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!
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.
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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. 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. Yesterday I had one of my favourite solo flights of the year. It wasn't the furthest I went and it wasn't the longest I've stayed in the air. But after a summer of teaching and tandems and having set plans (must land in 20 minutes to meet next passenger…must drive chase vehicle for student learning XC instead of launching...) I threw all "musts" away and just…flew. I took chances of gliding on to areas that may not have lift, but that also forced me away from my usual landing spot. It was glorious and fun and just what I needed to remind me that my favourite thing to do when flying alone is to go explore. And that I did. p.s. Captions with each photo tell the story. Every year, Skywalk holds a video competition asking pilots to show what they love about their wings. I had started a video to answer the question "How did you get into this? How do people learn?" and decided to enter my movie into the competition. Here's the finished product…enjoy! I probably spend more time than is practical for my business going through GoPro footage, but finding little gems like this make me smile. Catching Deb's expression of excitement as she bumped into a thermal while "driving" is priceless, and made it even more rewarding to have gone "jet setting" back to Keremeos for the day to bring the joy of flying to more new friends. After a tough hike up to launch with my full kit (no hiking gear this time!) I took a few extra minutes at the landing zone to chill on the grass and enjoy what may just have been the last of the hot summer days before packing up my Cayenne4 and starting the hike back to the trailhead to retrieve my Jeep. A picture snapped at the perfect moment (thanks George!). We are running hard, straight into the wind and our tandem paragliding wing is lifting us into the sky. A few more steps and we were flying! After playing in the sky, all pilots have to put their toys away. Luckily as a tandem pilot I can make my passengers do the work! Rudy helped fold up my paraglider after our flight this afternoon. He originally came paragliding with me years ago during the BFAR fundraisers we used to have, and decided just this morning to come out for another one. Thanks to big lift we got over the landing zone high, then did a steep spiral that left us both full of adrenaline! He finished his flight by hopping back on his motorcycle and heading back home over the Coquihalla. A full day of excitement for sure! |
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