Piedrahita: days 1 & 2

Blue skies but a strong wind forecast. We headed up the hill for a hopeful early morning flight, but hope was in vain as the wind was already quite strong from over the back of the hill. Back down again then for an afternoon of cards and reading.

The evening we were more fortunate. The winds had died down enough for a bit of a westerly to come up the face, and we were able to have a bit of a soaring flight for 1/2hr or so. The wind was quite strong in the valley so glides to the landing field were somewhat crab-like! However, a nice bonus given the expectation was a non flying day, which we all rounded off at Bar Filipe for food and red stuff that is apparently drinkable providing you don't think of it as wine!

Day2 didn't look to be starting too well either with the hill covered in low cloud during the first half of the morning. Took a while to burn off, but it did to give us a good looking sky though a low post frontal cloudbase. Steve H recommended we go for staying up and going for the XC flight rather than a flight down (time moving on), though direction difficult to call. (in the end we went E against light N wind.) Slow climbs with relatively low height gains led to the inevitable fallout of pilots at stages along the way. At the pass just Steve H, Bryan, Gavin and I remained in the air. The area at the top of the quarry spine was all in shadow, and bar the odd bubble I could find no lift, so I bombed out there at the cemetary. as I packed I watched Gavin come in, looking like he was going to do the same. Ah, the sun! Gavin gets the low save and climbs up out of there - excellent low save. He, Bryan and steve go on to do a triangle, flying back to Piedrahita.

A good evening flight (they always are here). Boating up the ridge and back for an hour or so before heading out into the valley with loads of height, watching the sun go down. Must be time fo a beer! :-)