Well, I'm here in Roldanillo, Colombia and up at launch for the last day of the
14th FAI World Paragliding Championships. I've been watching from home and competition has been fierce and close between the top pilots. I'll be competing soon myself here, in the
2015 Roldanillo FAI Open, but we've come down a few days early to get ready.
Luckily the weather cooperated for the worlds, and they've had 10 good tasks and a safe week of flying. After watching all the pilots launch and fly out to a huge gaggle, I changed into running clothes and headed down the mountain to continue my X-Alps training. Of course it's possible to run right back down the road we drove up, but I was hoping to find a shortcut trail. With all the people around for the competition, someone was able to direct me to the right turnoff, and I found a steep, gravelly trail. It frequently had trail splits but they always seemed to meet up again, and within three miles I was back down on the valley floor. It was HOT...I was running in mid afternoon and looking for shade trees to get a respite. Total distance to the center of Roldanillo was less than 7 miles, making it a lot shorter for walking than the road to launch.
 |
| The gaggle flying past Los Tanques launch above Roldanillo |
Since I wasn't able to find a good map of this trail online, I figured someone else might want to know where it is as well. As long as you are willing to brave a steep last couple of miles, it's not a bad hike to get up to the Los Tanques Launch. The most dangerous thing I saw was a chihuahua wearing a soccer sweater, but he was more sound than fury!
View this Course on
MapMyRun
 |
| The gaggle streaming overhead during Task 10 of the 14th FAI World Paragliding Championship |
No comments:
Post a Comment