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!

Fall is in the air...we can feel it in the cooler temperatures and the random rain days.  As the season winds down we are still able to fly most days over the weekend, with bright sunny days mixed in with the days that clouds obscure our mountains. Diane managed to snag one of those beautiful days when she came to soar Mount Woodside and even got to take control of our aircraft!

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!

You know it's been great paragliding weather when your house is a mess and your website hasn't been updated in forever (oops)!  Coming up over the next few posts...pix from some tandems this past weekend and maybe even glimpses from some solo flights. 
First up - my neighbor finally had enough of just watching me walk back & forth to my FJ lugging my gear around.  He gathered up an entourage (we had 3 carloads drive up to launch!) had a great flight and even supplied champagne at the landing field.  Glad to help check this one off Andrew's bucket list!