Castejón de Sos : Liga Nacional

Prior to World Cup starting we had a couple of days flying with the Spanish Liga Nacional. The first task was distinctly dodgy due to howling wind over the back in Castejon, so undeterred, the organisers move us all an hour away to a new launch site near Soperún. A huge grassy hillside with potential launches every 1/2 mile still however failed to give us a chance to task safely, so true to form most of the competitors launched anyway to see who had the biggest cojones on a fly down through rotor and all sort of paraglider deflating excitement to land in the boonies.
The track to launch was about 5 miles of offroad driving so that was easy enough to make exciting blasting over hillsides and through mud. Poor Merlin looked a little shaken when we arrived!

The next day was nearly as windy but once again I was forced to remember that Liga Nacional isn't like most of the competitions we do. I usually expect the organisors to have thoughts of safety at least in the back of their minds when task setting.. not here! In some ways it makes the decision easy - No one is going to lookout for you so you have to do it yourself and make appropriate decisions. I decided to fly down after the first climb out to the top of Gallinero rewarded me with a ground speed of 70+km downwind in a thermal and stationary/backwards (obviously!) upwind. It wasn't fun and after I also realised that i had forgotten to sign in, it just didn't seem worth the effort and anguish to continue. A few had the same idea so we ran bravely away and battled the strong turbulent valley wind to arrive in the Ral landing field. Some made it, others didn't. There was a random scattering of gliders all over the valley.

The task continued in spite of increasing wind and rain on course.. what did I say about safety (!).. one pilot landed under reserve when his glider deep stalled after being drenched at the penultimate turnpoint.. and still they kept it running. Final glide was hugely exciting to watch from the goal field with pilots arriving downwind in strong turbulent valley wind. Few 'landed', many 'arrived' and some just 'crashed'!

They next day really showed us a different side to Castejon. Low cloud base continued but climbs were strong and silky. We decided to take the Vega II tandem out for a spin, not literally ;-) , and flew the task towards Pont De Suerte at cloudbase all the way. We didn't want to go too far back into the mountains because the gap between base and the peaks was closing, bumping into something hard while sat in a cloud wasn't on the agenda, although we did 'enjoy' a short " wheres it gone" moment when we lost sight of the white Omega flying with us as we both entered the white room. Two white gliders in a cloud - go figure! Gliding with the comp wings on a tandem was hugely fun & the vario squeaking away in every climb had us laughing like kids. We finally landed along with Mario Arque, caught between a choice of taking a mullering in a windy snotty leeside to pass over to Gottarta, over parking ourselves above a huge grassy meadow next to the road. Parking was an accurate description in this instance, since the valley wind was howling enough to blow small furry mammals out of the trees. Eventually, after a discussion about who was going to grab which bit of string to stop us getting dragged we touched down without drama. A quick retrieve from Jesús due to me being required in the World Cup registration meant we were back in town with a beer within the hour ... a record itself in Castejon!