California

Day 4!

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Flight log for today

Only the one flight today. 🙁

We woke up late, got out the door late…well…maybe not late, but everyone was slow. And slow was pretty good since we were all pretty tired. And the last few days we’d been 2 hours early anyway.

We showed up at Horse Canyon around 1pm. It was pretty light so we waited a bit, waited…until it got ridiculously hairy. Gusting up to 30km/h hairy. We sat on launch until 3:30 at which point we decided to swap sites and try to salvage at least one flight from the day. We headed back to Blossom Valley and I got an hour long flight from the site. (the log says half hour…no idea why 🙁 ). I was pretty tired and the ridge rules of flying with other people were reverberating in my head so had a couple scary moments and a lot of paranoia, but it worked out. Easy landing. Oh, the take-off was super shitty. Strong wind and I pulled the break to hard and it yanked me up. I got pulled up on my back and the wing flew away with me slightly upsidedown and backwards. It sorted itself out seconds later…but uhh…fun times. Only good because Bob was there to tell me it was ok. Bad business otherwise.

Took no photos today either.  Bleh.

BUT two great things came out of today. I found a show repair place that took my flight deck in and told me they’d be able to sew up the damn straps that broke. Also, had a great conversation with Guy about learning and progress and such. I felt pretty crappy after today and a few mistakes I made, but he helped pick me up.

So tomorrow, we go back to Marshall it sounds like. Nice big launch, decent sized landing. wooo!

 

 

California

Day 3!

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Day 3 was intense – I had six flights, with total airtime of 2 hours today. We went back to Blossom Valley since we had an awesome time there yesterday late afternoon. I don’t remember them all…they blended together at the end. I’ll try to enumerate them all, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to.

We para-waited for a while, as you can see from an earlier post. Eventually the wind picked up enough that we could do a decent launch. 3 of us took off, but there was only enough lift for roughly 2 passes of the ridge before we sunk out and had to head to the landing zone.

Then we had a ride back up! Blossom has a crappy trail to the top, and it’s not that high so we were hiking it before. Bob decided he’d had enough of that and drive his truck up. There were a few hairy moments, but we made it. Second flight was 28 minutes before I flew back over the ridge and got some sinky air and did an unintentional top-landing. I tried to land on the road, but ended up in the bush slightly. As I walk back, some local says “Why did you land over there?” …gaah.

Third flight was a 49 minute flight of awesome! I got up to 550m, about 150 above launch. Not as high as others in the group, but I was pretty excited! However, once again did an unintentional top-landing. Skidded along the road a bit. Bleh. Also broke my flight deck. Double bleh. The stitching on one side is almost completely out so it doesn’t stay up.

Fourth flight was about 14 minutes. I decided that if I was going to top-land, I may as well try to do it. It wasn’t good, more ass skidding.

Fifth flight was 3 minutes. Enough to take off, and try the top-landing thing again after getting some advice from Bob. It wasn’t great, but I did land on the road with grace and style.

Sixth and last flight was late and only 11 minutes. 7-10 passes of the ridge before I lost all my lift and decided to head down.

I didn’t mention it, but every single launch I did today I was happy with. It really is great to iterate on a problem until it goes away. 🙂

I’m very burnt, all of the guys are making fun of m. 😛 I’ve received new nicknames like “Bush”, “Basil” and “Strawberry Shortcake”. And I may have minor heatstroke, since I feel a little spacey. wooooo. Apparently Jeff puked out of his wing. He had a 3 hour flight, with about 4 hours of flight time total. Apparently he felt a little bad at one point. >.>

I’m just going to post links to the album and Latest Submissions for the flights since I’m getting lazy. 😛

Flights

Facebook Photos

 

California

Day 2!

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Added some more photos to the Facebook, to the same album as last night. I forgot my phone at the house today, so no Android posts! 🙁

Today was a great day that started out odd.

I woke up craving pancakes. Knowing that there couldn’t possibly be ingredients for pancakes in this rented house, I modified my cravings for french toast. Could it happen? I got out of bed and went to check the kitchen. I found everything…except for nutmeg and table syrup. I could live, begrudgingly, without the nutmeg. No syrup meant the plan was a wash. But now I’m poking around the kitchen knowingly…and people are awake…so they probably think I’m planning on making breakfast. So I should…probably make breakfast. Some quick cuts later and I’ve prepared a little egg/tomato/mushroom/cheese thing, Bob has made bacon and we’re ready to go!

We drive out to Horse Canyon for 10:30-11. When we get there, the wind is blowing hard over the back. That’s bad. We don’t fly when that happens. The guys in charge of the weather say we wait, so we took some time to take photos, go for a hike, make snow angels and throw snowballs. I tried to kite a bit, but everytime I got set up, the wind switched directions on me. About 1:30 the wind got straightened out and came in hard – 18km/h was roughly what my vario clocked it at. That’s a lot of wind. But we went up anyway, picking slower wind cycles to get up and out.

