Skiing and Flying

It was a dream come true, skiing and flying on my favorite ski hill, at Revelstoke.
Mt Begbie in the back ground. Wonderful that the ski hill welcomes paragliders to fly.
I met up with Nathan from Calgary. Really fun to meet up with friends to fly with, and share some suggestions on launching and landing in skis.

Nepal

Family and Flying

I had a great 30th birthday back in the Uk with Family. My surgeon said if I focused on rehab I could spend my trip in the UK hiking and get back to flying for the summer. It was great to be home with my sisters and parents hiking and biking. Now im back in Canada and flying when the weather permits. The strange and unreliable summer is frustrating with many un-flyable days.

This is Mike and I attempting a hike and fly in Canmore. After 3 hours hike up and waiting around for another 4 hours, we gave up and hiked down in the dark. Thanks so much to Heather for helping me carry my wing otherwise i'd probably still be up there.

This is Heather, Mike and I on a trip with Mike's float plane, in near Nelson. amazing way to explore potential paragliding sites.
At home at Caurus House with Mum, Sister Sarah and Rachel.
Gordale - Yorkshire. a great return trip with dad. I was last here about 20 years ago. - seams much smaller now.
30yrs old and confused by a champagne bottle - oh dear! (Birthday in Seathwaite valley - favorite place to relax in the lakes)

Flying New Denver

We got very lucky with a flight from Idaho Peak look out, New Denver. The flight was 3 hours and about 17km. Emmanuel took some great shots.

Xenia pointed out that we need to be better prepared for these longer xc flights, including bear spray, tree extraction, extra food, spare clothing, matches, contingency plan, better communication with the retrieve person. (what else did i miss?)

There is no cell phone reception in New Denver and it pretty easy to depend to phones.
But it all worked out and we got a hitch hike back into town before dark and found our group.
Overall the best flight of my life. I am learning lots from Emmanuel, as he keeps pointing out that im missing the best thermals, but a great friend to fly with.

Paragliding

Some pictures from towing the gliders at Lillooet lake near Pemberton.

We didnt get the weather we were hoping for but got a couple of flights in.

The boat was fitted with a tow winch and a jet from Hamilton jet, chch, nz which was cool. this also made it possible to tow gliders from the beach to 3500ft in 2 runs of the lake, i found this idea pretty scary.

This is Emmanuel coming in to land, he had Jim Orava (Canadian Paragliding Champion) on the radio talking him through deep spirals, very exciting to watch.

Short video of a pretty scary take of, in stronger winds the wing comes up fast.

above, playing around at the paragliding school with CJ and Julie.

below, pictures from Doug, epic flying in Brazil.

New Denver, 1st alpine flight

Arik, Lucy, Maria and I headed to New Denver for biking and flying. there were no thermals this day but a beautiful day for a smooth ride. its a tricky take off ans it to a lot of patience from Maria and Lucy to safely get me airborn - thanks guys =)

More info about New Denver/Idaho Look Out @ http://idahopeakflyin.blogspot.com/

Its also an amazing place for biking, I will add some more pix....

Thermalling

First successful day thermalling on the new wing.

I am now hunting for a vario - if anyone knows a good place to find one, either second hand or at lower cost, please let me know.

xc paragliding

Recently I have been giving paragliding a lot of thought.

Its actually pretty tempting to walk away from a sport that takes lots of money and seams to waste endless time usually due to weather conditions.
The Okanagan valley (flyok.ca/) is a great place to progress, so im giving it one more try.

Inspired by a new friend, Arik who is keen to ride bikes when the thermals arnt working and help me out with XC, I am one a new wing with hopes of flying to cloud base and then cross country this sumer.

The video is me reverse launching the new wing (niviuk hook)



These are a couple of Arik pictures, a 2 day Bivi XC trip near Pemberton and flying high over the Vallhalla mountains near Kelowna.

Paragliding in the Fraser Valley

I learnt to fly in New Zealand 2 years ago.


Since then i have flown for 30hrs all up, which isn't much. So now i am in Canada I hope to increase my hours.

The flying in NZ is largely effected by sea breezes, where as Canada has more continental style flying. this means more thermals and more opportunities for long flights.

I got involved with the WestCoastSoaringClub (http://www.westcoastsoaringclub.com). I met Robin, the president and we got on well. The club helped me with safety checks on my gear. Then we got out flying:







This was my first picture taken from the wing. in theory you can fly a glider with you hands off the brakes and control direction by shifting your weight like a motor bike.

Letting go of the controls is scary at first, like no hands on a bike.








my lovely knee, looking down at the Landing Zone (LZ).













This is a Picture of Robin flying to the LZ.