Thanks Crysti for sharing this photo from our flight together!
Paragliding:
a visual journey
Follow along with us as adventurers take to the skies for the first time on a tandem, learn valuable paragliding skills or even catch a glimpse of pilots just goofing around!
Who wants to come paragliding? This past weekend, Crysti and her dog Jane were the latest to try flying for the first time. It was a first for me too - first time taking 2 passengers at once, and first time taking a dog! Little Janie loved sitting up front in her "harness" (Crysti had her clipped in snug inside the front mount backpack) - the next day when Crysti said "do you want to go flying?" Jane's ears perked up and she looked as if to say "Oh, please can we go again?". Of course Crysti loved it to and will be coming for another flight soon.
Thanks Crysti for sharing this photo from our flight together!
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A couple of weeks ago I got to hang out with a super fun group and take two very excited bloggers for tandems. Lucky for me, they brought along a professional photographer (www.yingerdesign.com) who happily shared his pictures of that day that looked like THIS! Wow! The cherry on top was this article written by that tiny and giggling lady running her heart out behind me in this photo. I will definitely be sharing more pictures from their weekend of adventures!
Yikes! It's been too long since I've posted...must mean we've been having too much fun! I got to take my old co-worker Kathryn tandem this last weekend on her birthday, we lucked out as the weather got squirrely afterwards and we postponed the next mystery passenger's flight. Here's a little video showing how easy it is to take the controls and how soft landing can be: With a block of 3 days off in a row, Damian was ready for his first flight on his shiny new Skywalk Tequila 4. With a sporadic training schedule due to being an airline captain, finding time to train has been a bit challenging. Only being able to come out once a week (or even less!) to kite, it can be hard to build up that muscle memory. But Damian was committed to becoming a paraglider pilot, and today he got his first flight off Mount Woodside, and even 2 more after that! The only reason we stopped at three flights was the horrible smoke we have hanging around in the valley due to nearby forest fires. Despite the fact that I was holding my iPhone without looking at it, I managed to get him in most of the video! Thanks Andrei for coming out to help guide him in to land. Back at it tomorrow! Celebrated last year up in the skies at Bridal Falls...will we get to do the same this year? Winds look iffy but there's always a chance!
Fitting that today is Throwback Thursday, as I'm finally getting around to writing about last Thursday's fly day! As part of this awesome week/month/year I was approached by a girl who works for Red Bull about taking some photos for a special project she was working on. She asked me because Skywalk is a sponsor of the Red Bull X-Alps this year and I just happen to be a local Skywalk Team Pilot. She wanted some sunset shots if possible, which is perfect since the Bridal Falls flying site works best in late afternoon until the sun goes down.
She hasn't shared her shots yet, but I did get a screen grab from my trusty GoPro "shadow-bombing" her with my paraglider. You can't really see but she was laying on the rock right where my glider's shadow is. I flew for an entire hour back and forth in front of that rock at different altitudes trying to get her the perfect shot. It was a whole new style of flying - trying to stay at the same height for an hour was a cool challenge! That's one of my favourite things in this sport that keeps it exciting...you will never, ever know it all. The last 2 weekends have been filled with tandems, and with this nice weather May is booking up quickly too!
What happens on a tandem? It's up to each passenger - some ask lots of questions and it's quiet enough up there for us to chat. I talk with my hands a lot...it's no different when flying apparently! Saturday was an epic flying day, but of course I forgot to turn on my GoPro so no pictures. Sunday was forecast to be similar, and it was like a class reunion with over 20 pilots coming out to fly at Bridal Falls (which is a lot for our area!). We heard others on the radio across the valley flying at Woodside too. And even though the conditions weren't as nice as Saturday, it was still fun to fly with friends again and get back to exploring this lovely area.
For some, the Easter long weekend means time off to relax. For me, it's been a non-stop weekend of awesomeness (aka paragliding work). First an exciting tandem job involving flying a stills photographer for an ad campaign (I'll post pics and details as soon as they give the ok when the ads are released in about 6 weeks) and then on Sunday a perfect kiting day for teaching one of my latest students. We went to the "bunny" hill and although we didn't find any chocolate, we did run around and laugh just as much as the kids hunting for goodies from the Easter Bunny!
Thanks to Tyler who sent in this clip of yours truly flying the Canadian Flag at Bridal Falls on Canada Day last summer! |
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