I had to go back and count.
3 flights today, but only 2 of them logged. If yesterday was the shittiest day of paragliding evar, today was the best. We were at Marshall again today, same as our first day.
Flight one was pretty simple. A decent launch, 27 minute flight. The neat part of it was that I once again tried and succeeded at top-landing! Marshall has 4 launches, technically. It has the main launch, a massive thing. Then it has 3 lower launches – one at 750m, one at 350m and another at like…10m for little flights. 🙂 I flew past the 750 thinking that maybe, since I didn’t know when the truck was going to be down, that I’d land at the landing zone and then hike up to the 750. So as I passed by, I checked out the hiking options. Not great – big tall ridge in front of it. However, if I landed at the 350 I could bypass most of the tall ridge and make it back up. And there was a great thermal in front of the 750 that I could use to gain some height. So I land (with no small amount of effort!) and start getting my stuff together. While I’m doing that, Jeff flies by yelling “Are you launching again?” “Yeah!” “Bob’s coming down with the truck!” Well then! I set up again and do my second flight – a tiny little 3 minute thing heading down to the primary landing.
We head back up. I have a few clean aborts on launch due to some squirrelly wind that keeps dying on me as soon as I pull up, and due to people nearby me. They take off and I take off as well. I find a little lift, but it’s not great. At about 900m I decide to travel across one of the short ridges to see if there’s any lift on the other side. I’m still within distance of the LZ, no problem. I’m traveling over a low, flat plateau when I get a bunch of lift. Afterwards I called it “Baby’s First Thermal” because this thing was so massive that an idiot (ie, me) couldn’t help me bumble into it and get lift. I knew I was doing something right when I was Guy and Tom’s wings, below, heading towards me. I topped out at 450m above launch – this is absolutely amazing. Finally the lift died for me and I decided to head back to the primary launch to see if I could top-land there. A few minutes later I do a near-perfect top-landing (my wing landed between a car and the fence – not the best position, but it was ok). I get ahold of Guy on the radio and we agree that I’ll drive the truck down so he can finish his XC triangle.
So not only did I have the fucking most rad flight ever, but I also managed to save the day with the truck and do Guy a favour as well. You couldn’t have wiped the satisfaction off of my face with a blowtorch.
Got some great photos and soon a great dinner!