11th Dachstein Alpen-Trophy

Our first balloon meeting in 2004 was also a jubilee: For the 10th time already, we and our model balloons were the guests of Gosau am Dachstein.

At first, weather showed us its nasty side: This was the view out of our window on Saturday morning.

It snowed all day long, so that we had to spend the time with other activities: Snowball fights, watching balloon videos and exploring the snowy village.

From left to right: Werner Schlegel, Peter Heinzel, Markus Höpfler, Bastian Schwarz, Martin Eutermoser, Alexander Schmiauke and his girlfriend Corinna.

On Sunday morning, the weather was beautiful, just like it is typical for Gosau, with lots of sun. Now, we had to face another problem: The snow was so deep that we sunk in up to the knees, what made it impossible to chase the balloons through the landscape.

So, the model balloons were first put up on the prepared launchfield. We were 16 balloons altogether this year, more than ever before. Model balloonists had come to Austria even from Magdeburg and Cologne with their balloons.

All model balloons - one might think we're slowly outstripping the 'big' balloons ;-)
But with almost 40 teams on the spot, they were a *little* bit in majority...

The penguin felt quite comfortable in this winter wonderland.

By the way, most of these photos were taken by Luc De Wulf, thanks a lot, Luc!

Our little D-Dino also got the chance to take a flight, together with the blue elephant of Martin Eutermoser.

Finally, on Sunday afternoon, I took our 3900 cu ft envelope 'D-MINI', filled the basket with gas bottles and took off for a long distance flight.

Winds were slow, however, and so I had enough time to follow the balloon in a roundabout way - to follow it directly was impossible due to the masses of snow.
So I kept to the roads and courses.

After over an hour and 2 miles of flight, gas was getting low, and so I decided to go down near the 'Kirchenwirt' restaurant.

This marked the end of our weekend: After having had a 'Kaiserschmarren' in the mentioned restaurant, we got on the road home to Pforzheim.