WHY I LOVE… TENERIFE

WINTER GETAWAY The south of Tenerife is a protected microclimate, allowing flying all year round

Photo: Christian Gruber

WHY I LOVE… TENERIFE

At just 20 years old, Jack Pimblett has spent the last three years making a mark on the paragliding world in both XC competitions, and flying and now teaching acro. He can regularly be found training in Tenerife in the Canaries.

Where do you fly locally? I spend a lot of time based out of South Tenerife, near Adeje. Within that area you have a whole cluster of awesome sites: Ifonche, Taucho, Los Pinos to name a few. There are also some brilliant sites just 30 minutes further north towards Santa Cruz called Guimar and Izana.

What’s good about it? Tenerife is flyable nearly every day of the year. Due to the prevailing wind, shape of the island and 3,700m volcano, El Teide, the south of the island is very well protected, meaning that it creates its own microclimate. It can almost be hurricane force winds in the north yet somehow the southern sites can have light breeze.

It’s incredible. The reliability is just one aspect of the island’s features – most sites are easy to get to, friendly and with a clear landing within reach. Tenerife is a place that has something for everybody, no matter whether you want a quick top-to-bottom to quench your thirst or you prefer to stretch your legs and fly some cross country.

What sort of flying can visiting pilots expect? There’s a massive range of flying, everything from coastal flights, soaring, thermalling, cross country – it has it all.

It’s rare to find a place like this, where in one day you could be doing a top-to-bottom from a 2,200m take-off to land at sea level in the morning, soaring at another site along a tree-lined ridge in the afternoon, then a 30km cross country to find yourself landing at the beach to have dinner watching the sun set.

The island is small but there’s still the potential to string together some high scoring triangles and improve your technical flying.

Photo: Christian Gruber

When’s the best season? It’s flyable all year round but the best time is November to March. Often the autumn, winter and spring months are great for flying. However, during the summer months the air in Tenerife can become really quite stable. That just leaves ridge-soaring options.

What are your insider tips? If you are going to stray away from the safety net of the planned landing area, then try to keep a few areas to land in mind at all times. Landing areas can be limited and, due to the island being volcanic, they can be rocky and not the best areas to land in. There are very few places in the world where you find such variety and concentration of sites in such a compact area. You can experience so many different flying styles in a short time and the fact it is a place to escape harsh winters makes it even better.

IN BRIEF

Best time: November to March

Online info: skyoftenerife.com, paraglidingpark.com, para42.com