Paragliding in BC

Paragliding in BC

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Rat Race - Day Six



I did it again....GOAL!!!

Today's task took us over to Donato's, a local pilot's home/Landing Zone that's been a personal goal of mine to reach one day as the locals always talk about flying over there. The course was 22km from cylinder-to-cylinder and I think I was the 11th one in out of the 22 who made it in. It was a pretty good day for points so I'm sitting in the top 20 overall right now and I think I'm second woman, which is a far cry from 2nd from the bottom where I usually end up.

One of the girl's on my team threw her reserve parachute today, right when it was my turn to launch. Someone called about the deployment over the radio and although her ride down looked great it was really unnerving to watch. She threw it in a spot that's known to be fairly rough (I've seen a couple of reserve rides there over the last few years) and she supposedly landed in the only good spot around on the back of the mountain. I felt better when I heard her voice on the radio saying she was fine, but later heard they were taking her in to get checked out. One of the guys in the Race also threw today, I saw him at HQ last night so he's fine but haven't heard how my girl is.

So today was full of mixed emotions - ecstatic to make goal again but sad since I was supposed to make it there with my team mate. I did get greeted when I landed at goal by 2 other good friends who made it there first and we couldn't stop hugging & giggling...it wouldn't be the same to make it to goal & not know anyone.


Alex and I beside ourselves (and each other!) at goal

1 comment:

Alex said...

What great pictures! It was so fun flying into goal with you two days in a row! My best Rat Race ever. Thanks to you and Derek for being there to share it with me! See you next year, I hope!