We're grounded again this weekend – more rain – so I'm thinking about paragliding instead of flying.
Even when I'm not flying, I love watching it. I watch a lot of paragliding videos on the Internet. I've watched a lot of landings from the shade of the one tree on the landing zone (the "LZ"). While waiting for my turn to launch, I've seen some beautiful forward and reverse launches, some tandem launches, some hang glider launches, and a couple of top landings. I even love hanging out while people kite their paragliders, especially hearing the sound as the wing rises into the air and snaps into stability.
A couple of weeks ago, I was left alone on the launch for twenty minutes or so when our instructor from iParaglide went to pick up other pilots while the weather settled down a little. As I was sitting out in the sun, enjoying the quiet and scenery, a beat-up truck rumbled into the parking lot. A bunch of young men with sturdy builds piled out, beer cans in hand, and clambered up on to the launch. Being a female alone at the top of a logging road... I stood up and tried to look friendly and confident.
"You flying?" one asked me.
"Not yet. The wind's too strong still and I'm waiting for my teacher to come back with the other students. Hopefully I'll be launching before the sun starts to go down."
"This is perfect wind for me," a guy with helmet hair says. Turns out, he's a hang glider who flew earlier and just caught a ride back up to his truck with these guys. There was no reason to walk up to launch with them, but maybe he was being a bit cautious about leaving a woman alone with these strangers. The hang gliders I've met so far have been very mannerly; two of them supplied rags and clean water and helped mop me off after I fell into some mud upon landing last year.
"Did you fly earlier?" a guy asks.
"Not yet. Two other paraglider pilots from my class did; they are stronger than I am, so they could launch in more wind."
"Cool. So, this is where you jump off?" a guy with a beer asks, peering over the edge a bit.
"They don't jump; they fly," the first guy says to him, and then to me: "This is the first time he has come up with us."
The guys, apparently, come up all the time to watch paragliders and hang gliders launch. It's a thing to do on a sunny day: drive up the mountain, drink some beers, watch people fly. I told the new guy a little bit about how paragliding works and answered everyone's questions. It was all pretty friendly, except when I got a bit annoyed with them when they set off a firecracker on launch while my wing was bundled just off to the side.
They got tired of waiting and drove off before my teacher got back, which was good because the wind never did mellow and no one got to fly again that day. Driving down from launch isn't the best way to end a day, but there are still worse places to spend a couple of hours than at the top of a mountain, looking at one of the best views in the world.
The next week, as we were packing our wings on the LZ, an old man came roaring through the field on a motorcycle. When he saw us, he stopped and greeted our teacher, Dion, warmly. The guy on the bike is Joe, the owner of the land we have to pass through to drive to our LZ. He doesn't fly himself, but he is a huge fan of paragliders and hang gliders. Before his stroke, he used to drive people up to the launch for free, just to hear their stories. Now, he is looking at buying the LZ land from his neighbour to make sure it continues to be available to us.
Dion has offered many times to teach Joe to paraglide or to take him on a tandem flight, but Joe's too worried about breaking a hip. He is happy to just watch:
"I can just spend hours watching you all fly. It's the ultimate in beauty and relaxation. It's like a ballet. When a bunch of paragliders and some hangies are up there, it's like paradise to me."
I plan to quote Joe when trying to convince a nearby city to let us launch and land in some municipal parks. What a sales pitch!
Wednesday, July 27, 2011 at 22:10 
