Another Golden Weekend

I spent part of this weekend in Golden again to get more practice in before the SIV course with Chris Santacroce in 2 weeks.

More than anything on Friday I got 2 extended sled runs in. The first one was kind of gnarly as I had my first major deflation...maybe 50% or so? I kept finding some very small punchy thermals and as I was creeping up the spine of Mt. Seven, I found myself entering and exiting these little air pockets and then suddenly missing half my wing. I just leaned towards the inflated side, and it came out on its own in a couple seconds. I was about 600 feet or so over the trees, so I didn't worry, but it was kind of surprising and gave me a little shot of adrenaline.

Yesterday there was a wedding up at launch, so we had quite the audience when us paragliding folk showed up. A couple of the guys launched, and although they maintained, I wasn't in any hurry to go as I figured things would only get better as time went on. WRONG! I don't think any of us looked to the south before setting up as the wedding guests were standing there initially, and once I did stand up there and saw rain in the distance, I thought it wise not to launch.

Long story short I ended up waiting with 2 hangies and another PG for the patches of blue behind the grey to arrive, but our patience did not pay off this time. Sitting on the hang glider ramp, we watched as our blue skies soon turned dark, and as we sat in the light drizzle, I figured it was time to go home. Hesistantly I called a friend to get a ride back down and then headed home right after.

I think I learned an important and obvious lesson this weekend - make sure do a panoramic 360 of the sky before considering launching. In the past I've done this quite consistently, but it didn't really occur to me to wander up to where our audience was standing, and look at the sky from there (the north launch at Mt.Seven doesn't fully allow you to see what's happening to the south). Nobody got caught in anything serious, but I know I missed out on some decent flying because I assumed the sky looked a certain way, when in fact it did not.

All in all the weekend was very good. I got to experiece driving a sexy blue Toyota Tacoma (Brad's truck) a couple times down the mountain and once up, which was actually really fun. I also ended up driving it back to Calgary, testing out its handling at 150 kmph. Ha ha, what a nice, smooth, ride! I think I should be a spokesperson for Toyota - I totally want this truck!