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!
This picture just makes me laugh…a friend commented on Facebook that it looks like I'm saying "I own you now!" In the summer it's sure nice to wear shorts when paragliding. But when you fly tandem, sometimes passengers accidentally kick you in the shins as they sprint off the mountain. Knee socks do the trick - pull them off before take-off & squish them down in the hot & sunny landing field. Cupcake socks found at my friend's flower & gift shop in Chilliwack - visit QuikPik for a pair of your own! Coming in to land yesterday at Riverside I lined myself up with the train tracks…in warmer weather the tracks can give off lift to extend your flight, but on this smooth fall day it was just a fun game to fly along and pretend you're Superman flying through the air (faster than a speeding train!).
Jason hadn't flown in a couple of years and asked if I'd re-initiate him into the air with a tandem. Of course! Some thermals were blowing through as we set up so I made sure to remind him to keep on his feet while launching, and as you can see from the picture he stayed strong and we flew smoothly into the sky. A few bumpy thermals in the air took us high enough to fly over to Harvest Market for the bird's-eye farmer's field tour…thanks Mark for offering to drive. Now that fall is approaching and the sun sits lower in the sky, I'm seeing a lot more shadows photo-bombing our pictures! Here's Norm & I setting up to land at Riverside, and our shadow soaring the trees for just a moment longer. There's something about the adrenaline rush from a spiral dive that sends people into fits of giggles or shouts of excitement…Natalie was no exception! A fun tandem yesterday afternoon at Mt Woodside, enjoying the peaceful air at the end of the day. The flying season isn't over yet! Lots of sunshine out here in the Fraser Valley, and September's forecast looks amazing. Come out for a tandem flight or just watch the rest of us run off the mountain and snap a few pictures while enjoying the view from our launch site. Make a day of it with some friends or family - Harrison Hot Springs is only a 10 minute drive from where we fly, not to mention visiting the waterfalls and emerald green forest at Bridal Falls, exploring Othello tunnels near Hope, and finding your way through the Corn Mazes popping up all over the Fraser Valley. Don't waste these sunny days! There's plenty of time to clean the house when it's raining in November... Another picture story - I was getting a kind of low yesterday when I saw a car driving up the road to launch. Paragliding textbooks say a car driving on a road can release a thermal, so I flew over top and was rewarded with a great save. The 4 other paragliders in the air soon joined in my thermal - everyone merged in smoothly and enjoyed the ride up together! You can click on the pictures to read the captions and get the whole story. Dave, a pilot from the UK, emailed me to do some site guiding while he was in town for a business trip. Even with the forecast winds blowing over the back, we still drove up "just in case". Martin managed a running reverse launch in the light winds, then used way more patience than I think I'll ever possess to (eventually) squeak out over 2 hours, spending the whole time only a few hundred meters over the ground! Dave and Mark ended up doing forward launches as the wind was almost non-existent at launch by now, and I caught Mark's fabulous take-off on my iPhone: |
Archives
October 2015
Categories
All
|