Canadian Paragliding Nationals

I am SO glad I registered and was able to partake in the Canadian Paragliding Nationals this year. I probably learned more during that week than I have in the last couple months flying somewhat sporadically. Committing yourself to a competition like that forces you to revaluate the decisions you make and then have to justify them to your fellow pilots when you land early!

We had fantastic weather all week, and other than one day where I decided launching was not a great idea (along with 10 other pilots or so), I flew every day. The conditions were definitely ass kicking and gut wrenching at times, but I suppose that is part of the allure of paragliding in general. I had two flights were for the first time I felt physically sick being rocked around and fighting with the controls. I never had any major deflations all week although here and there I had some 20 or 30% deflations which always seemed to come out on their own – damn, my new wing is fine!

The first day I made the crucial error of missing a waypoint I could have easily tagged, leaving me with fewer points than I would have otherwise earned. On another occasion I started flying the task when the task window hadn’t opened yet – I’m learning! Over the next few days I’ll write more about the Nats and the Willi XC Comp., but for now I will retell one of my more interesting stories of the week.

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Horny Autistic Horses
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On the second day of the comp, I landed about 12 k’s or so from the regular landing zone and while picking my field to land in, decided to land in one next to a field with horses. I did this intentionally as I had heard warnings about horses getting spooked by paragliders, so out of respect for our saddled friends, I aimed for an empty field adjacent to the horse field.

This narrow field was technically difficult to land in, but I started to feel quite smug as I did my final flare to land just on the edge of it. Well! My final flare ended up being inside a small thermal which picked me up over the fence and had me land just inside the horse field. My feet barely touched the ground when one horse came screaming round the corner of a building towards me, running back and forth, going on its hind legs, and just overall acting completely out of its mind! I started feeling somewhat intimidated by this, so I slowly unclipped myself, walked away from my glider and jumped the fence, hoping that the horse would calm down.

Instead, the horse started running around more and more frantically and must have somehow telepathically communicated to his friends and that he needed company, so another horse jumped a fence to get into the field this lead horse was in, and his other friend came running full speed, round that same initial corner as the first horse. At this point I was staring at three horses running together around this field around my glider, going all over the place, and looking like they would crash into something or each other at any second.

I was really starting to get worried these horses would hurt themselves and that I would have to take advantage of the three million dollars third party liability insurance HPAC offers, so after a few minutes of watching, I got on the meet frequency for the competition, which is technically only supposed to be used for emergencies, and asked for any advice on what to do with spooked horses running around a paraglider. Surprisingly, a woman on the other end in a calm, slow, gentle voice responded by saying, “Just talk to them. They like to hear human voices”…

So! I start talking to these horses who immediately stopped running around my paraglider which was now moving around a bit in the wind, and which now also appeared to speak. I slowly started edging my way back towards my gear, gathered it up as quickly as possible, and packed it away a good, safe distance of probably 100 feet.

As I was walking out of the field, I noticed that the landowner was sitting on his patio, so I thought it fitting to let him know I landed in his field and to thank him for it. I ended up chatting with him and his wife for at least an hour over a nice cold beer, only somewhat casually mentioning that the horses saw me land but they seemed okay.

Later that day I was told that when I asked about the horses on the meet frequency and got probably the most hilarious response possible, the entire valley filled with paragliders must have broken into laughter. I suppose having your concentration in rough air disrupted by somebody asking for advice on crazy horses at an FAI paragliding comp is not very common.

Most pilots thought it rather odd that these horses were so spooked by my landing, but one did have a pretty logical explanation: I must have landed in a field full of frisky male horses who were very excited to see a female paraglider pilot, and almost crashed into the fence, the buildings, and each other because they were autistic. Makes perfect fucking sense to me!