Dreams of Invermere

What a great weekend I had! Flying, friends and adventure - ahhh, superb.

Saturday was an exciting day. First up, I did a tandem that went well and was enjoyable as always. I've had nothing but great pilots as passengers so far and maybe that's making me spoiled, but it's certainly not any hard work flying with people whose company you enjoy - I hope all my future passengers are just as nice, and know how to run properly!

After that, we all went back up Seven and after some very short parawaiting, I decided to launch; some pilots were maintaining and the (very) scattered clouds indicated to me that the day was working - time to go! I launched, got a great thermal off launch, and had a buddy to get over to the peak of Mt. Seven with. Oooooh, the view, check it out!!!

I flew over to Pegliarrow, where I wasn't very high, but got another boomer just above the cliffs which took me to 3300m. Images of drinking beer and eating ice cream in Invermere (110 k's from Mt.Seven) came to mind, so off I went downrange. Peak to peak I skipped, marvelling at the view (even though it was inverted and therefore hazy) but wow, even when the thermals were rough, I couldn't help but bask in the beauty of the Rockies.

After an hour and a half or so, I got below the inversion and decided to push forward anyway after flying through some weak thermals. Then I found myself in a bit of a precarious situation...

I flew over a spine of a mountain and was flying infront of a peak when I got low, but the venturi made it a lousy spot to get stuck. There was a spine on both sides of the mountain and as I got lower, my indecision started costing me altitude and finally after cursing my own stupidity, I flew towards one of the spines and when I could feel a bit of lift, I flew min sink, not daring to thermal as I didn't want to get pushed to a place I didn't want to be. For a few seconds, thoughts of tree landings crossed my mind as the image of the spine raised in my field of vision, but a bit of outloud reassurance and confidence got me out of there and into the valley.

After feeling a bit frazzled, I dribbled a few k's downwind and landed in a long field next to the highway somewhere around the 40k or 45k mark. Not quite to Invermere, but for a tricky day (sheer layer between NW and W winds), not too shabby.

After that, a bunch of us got together and went for a memorable sleddie. Sometimes it doesn't take much to take what would otherwise be a pretty neutral flight and turn into something very special...

And this morning?! Well, I went tandem on a hang glider! No, I'm not crossing to the dark side, but wow, what a great experience! I'm hoping to get some pics off someone before I blog further about it, but I will say that although it was definitely a lot of fun, paragliding is still better!!!!!!!!!!

To date, this weekend was probably my best ever in Golden; Invermere didn't happen, but in the end, it didn't really matter.

Technicolor Hangies

At the risk of being very unpopular among hang glider pilots, I’m going to point out how last week in Golden there was this one hangie pilot who had a bright pink glider and wasn’t afraid to be suspended in a harness that had stars and moons on it. Yes, you read that right – stars and moons! And you read that first part right too – neon, bright, Pink-Panther coloured glider! Imagine the contrast between the two! Forget the 90’s ski suits I laughed about in a previous post – I’ve never seen a paraglider pilot don pyjama patterns on their equipment before!

Or what about this? Wear those colours with pride my friend!

Ahhh, the entertainment. God Bless You, Hang glider Pilots!

Crazy Air? Relax!!!

On my last day in Golden, with the Willi XC finished (where I got 3rd place PG Intermediate - yay for me!) the conditions looked great! Nice and hot in the valley and nice cues forming above the peaks. After taking a nap at launch, there was suddenly a mad rush to get off the hill as somebody had found the first decent thermal of the day and the xc window had suddenly opened...

I'll say it - most paragliding flight stories are boring, so rather than talk about how I took a climb here and how I flew there, I'll sum it up by saying that I have great respect for Golden as a flying site, and it's a place that I fly on high alert all the time because I find it intimidating...I'll only push it so much out there.

Climbs weren't insanely strong - my best climb was +5.5 m/s which for Golden is not particularly noteworthy, but I found the thermals to be extremely punchy and I've never had to "manhandle" my glider in flight the way I had to that day.

Most lift was the kind where your glider drops back and violently surges in front of you and as you're breaking the dive, the thermal feels like it's going to snap your lines and rip your puny glider to shreds! I didn't get any big collapses, but I was also flying as actively as ever. My wing still oscillated however and I definitely felt like I was being shoved around as the lift pushed me this way and that.

