Happy Thermals are back!

We've had a pretty mild winter here in BC. In paragliding terms that's meant easy access to the launch sites (no snow) but also only sledders for the last 2 months. Ok, that's a lie. I've actually had a couple of flights over an hour but they were serious work. Tight, tiny bullet thermals off the clearcuts that you hog because they're the only things keeping you from the LZ, and then you end up with fingers & toes that have turned blue from the cold.

Fortunately last Thursday reminded us what spring has in store for us. Although it was an east wind day (which means challenging launches and weird areas of rotor) I found my first Happy Thermal of the year. It was just lovely - easily defined edges that let you map the shape of the lift, it grew stronger and wider as it grew taller and I could even sit flat in my harness & still go up at over 2 metres per second! It was like a gift after all those scrawny sharp pre-spring thermals we've had to deal with over the last month. I was giddy by the time I climbed up 600 metres over launch thanks to Happy Thermal and tried a little x-c upwind. No luck on my attempt that day, but that one thermal made this one of my favourite flights of the year so far.

Bring on Spring!

Ecuador 2010

Ah...Ecuador. I got my fix of heat, ridge soaring, mountain (Andes) flying and as much, or I should say as many varieties of corn that I could eat. I counted 4 types on one of my lunch plates: corn on the cob, popcorn, something they translate as hominy (puffy white boiled kernels) and a type of corn that was like the unpopped kernels at the bottom of your popcorn bowl but bigger and softer. But enough about corn...

The picture is from my first flight in Ecuador. It was a 3 hour soaring fest in Canoa, wearing shorts (which I paid for later with a nasty sunburn) where I only landed due to all the water I drank earlier. I still haven't gotten up the guts (if that's the right word) to wear the diaper Veronica convinced me to try, but I'm wishing now I would have. Anyway, it was an amazing flight & started the trip off beautifully.

I also kept up with my yoga (ok, maybe I just posed for the camera).

The paragliding on this trip was great, but everything else surrounding the flying was also amazing. We flew in the Chota valley (close to the Columbian border) and landed in this town that's inhabited by Afro-Ecuadorians. The whole town came out to watch us land, and these little girls would NOT let go of me. It was an overwhelming experience - we landed in a field that had been planted recently and when the kids ran over them to greet us the farmer came out swinging a machete! I froze & looked at my guides, but they weren't running so I just edged closer to them. We ended up going to Mr. Machete's modest 'house' for negotiations and the more of his homemade sugar cane liquor we drank the cheaper the price of the damaged crops got. When we had to leave & I finally peeled all my new best friends off of me and jumped in the truck, one of the local men pulled Julian (one of our guides) aside and asked if I was available! The actual word he used was "compromised", which loosely translates to engaged. That's the fastest I ever got a marriage proposal! Ha!

I had a couple of personal bests on this trip, but the coolest thing for me was that I finally got to be one of the "experienced" pilots. For years I'd be sitting on the hill, waiting for the Big Dogs to launch & let the rest of us know if the conditions were too strong. On this trip I was one of the 3 that our tour guide would send out first. As I've progressed over the years I haven't really paid attention to the moments where my skills increased but this was a nice marker for me, and a big compliment.

I'm in the process of writing my whole trip out and may update this post in the future. I'm happy my first flight of the year was in South America and 3 hours long - it's a great start to a great year!

New Year's Revolution

First things first. I stole the phrase New Year's Revolution from a friend of mine. I love it! I'm a list-maker kind of person anyway so I love resolutions, but 'revolution' is actually a lot more accurate. Especially since my biggest goal this year (this decade!) is to Stop Procrastinating. Talk about a revolution!

This means more blogging, more SIV courses, more flying cross-country NOW instead of waiting for the 'right' day, the 'right' flying partner, the 'right' chapstick. Yes, I said chapstick. When you're a professional procrastinator you can find a million things to blame that will keep you from action.

As the weather hasn't been conducive to paragliding lately there are no stories of exciting flights or emotional breakdowns. I've used the rainy season to take up martial arts & hot yoga instead. They complement each other nicely, and I'm sure mastering breaking boards with my bare hands (which I did last month, yay me) will help improve my paragliding. Exercising in the heat (a la hot yoga) will definitely come in handy when I go on my exotic paragliding trip to...Ecuador!

I'm not bringing a laptop with me so despite my good intentions on keeping up with the blog (damn!) I may have to wait until early March to post again. I'm actually upset by this since I'm so fired up about not procrastinating any more.

So Happy New Year to all, and to all a Fantastic Revolution!

Fall already?

A group of us went to the Women's Fly-in in Washington, one of the last (if not THE last) event of the year. Being at the end of October it's often more about seeing friends and the costume party than the flying. This year it was quite windy, but most people ended up flying once on Saturday and then grabbed a chilly flight Sunday morning before heading home.

I was trying to convince one of my friends to come but he said it made him too sad. Fall shows it's full splendor in Chelan, complete with the cold temperatures and the dim lighting in the sky that announces that autumn is here. He said that going down there reinforces that the flying season is over and he'd rather not have it shoved in his face. Fair enough. It was still fun to fly out over the lake & do a bit of acro (only to get down to warm up, of course). Heh.

We did manage to squeak in a flight here at home a few days ago between fronts. It was windy & a bit gusty on launch and even with long underwear, down jacket & balaclava I was still shivering. We played around, dodging the cloud's grabby tendrils and exploring the whole ridge in the abundant lift.

Fun, but a little sad too. That flight left no room for doubt that summer was definitely over and the only hope to find happy thermic flights is to fly far, far away.

