Just back from Navarra and I want to go back again - NOW!
2 tasks were flown from the South launch of Arangoiti and it will stick in my memory as probably the best place I have ever flown. For me it has everthing a flying site could possibly need - grassy launch, flats out front and for 50km + heading east, a lake to trigger thermals, hundreds of vultures and then the Pyrenees mountains, real big ones, not just little ridges and stuff. Some of the peaks are 3000m+.
We launched from the south facing rocky ridge that looks like it should work just like a ridge does - it doesn't! There was no point trying to soar it and little point trying to creep up it in small thermals as for some unfathomable reason it just doesn't work like that. Getting up was real easy by heading out towards the bluest blue lake I have ever seen and hooking into thermals marked by towering gaggles of vultures. The out & return section of the 1st task was the most challenging getting to the end of the ridge and running back to the antennas at launch before heading on course into the Pyrenees. Conditions were generally light so getting high wasn't easy but we bimbled along at under 2300m for most of the flight. Once into the mountains it was a little easier to get altitude but not greatly so. I was skimming over high grassy ridges a little too close for comfort a few times but managed to flop over into the next valley and out again right up to the last tp. It was late (19:30)and I just couldn't escape the highest pass so far with my lack of altitude so landed after 74km and 4 1/2 hours in the air. But boy did I land happy! It was truly an amazing flight through incredible scenery - the #1 flight of my life. Day 2 saw stronger conditions at launch that deteriorated into weaker conditions on course. Again a large number of pilots soared all the way to the ground in front of launch. Out in the flats things were working well up until my final glide. Everything was looking oh so good for the 12km glide into goal until it suddenly wasn't and the whole gaggle was on the ground 8km out :-(
Its a bizare experience to be in one of the best gaggles with guys who regularly win tasks outright and then find yourselves 'tractor-beamed'to the ground, kicking mud watching a squadron of 1/2 gliders fly over your heads 45 minutes later! The humbling side of paragliding!
I know I did the right thing staying with the gaggle against my own instincts. I was so tempted dart out into the flats to cruise in but it did make sense to max the glide and time by following the mountains. Sadly it just didn't work for us... this time!
It was one of the most fun and definitly one of the best organised competitions I have been to. After a full line stretch on day 1 my glider is going really well, I just need to adjust the speed-bar now before Piedrahita and then hopefully all equipment issues will be resolved.....hmmmmm, for sure I'll manage to generate some new ones though over the coming weeks ;-)
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