After about an hour and a half of flying and covering a bit of distance, I had visions of going home and finally sleeping in my own bed, which sounded more enjoyable than flying through crappy air, so I flew back to the lz (ok, so I didn't make it quite back - thanks for the ride Thomas!) and landed. There were a surprising number of pilots on the ground - bags and hangies - who also landed because they felt the conditions were a bit too rowdy. I'm almost certain however that some pilots flew very very far that day - finding lift wasn't really much of an issue as it was more (for my anyway) about staying calm mentally and convincing myself to continue to fly.

I definitly had to say to myself outloud to "relax" a few times, as sharp pointy rocks are not things I like to fly over when my wing feels like it wants to control me. In the same conditions in a treed area, yeah, giver! Mentally it's not half as intimidating flying through that kind of crappy lift over trees then when you've got cliffs and shear rock faces that would be a total bitch to land on under a reserve; Chances of injury throwing a reserve over trees? Minimal. Chances of injury throwing a reserve over rocks? Enough said.

It's all about finding your limit, recognizing it, and pushing it incrementally. I landed because I didn't feel comfortable with the conditions, and that's good. Scaring myself into being a better pilot is not the route I'm interested in taking.

I'll head back to Golden again sometime this month to try again for my 100k's - hopefully this time I'll gather the nerve to whip out my camera and take pictures of the peaks from above the summit of Mt.7 - the view is absolutely spectacular. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again...

Random Pics

Too tired to write about roller coaster-like flight today, but came across these:

Your future tandem pilot...I sat on my Camelback, I swear!

No waaaaaayyyy...there are actually people under 50 in this sport?!?!

Yeah, go Mt.Seven rainbow!

Bedtime for me!

3 Tandems = 1 Rewarding Day

Last night a few of us got together at a tandem pilot’s place and after a few drinks, he suggested that I take him XC the next day. I really hesitated as his height intimidated me a bit with launching and I sort of pictured having troubles landing in some postage-stamp field in the middle of nowhere. Anyway, he assured me that as a local, he was quite aware of the different landing fields between Golden and Invermere, and that landing fields wouldn’t be an issue, but I nevertheless decided to sleep on it.

After considering the different pilots I could ever take XC out in Golden, I ultimately realized that he was at the very top of the list, and that especially as a tandem pilot himself, it was a good opportunity for me learn and be critiqued. So, first thing in the morning I did a nice sleddie with one of the hangie pilots and then went back up to launch for my first XC tandem.



We didn’t have any problems launching as there was a nice 8k’s of wind or so and I found it quite amusing as he ran down the hill and I flew behind him already airborne, just controlling the wing. Hee hee, get your passengers to do the work if you can – saves you some energy!



Anyway, we scratched around for 20 mins or so around launch in some disorganized lift, which was good for me as I had a better idea of how the wing turned and handled and then we headed out towards the spine of Seven. Whoosh! Up we went in a sweet thermal which brought us level to the summit of Mt.Seven. After gliding past Willi’s Knob and past the cliffs of Pegley Arrow without much more than very weak lift, which we tried to work, we headed out towards the valley and landed just past the 15k field – not too shabby! We were soon joined by another 2 pilots and a third glided maybe a k or so past us – so, we definitely weren’t alone in finding the sink. Very cool to land out with everyone in a tandem.

I just finished taking a third person up for an evening sleddie which went very well except for the fast landing, which seems to be my biggest hurdle these days. I got some great tips from the tandem pilots out here this evening, so hopefully fast landings won’t be an issue anymore.

Tomorrow is the last day of the Willi XC Challenge and the forecast looks good – one last shot to kick ass!

Tandems Are Sweet!

Ahhh, Golden weather - it's much to be desired this year! Rain and wind have put a downer on the Willi XC comp. We've all been flying here and there, but over the last few days it's been difficult to fly any sort of reasonable distance. Yesterday was howling and the day before that it was sort of marginal with cloud suck although a couple pilots did fly something like 30k or 35k...I wasn't inspired and decided to stay on the ground.

I managed to sneak in 2 tandems yesterday which was sweet. Launches are really coming along and the landings are slowly getting there too. Of course, the flying part is just fun.

Tandem out in Vernon, BC

Tandem out in Golden, BC

My sexy wing!

Trying to hit the lucky 7

I'm half way to my Tandem 1 rating - only 10 more tandems to go! Realistically I'm not sure I'll be able to do more than 3 before I go home in a few days, but I sure will try. The forecast looks pretty dismal for today and tomorrow, and I'd love to do some proper XC as well as tandems, but as usual, we are at the mercy of the weather and there's not much you can do when it just plain sucks!

Spirits are a bit higher and the friendly flying community atmosphere are making things as good as they can be. C'mon weather, give us a break please!!!