This flight was hilarious. I do a reverse launch, turn around and get ready to run…and I’m lifted up and away. I don’t even get a chance to run because the wind has decided that I’m flying now. I spent about 20 minutes soaring along the ridge before I made a small mistake. I saw the other guys had moved on and I went to join them. But I misjudged the power of the wind and ended up flying behind the ridge. I turned to fly into the wind to get back…and didn’t go forward. Hit the speed bar, turned away from the wind, no luck. So I set up to land on the road leading up the mountain. As I got within 20 feet of the road, wind rotor from the ridge spun my wing around and suddenly I’m flying into the ridge. No biggie, I land there, but the road would have been sooooo much more convenient! Spent a half hour pulling my lines out of a local bush, and then detangling them at the bottom. First flight

After that, we stood at the bottom watching Jeff, Joe and Guy have amazingly high flights. Way cool! We drove to the next site, Blossom Valley, and arrived there at about 5pm. The locals said it was probably done for the day, but we were ok with a sled run down. One after another we take off and try out the ridge. An hour later we’re still booting around this awesome little ridge! At one point I decided to try to top-land – a task requiring a lot of coordination. But I turned into an unfortunate direction and again…the wind pushed me back. I ended up on the wrong side of launch and landed in the grass again. Thankfully less grass! Picked up my wing and went back to launch! Second flight

For my last flight of the day…I launched again. 🙂 Had some issues…almost didn’t get off, really. The wind had died completely while I was mucking around so I tried a few times to do a reverse launch with no success. Finally decided to forward, which was the right choice since I left the mountain with no troubles moments later. This flight was actually a sled run though, since all the lift had died. 5 minutes later I’m at the landing zone and Guy is taunting me to kick him in the head as I try to land. I landed short. 😛 Third flight

And now I go to pull out my Ikea sofa and sleep for another day. 🙂

California

Day 1!

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Day 1 started at about 6am. Thankfully, I went back to bed for another hour. I had been warned that some people here are early risers so when I woke up, I was worried that they might be doing things. Oh yeah, I should mention that my bed is a converted couch in the living room. Comfy, but public.

Showers were had, several people made breakfast, I washed dishes and we were off to a paragliding site called Marshell. I had looked this up the other day, and it’s said to be a great novice site. It has a beautifully groomed grass landing, lots of room with an actual structure put up with picnic tables under it and all. Launch was wide enough that 4 gliders could fit across it. I was spoiled.

I decided to watch a few other people launch first. Partially because of nerves and partially because I wanted to take some photos of people doing their thing. My turn came along and I had a near perfect forward launch, a half hour flight with some decent lift and flying around with 7-8 other wings in the air, and a near perfect landing. I couldn’t possibly have asked for anything else from my first flight of the year at a brand new site!

Here’s a link to some statistics for the flight and a map! First flight

A few of us paid $10 for a shuttle back up to the top. It was windy and cold the entire day, but at least it didn’t rain and at least the clouds stayed above us so we could have little sled runs. My second flight was a quick little flight. Second to last flight of the day. Guy is on the radio telling me to stay above the sunny ridges because of thermals coming off of them. I’m on top of one that’s giving me -0.4m/s…but I want more so I go to the next ridge. Suddenly I’m sinking at -1.9…I sign and curse myself for getting greedy! I head down to the landing zone, thankful at least to have gotten another rust-removal flight in, when I find a quick little patch at 0m/s! Brilliant! I do a few loops in that before I start sinking again, and have another decent landing. Second flight

Drove back, about an hour and I sat down to deal with some photos and maps and such. Dinner is being prepared in the kitchen, lamb chops, some potatoes and a salad. I’m hungry!

If you’re reading this but aren’t on my Facebook, here’s a link to some photos. Enjoy!

 

California

First flight (of the trip, of the year)

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A really solid half hour flight for my first of the year and the trip. Easy forward launch in light wind. A good amount of ridge soaring. At one point I was above launch by a fair amount! Shortly after I passed back across launch and lost a lot of height. Ended up in a ridge valley and decided to head out to the landing. Nice groomed grass. A little less space than I’m used to, but my instructors words held me safe – “hold your base” – meaning stay back until you’re ready to land.

Just caught a shuttle back up the mountain to go again – maybe I’ll make this one longer! 😛

I’ll post some GPS googly earth maps later tonight, along with store great photos.

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California

Paragliding California – Getting there

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I downloaded WordPress for Android so now I can bother everyone who is watching from my phone!

I usually feel overburdened if I’m carrying more than a single bag or item. I make an exception for travel, obviously but I don’t like it that much. Two bags or a backpack and a suitcase are ok.

But now I’m traveling with a paraglider…I feel like I’ve over packed, even though I haven’t packed more than I would normally for a week + trip.

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