This is the web page of professional photographer Mario Arque who edits the spanish magazine Parapente Vuelo Libre. He also does a full analysis of each day in spanish.

Definitely the first place to go for he best pictures and most detailed report.

This has been removed due to virus problems with his page

A reasonable forecast with 15km/hr SW with base only around 2300m. However, the thermal quality of the day soon appeared to be better than the forecast. A race to goal with start gate near the Big Spine area. A period of back winds around the proposed window open time made us move the window open to 14.00hrs with the start gate at 14.30hrs. With most pilots off the hill and at around 14.20 a number of comments were made on the Saftety frequence about strong winds and turbulence. Unfortunately few of the safety or task committee gave us information about the conditions as they percieved them at that time. With a call of level 2 reaching 3 I decided to cancell before the pilots left the relatively safe area of the start point. After this they would be at the pass where the wind would be inevitably stronger. A strong wind with no sign of pilots going more than 200m above take off would have perhaps led to safety problems around the pass. Very disapointing to cancell a task with such a classic looking sky in the Ambles valley which would have allowed many to reach the 114km goal. No doubt, as always, there will be much discussion and disagreement about this task cancellation.

Task 1 Peña Negra, Sunday 12th June

A cracking day with strong climbs to aroun 2800 m and a ligth W wind. I flew tandem with bullfighter Pepe Luis Gallardos. Unfortunately we landed at Narros del Puerto about half way. Dougal managed to squeak out near out landing to finish his two weeks with us with a great flight. V. nice evening flying.
Tomorrow the Spanish Open starts which I am very much caught up in as Meet Director. So, no flying at all for me for a week.
Weather outlook is looking pretty good, so should be a good comp for them.

A very nice forecast, but quite a lot of deep Cu and a base of only 2100 – 2300m. Three of us over the pass, my Ozone M4, Matts R11 and Arnies M4. We actually went over very low, maybe only 200m above, but with gentle conditons and about 11km of NW it was fine and we manage a climb on the lee side. Not so another R11 flown by Robert from Belgium who must have lifted his legs to go over and landed soon after. A slow run either bombing in the sunshine or having to move to the edge of the large Cu developments near the low base.
Half way through the flight I had a call telling me that there had beeen a cock up with the Notam in the Piedrahita area for the comp starting sunday. A stressfull hour with calls to the top brass of the Spanish airforce from my landing field in Avila. Luckily Paul Russell back in England got me out of the problem by comming up quickly with the required documentation which has now been accepted.
Lots of pilots turning up this afternoon ( reasonable evening flying, but windy early on). I suppose it will be busy tomorrow.

A flyable day today, though if you took a snapshot of the sky you would have thought not. A classic wave forecast day with an inversion sitting around the tops of the higher mountains (2400m) and a SW flow at all altitudes, though very weak below the convective layer. Although the sky was covered in cirrus, there was enought sunlight to bring the wind onto Peña Negra. As the sunshine came out more the thermals became reasonably strong and some of the wind started to come down. I was late off as we had the President of the Provincial Government at launch with one of the local radio stations. Being a little later allowed me to get the best of it as the sun came through. Later Cristoph flew once again but conditions deteriorated with stronger winds.

After 2 days of non flying due to storms today finally came good. We started at launch with base only just above take off. The plan was to hang around on the big spine untill things improved, but we were too impatient and were soon gliding off the end at Corrals with not much more than take off height. I managed a strong climb out past the quarry on the road. Dougal also managed a climb, whilst Arnie and Cristoph missed the climb. Dougal and I went over the pass, only to land in the blue and quite strong wind in the suppressed air just after the pass. 4km downwind a big cloudscape was waiting. Oh well. Tomorrow!
A very good evening flight with climbs to 2800m.

A nice looking day, but uncomfortably breezy at launch. We took off below the Peña Negra and soon found it was just a strong early anabatic. Most of us soon pushed upwind to the small hills to the NW. Dougie and myself went cross headwind towards El Puente de Congosto on the river Tormes then back downwind to Barco. I flopped to the ground at San Lorenzo, but Dougie superstar overflew me and reached La Aldeanueva, some 6km short of a near 50km FAI triangle. Of the Belgians most landed near Piedrahita, though Tim flew to Barco as well (though skipping the other turnpoint). Reasonable evening conditions, though most of us took of when it was shadowed out and had a struggle to stay up in the now very light wind.

Wednesday we managed a quick flight from PN before windy E conditions set in. Yesterday a very very nice evening flight at Chia when most of us managed to get to cloud base, though the wind still around 20km/hr. Today a normal good day with light E and a base around 2400m. A flight towards Barco, with Gabriel getting there first and Tim and Jaques also getting there. Our Devonians flying the Tandem, captained by Dougie and co piloted by Julie started their way back from Barco but the E wind put them down at San Lorenzo on the way back. Nevertheless, a very enjoyable flight.
This morning the Astro turf was started to be glued together and is begining to look rather splendid. A couple of hours meeting for myself in the afternoon me with the polititians, the police, hospital and rescue top brass about the Worlds and Spanish Championship. Life is starting to become rather complex!

Yeserday (Monday) our first day with 6 Belgians and 2 Devonians and no flying. A nice run down the river on the rafts and kayaks, though Julie came out at the top of a big rapid banging her knee and putting her out of action today. Her other half, Dougal, had a craking flight to Barco and back to Santa Maria. Whilst waiting for the conditions to become flyable (cloud on hill and a little windy from the east) we helped shift and place a few of the Astro turf rolls. As the astro turf workers went off to lunch the wind dropped and the sky cleared giving us some classic thermal soaring, though with a base somewhat low at around 2400m. Of the Belgians only Tim, Dominique and Jaques flew, all landing before Santa Maria on the way to Barco.
The evening flight was OK, but too off to the East to make it much fun. In the photo you can see some of the Astro turf in place.
It first needs all to be placed, then glued together, and then to have a number of tons of sand spread on top.

Yesterday Pete went back to Madrid after spending too long looking at forecasts on the computer and convincing himself it would not be flyable. The thing with these days with rain and storm warnings is that things can actually take a long time for it to actually happen and allow us to have a fair amout of interesting thermal soaring. The picture below was taken as I was climbing towards base soon after take off. A very nice sky to get into I am sure you will agree. The point of that picture (as well as annoying Pete) was to photograph the huge plumes of pollen rising from the pine trees near in the valley towards Gredos. Tricky to see in the photo, but it almost looked like a forest fire as tons of pollen was hoovered upwards by the thermals. We noticed a smilar effect when flying over the back at Lastra a few days ago with the peaks covered in pines looking like erupting volcanoes.
By around 2pm the sky did begin to deteriorate to Cbs with a little rain at home later in the day.
For those who are following, our baby blue tit is still thriving. I must get to work sewing some tiny Jesses.