the hut in a stone ridge. It was a pretty tricky takeoff. Stevie, Hanes and myself took off up there and could pass the airspace off Meiringen just before 7 am as it was still inactive. We glided over Innerkirch and from then on we had 15 km and 1500 meter ascent up to Bärchlitalhütte. I walked a bit faster than the other two guys and reached the hut 2:40h later and took off there. After two hours of flying in really difficult conditions I had to destroy like 1000 vertical meters of height because I wasn’t high enough to pass the ridge and could not fly around the airspace of Meiringen. I landed 13 meters before the beginning of the airspace and started to hike again. I had to push again on the ground to reach the take-off before it started to rain again. And again this day right place right time. I took off again and could soar up quite high and glide in direction towards Männlichen hut.
Again 1000 meters of hiking up but after that I had a nice big portion of pasta and afterwards another glide back down to Grindelwald with Hanes who reached Männlichen as I had finished my dinner. We landed in Grindelwald just before the rain came again and hat just a bit over an hour from then on until 8:30 pm where we had to stop. We decided to go again and hiked up the last 700 meters ascent to Bäregg. Which we reached just before the required night break.
The forecast for the 4th and last day was really bad it looked like at least until 8:30 am rain. We started at 6 again ran down the 700 meters to Grindelwald in pouring rain and hiked up the last 1300 meters to Kleine Scheidegg where Hanes and I finished the race together in 3rd position at 8:40 am.
In the end I hiked more than 10000 vertical meters and 90 km in these 4 days and had so many beautiful hours in partly really challenging condition and I don’t know how many times packing and unpacking my glider.
Thank you for the nice competition.
