We haven't had weather as awesome as what the paragliders had a couple of weeks ago for the Monarca Open. There has been a strong high pressure influence and the associated -blueness-. Tough to fly into the high ground without the height of better days but still heaps of fun, and certainly challenging.
We had a 70km task today with many turnpoints. A bit of a ridge run and over the high ground into the flats and back to Valle with a dogleg.
Inverted, blue, rough, but good enough to fly the task. The tense part was when I glided over the back into the high ground with much less height than I wanted. Was stuck on a small hill in rough bubbles... a sink cycle damn near put me on the ground; it was so close I started laughing. Dustin was with me in the same position and bailed around to the leeside, while I banked steeply against the trees and tried to maintain height. A solid cycle finally came through and we both climbed out to a height where we could start thinking about flying the course again.
A long smooth glide into flats brought us to the second last turnpoint, low-ish. Then the best thermal of the day, in the convergence zone, brought us up to 3700m- something more typical of this area.
Dustin and I were together in that climb, and we got so high that we went on final! I love it everytime you can start final glide before the last turnpoint, never mind directly from the second last!
Won the day by 1.5min.
Another chill'n sunset, talking with friends about everything that happened, life is good.
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