Naming Trees

Summertime rocks. I love the sun, the heat, and the easy-going attitude everyone seems to have this time of year. The flying can be good, and even when it bakes out and you're spending your whole flight bobbing around just below launch at least it's warm & beautiful.

Last night I had a flight like that. Took off, got just above launch height & flew off to the next ridge hoping to do a mini x-c along the range. Spent 20 or 30 minutes trying to get back up to launch height & finally had to surrender and go tank up at launch. The "knob" at launch is pretty much a guarantee to get back up, but on certain days it can involve about a million passes back & forth until you can scratch your way back up. Worth it in the end but definitely an exercise in patience! Yesterday I must have spent 20 minutes trying to gain 200 metres of height, so along the way I decided to start naming the trees. After the 846th pass, I had a whole story made up. See that tall tree over there? That's Princess. She's being watched over by the evil scraggly tree Prince Na-thorn-ial. If you can fly over to rescue her she'll reward you with a beautiful thermal, but if the Prince catches you he will release the dragon & slay you & send you back to the dungeon.

Ok, so maybe I was going a little crazy, or maybe just dizzy from all those figure-8's I'd done to try and stay aloft. I could've just given up and flown out but I wanted to work on my endurance too. My goal is to do big x-c's and enter more comps, and I can't expect to stay up for 3+ hours when I'm only doing 20 minute flights in the stable air at home. So instead I'm working on improving my scratching skills, endurance & patience (and of course, my story-telling ability).

It looks like it's time for a real-life adventure. Soon. Before the trees start talking back to me!

Rat Race 2009

I'm back at the Rat Race at Woodrat Mountain in Southern Oregon. Doing better than last year already, good thing since I've put in so much effort trying to improve my flying skills in the past year!

So my shiney new wing is making me fall in love with it more & more each day. I got discouraged after the first 2 competition days after not tagging a single turnpoint, but I wasn't the only one. The field was split with the top pilots getting away from the hill & a bunch of us pouting at the LZ. Day 3 they finally made the first turnpoint easy and the rest progressively harder, so those of us in the mentoring program could boost our egos by hitting at least one turnpoint, and the more experienced comp pilots were still challenged by the end. I tagged 3 turnpoints on Day 3, and even got more points than a couple of other pilots who did the same because I took a bit more risk by flying a little further down the valley before doubling back to the landing field.

Day 4 we were all pumped from a day full of personal bests, but the weather wasn't as epic as predicted. About a dozen of us sunk out, but with enough time to go back up and relaunch most of us decided to give it a second try. So glad I did! Tagged 3 turnpoints again (!) and felt like bouncing off the walls. Derek almost made goal but did something funky to his gps and missed the 3rd turnpoint by 50 meters, so he didn't get the points. What a bummer.

There are some great reasons to come to a comp: flying every day and seeing your skills progress daily, watching your confidence grow and your circle of friends increase. Unfortunately the learning curve is just that...a curve. Your skills don't go up indefinitely, and sometimes they take a dip. My dip came on day 6. I just made bad choices all day and barely left the hill, landing well within the 5 km minimum distance cylinder. A lot of pilots had personal bests and I had to face them all when they returned from their various exotic landing fields. "Sucking it up" is not something I do well. So a few others who sunk out early came into the pool at HQ and we had a Pity Pool Party. Things looked brighter after that.

I'm having my morning coffee before the last competition day. I'm hoping my learning curve swings back up and I have my best flight yet. Flying with all of these really great pilots is an amazing, invaluable experience and I'm just trying to sop up as much knowledge from them as possible before starting the drive home tomorrow. And hoping my name isn't at the very bottom of the score sheet at the end of the day. ;)

----Back home now. Last task of the comp was cancelled due to strong winds. My final standing was 8 out of 11 women, and 56 out of 65 overall. Not last, and nowhere to go now but up!!!----

Officially an Addict

I got a new wing...3 weeks ago. And for 3 weeks I've been sick with one of those colds/coughs/sinus things that just won't go away. Still, I've managed to get 6 flights on my new Ozone Addict 2 and after yesterday's flight I can finally declare that I love it.

They say you learn something on every flight. On my Addict's 5th flight I learned that if you fly with a head cold you're not going to have much fun. Unfortunately I didn't figure that out until a week later. It was one of the most frustrating flights I ever had, like I couldn't do anything right. I was angry after landing...mad that I couldn't "figure out" my new wing...mad that I didn't bond with it right away. My emotions (that I swore would be left behind while flying...oops) resurfaced and when a couple of people asked how my new wing was I went looking for sympathy and told them. No, I didn't throw a big fit this time but did express my frustration at not being able to understand my wing.

Fast forward one week to where my head wasn't quite so stuffy. I flew yesterday and it was amazing. THAT was the flight I wanted! I sunk down to 400 metres when it shaded out and scratched my way back up over launch. My new wing turned tightly and quickly and I loved it. After landing I realized the reason my last flight had been such a struggle was because of my congested sinuses. That's why I had trouble 'understanding' my wing. It made perfect sense and I was happy to figure it out and excited about my awesome flight. Then a pilot came up to me at the LZ to congratulate me on my nice landing and see if I liked my new wing 'yet'. Since she hadn't been there to hear me moan about it my last flight I asked what she meant. She said that she heard that I was having "DHV 2-itis" and wasn't ready to fly a higher performance wing. That really bummed me out, especially since that comment came from someone who is always telling me I'm a great pilot.

So that's my rant and rave today (isn't that was addicts do?). Ranting at colds and gossip, Raving at loving my new wing. Lesson learned? Stop caring so much what other people think and just have fun!